R Is for Rebel Read Free Page B

simultaneously—incongruously—way too old to be thinking such a silly thought, and way too young to actually do it… with someone like him. Eliot was a proper grown-up. Abigail didn’t know what that made her.
    He had turned around during that reverie and had walked up to where she stood at the base of the stairs. She never did notice if he turned to his left or right or if his hands were in his pockets or out when he came toward her up the beach. Eliot took the glass of scotch out of her left hand and brought it to his lips. His eyes stayed on hers, closing slightly when the liquid slid down his throat. She stared at his neck.
    â€œMmmm.” Then with a slight raising-glass gesture said, “Thanks for that.” He gave her a pat-pat on the upper arm, a typical big-brotherly move that she had recently come to despise, and, without thinking—or deciding to be done with thinking—Abby grabbed his wrist as he started to pull it away.
    She was barely an inch over five feet tall—a sweet little thing, as her father used to say—though she was well accustomed to physical labor and her grip was strong. Eliot was several inches over six feet, ten years older than she was, and she felt the pulse in his wrist quicken beneath her hold. He could have crushed her, but she felt like she was the one crushing him. The night was clear, silent, thick. Their breathing filled her ears: his was becoming shredded, dry; hers was burning her nostrils.
    â€œWhat is it, Abigail?” His voice was sure and powerful, but somehow deferential and kind.
    He always called her by her full name, never Abby, or Abs, or Ab, like the rest of her family. She always thought of herself as Abby. It was almost like he was talking to someone else when he spoke to her. At first she thought it was because he was older and patronizing and domineering and formal and traditional and every other chauvinist epithet she could think of, but lately she had taken to actually looking at his mouth and eyes when he said her full name, and she saw how he took his time rolling the syllables over his lips, as if he wanted to prolong his own pleasure. Or maybe hers.

Chapter 2
    Moving his hand slowly, with her grip still tight around his wrist, Eliot took a small strand of her black wavy hair between his index finger and thumb, rubbing the silky threads together, as if handling the finest skeins of silk at one of his fabric factories. His voice was raspy when he spoke. “This is probably a really bad idea.”
    Eliot Cranbrook had spent the past six months forcibly dismissing the possibility of ever having this woman in his bed. Initially, he’d heeded Bronte’s warning about Abigail Heyworth’s disinterest in the male species. For a while—even now, if he was honest—it didn’t really matter to him if they ended up in bed; he loved being around her—adored her spark, her laughter, her wit, her fire—whether it was a sexual relationship or not. Of course she was beautiful in that wild, untouched way that he hardly ever saw on the runways in Milan or Paris. But the two of them were also becoming really good friends, and he didn’t tend to have the time or inclination to make really good friends lately. Or maybe never had.
    Whenever someone at a party would say something entirely ridiculous and he thought he was the only one who heard it, he would look up quickly and see the spark of shared amusement in Abigail’s eyes, raise his glass in silent recognition, and look forward to the time that they usually spent going over the night’s foibles. Lately, though, Eliot was slipping. He was starting to want her. He wavered between wanting to seduce her and wanting to preserve the status quo. The seduction would be a quick fix, for both of them; he knew they’d share the same pleasures in bed as they did when he silently raised a glass at a party. They were intimate on some level already. Eliot