The Greatest Risk Read Free

intimately into the curves of a complete stranger.
    â€œOh!” Maggie said, coming to her senses abruptly. She could feel her skirt—marginally too tight, despite her faithful use of Dr. Strong’s miracle NoWait ointment—binding the top of her thighs. She tugged frantically at it, not unaware that the lazy amusement burning in his eyes deepened as she wriggled beneath him.
    She was, however unintentionally, putting on a better show than the couple outside. At least that couple probably knew each other.
    â€œAnything I can help you with, ma’am?” he drawled.
    â€œOh!” Maggie said. “How impertinent!”
    She rolled out from under him and onto her knees. The skirt was indeed stuck. She should have never taken Dr. Strong’s advice to use only half doses of NoWait oil.
    â€œYou are already nearly the perfect size, my dear,” he had explained to her, his sincere brown eyes making her feel as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. “Apply a half dose of the oil behind your ears for its nutritional value.”
    If she’d taken the full dose, her skirt wouldn’t be bunched up around her hips and refusing to move.
    Her attacker’s grin had evolved into a deep chuckle. If he wasn’t wheelchair-bound, she would probably hit him for that chuckle, and for the frank and insolent way he was evaluating parts of her legs that, to date, had only been shown at the beach.
    â€œImpertinent,” he repeated slowly, as if he was trying on a new label to see if he liked it. She suspected he did.
    She frowned disapprovingly at him.
    â€œAre you okay?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow. His eyebrows arched wickedly as if he had taken a front-row seat at the peep show.
    â€œNo, I am not okay,” she said through clenched teeth. “I am exposing myself to half the hospital!”
    He suddenly seemed to get it that she was not finding this situation nearly as amusing as he was. He shoved himself upward and then leaped lightly to his feet. He held an arm down to her.
    She stared at him, astonished, as if he was a biblical character who had folded up his cot and walked.
    â€œYou aren’t handicapped!” She ignored his arm and rocked back from her kneeling position to sitting, hoping that changing position would help her untangle the skirt where it bound her legs. The skirt, however, was determined to thwart her. When she got home tonight, she was rubbing a whole bottle of NoWait behind her ears!
    He folded arms over a chest she now saw was massive. He had on a blue hospital gown that bound the muscles of his arms as surely as her skirt was binding her thighs, his result being far more attractive than hers. Underneath the gown, thank God, he had on a faded pair of blue jeans. He watched her undignified struggles with infuriating male interest.
    â€œIt’s against the law to pretend to be handicapped,” she told him, though she had no idea if it was or not.
    â€œHandicapped?” He followed her glance to the overturned wheelchair. “Oh, that.”
    He watched her for a moment longer, then, apparently unable to stand it, moved quickly behind her and without her permission put his hands under her armpits and set her on her feet.
    For some ridiculous reason an underarm deodorant jingle went through her head. She hoped, furiously, ridiculously, she wasn’t damp under her arms.
    â€œYou were driving like a maniac,” she said, yanking herself away from him to hide her discomfort at how it had felt to be lifted by him, so easily, as if she were a feather, as if the NoWait could gather dust in her bathroom cabinet forever.
    â€œAnd you weren’t watching where you were going,” he said, coming back around to face her, looking down at her, smiling with an easy confidence and charm that might have made her swoon if he wasn’t so damned aggravating.
    She glared at him. She bet that smile had been opening