Wrapped in Pleasure Read Free Page A

she’d watched him. He’d been wearing a sweat top and a pair of satin boxing trunks that were expertly tailored for a snug fit.
    She’d watched, mesmerized, as he put his body through a series of strenuous standing-jump kicks and punches. She admired such tremendous vitality, discipline and power. She had also admired his body, which showed an abundance of masculine strength. For the longest time she had stood at the window rooted in place, undetected, while she ogled him. A woman could only take a man like Jamal in slow degrees.
    Deciding that if she didn’t move away from the window she would surely die a slow and painful death from lust overload, she had made her way back to the bed and nearly collapsed.
    “Dammit!”
    Jamal’s outburst got her attention and brought her thoughts back to the present. She couldn’t help but smile. No matter how well he mastered the English language, a curse word coming from him didn’t sound quite the same as it did coming from an American. Her brothers had a tendency to use that particular word with a lot more flair.
    She walked over to the table and glanced down. “Need help?”
    At first he froze in place, evidently surprised by her presence. “No, I can manage,” was his tart reply.
    “You’re sure?”
    “Positive,” he all but snapped.
    “Suit yourself,” she snapped back. She turned and walked over to the kitchen cabinet to get a bowl for the cereal she had brought with her, ignoring the fact that he had slid from underneath the table and was standing up.
    “So, what got you up this morning?” he asked, tossing the tools he’d been using in a box.
    “Hunger.” She put cereal into her bowl, then poured on the milk. Seeing the kitchen table was not available for her to use, she grabbed the cereal box and a spoon and went outside onto the porch.
    Already the morning was hot and she knew it would get hotter, typical for a North Carolina summer. She was glad the inside of the cabin had air-conditioning. This was sweaty, sticky heat, the kind that made you want to walk around naked.
    Her brothers would be scandalized if they knew she’d done that on occasion when it got hot enough at her home, which was one of the advantages of living alone. She released a deep sigh as she sat down on the steps thinking that with Jamal sharing the cabin walking around naked wasn’t an option.
    She had taken a mouthful of her cereal when she heard the screen door opening behind her. The knowledge that Jamal was out on the porch and standing just a few feet behind her sent every instinct and conscious thought she had into overdrive. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him lean against the porch rail with a cup of coffee in his hand.
    “You’ve given up moonlighting as a repairman already, Your Highness? ” she asked in a snippy voice, dripping with sarcasm.
    He evidently decided to take her taunt in stride and replied, “For now, yes, but I intend to find out what’s wrong with that table and fix it before I leave here. I would hate to leave behind anything broken.”
    Delaney glanced over at him then wished she hadn’t. It seemed his entire face, dark and stunning, shone in the morning sunlight. If she thought he’d been classically beautiful and had dressed out of sync four days ago, then today he had done a complete turnaround. Shirtless, unshaven and wearing jeans, he looked untamed and rugged and no longer like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He looked every bit a wolf, wild and rapacious and on the prowl. If given the chance he would probably eat her alive and lick his chops afterward.
    There was nothing in the way he looked to denote he wasconnected to royalty, a prince, a sheikh. Instead what she saw was an extremely handsome man with solid muscles and a body that exuded sheer masculinity.
    He lowered his head to take a sip of his coffee, and she used that time to continue to study him undetected. Now that he was standing, she could see the full frontal view. His jeans