The Bride Wore Blue Read Free Page B

depths and beyond the moment Blue Hazzard’s mouth touched hers.
    Reverence. Maggie felt reverence and tenderness and the pleasure of a promise held too long in trust.
    If she gave a struggle, it was token. If she voiced a protest, it was unconvincing, as any notion of denying him lost power and proportion under his gently persuasive touch.
    Blue Hazzard was kissing her. And she was letting him. Letting him coax her surrender with the heat of his lips against hers, with the caress of his hands on her shoulders. Hands that were huge and strong yet achingly gentle as they glided surely down her back then drew her close against hisbody. A body that was as solid as the rock gouging out the shoreline, as warm as the sun enfolding them both.
    Ebb and flow, soft and slow, the water lapped against the dock beneath them as he savored her there in the sunlight, there in the wilderness where she’d come to escape pressure and indecision and the disabling suffocation of involvement, which, for her, equated to control.
    Yet here, wrapped in this man’s arms, she felt free, adrift in poignant memories of simpler times. Embraced by the promise that with him it might be different. And she rediscovered the fever of arousal at its finest. Steady and mellow. Sheltered and safe, yet wildly sensual and shockingly erotic.
    And over.
    In a daze, she opened her eyes.
    Lazy with contentment, heavy with desire, he searched her face before bringing his hand to her sunglasses and slipping them back to the top of her head.
    “Ah, Stretch,” he whispered, brushing his thumb in a slow, tender caress along the rise of her flushed cheek. “I was a fool to have waited so long.”
    Then he took her mouth again. With a hunger that spoke of his desire. With an aggression that relayed his strength— and showed her lack of it.
    Panic belatedly kicked in, hitting an all-time high on her warning meter. Her heart slammed against her chest as her instincts, wrenched to life by a swift and graphic memory of the pain and the power of another man’s touch, threw her into action.
    The hands she’d brought to his shoulders in a caress knotted into white-knuckled fists. The pleasure she’d felt only moments ago in his arms transformed to a staggering, blinding need to escape. She pushed wildly against him, shifting and twisting, fighting for her breath and her freedom.
    “Hey…hey…easy.” He let her go so abruptly that she stumbled back and would have landed on her rump if he hadn’t reached out, caught her arm and steadied her.
    “Easy, okay?” His voice, like his expression, was puzzled but soothing. Concern darkened his eyes even as he backed a step away, his hands open and held wide from his body, clearly showing her he was giving her room.
    Wild-eyed, she stared at him, sucking air, digging deep for composure.
    “You all right?” he asked, wary and pensive.
    She pinched her eyes shut and gave a sharp nod. Forcing calm, she grounded herself with deep breaths, willing the panic to subside, feeling her heartbeat reluctantly even out.
    When she thought she could handle it, she met his eyes. He was watching her with a measuring, uncertain silence that invited her to explain what had just happened.
    It was an invitation she couldn’t accept. Not now. Not from him. Maybe not from any man ever again.
    Drawing on the strength that had gotten her to this point, she overpowered the last of her panic with anger. “They’re right,” she announced tightly.
    He tilted his head, cocked a questioning brow.
    “You’re still a jerk, Hazzard. You never did understand ‘no’ unless I hit you over the head with it.”
    J.D. scowled. He understood no, all right. And no was not the answer she’d given him when he’d kissed her. Not the first time, at any rate. The first time, she’d said yes over and over again as their mouths met and mated and she’d invited him to take what he hadn’t dared to dream she would offer. She’d answered with a yes as true as time