Secret Seduction Read Free

he set his beer on the table and straightened in his chair.
    Had she figured out he was following her? If so, his employer was going to be pissed that she’d spotted him so easily. What kind of security expert was he?
    How had she spotted him so easily?
    You’re off your game tonight.
    She stopped at his table, held his gaze.
    Unnerved but determined not to show any weakness, Tanner latched on to her bold stare.
    She extended her hand. “Dance with me.”
    Restraint had him hesitating a fraction of a second. He’d already screwed up by letting her get a bead on him and he didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than he already had and risk blowing his cover. But then again, he didn’t want her going on to the next guy—who could very possibly be the person he’d been secretly hired to protect her from. “How do you know I can dance?”
    She eyed him up and down. “You look graceful.”
    “Just what every guy wants to hear.”
    Her soft laughter sounded like wind rustling through cottonwood leaves.
    Actually, he did know how to dance. In college Tanner’s football coach had made his players take lessons to improve their balance and agility on the field. It had worked. During his senior year, the University of Texas Longhorns had won the Southwest Conference.
    She just stood there, one hand cocked on her shapely hip, her other palm held out for him to accept, a challenging quirk raising one perfectly arched eyebrow, her long, dark eyelashes lowering seductively.
    It was his duty to watch over her. What better way to accomplish that than to dance with her?
    Tanner took her hand and got to his feet in one fluid movement, pushing his chair back with a bump of his thigh. He shouldn’t have noticed the sensuous curve of her breasts beneath the silky fabric of her low-cut dress.
    But he did.
    And in spite of his best intentions, he couldn’t stop his gaze from roving over the lush, golden skin of her cleavage. She smelled as enticing as she looked. A tropical combination of coconut, vanilla and lime.
    This attraction seemed surreal. He hadn’t felt the slightest interest in a woman in four long years.
    Oddly enough, he resented Vanessa for stirring his dormant desires. It didn’t feel right; he felt as if he was cheating on Maria.
    His desire tasted like wine. Oaken and loamy and lingering and more real than the taste of the beer he’d been drinking. One sip of sin and the daydream started—of long summer nights and sweaty flesh pressed hotly together.
    Vanessa walked backward, swishing her hips, leading him out onto the patio-sized dance floor that was empty except for a young couple wrapped in the throes of a passionate embrace. The couple wasn’t even bothering to dance. They just rhythmically groped each other in time to the music.
    Reluctant to draw her too near to him, Tanner draped one arm around her shoulder instead of her waist as he would have done if they were intimate. He had to do something to moderate his escalating temperature or he’d have no control over his natural masculine response.
    But the maneuver didn’t work because her dark hair was swinging provocatively at the level of those fabulous breasts as she swayed her hot little fanny to the bouncy beat. She had the moves of a total pro and every gaze in the place was glued to her.
    “You don’t have to dance so far away, big man,” she murmured, her eyes bright and direct.
    She wasn’t shy about expressing what she wanted. Tanner liked that about her, but he wasn’t eager to hold her soft feminine curves against his body. He didn’t trust this unexpected surge of testosterone blistering through him.
    Didn’t trust it and didn’t want it.
    But the feeling wasn’t fleeting.
    She wriggled closer, forcing him to drop his hand from her shoulder to the middle of her back. He could feel the outline of her bra and experienced curiosity, longing and annoyance with himself.
    “I was right,” she said.
    “About what?”
    “You are