A Touch of Silk by Lori Wilde Page A

envisioned his hard body brushing hers, his manhood standing at attention. He would press her against the cool tile while hot water sluiced over their fevered skin. He would claim her mouth with his. Roughly, insistently, pillaging her territory. Then he would change tempo and the kisses would turn long and soft and lazy.
    She arches her body into his. Desperate for release. She begs him to enter her. She needs to feel him inside her. Needs to experience the fullness only his large shaft will bring.
    His fingers curl into the most private part of her. He rubs her cleft gently at first, then with more pressure.
    Her sensitive breasts tighten and swell in response, and he gloats over her hardened nipples, taking credit for her arousal. He dips his head to those perky mounds, taking first one into his mouth and then turning his attention to the other. He flicks his tongue over the pink peak. It’s as if there is a string connecting her nipples to her groin. With each seductive lick she feels a deepening ache at her very center.
    She bites her bottom lip to keep from crying out, but he urges her to let go.
    “Scream if you want,” he insists, his mouth against her ear. “Let the world know we’re making love.”
    Then he’s nibbling her earlobe, running his silky tongue along the outside of her ear. The shudder that crawls through her rocks her to her core. She wraps her arms around his neck, clings to him….
    The hot water gone cold forced her back to reality.
    Kay opened her eyes, found her lips were pressed against the wall tile. Chagrined, she hopped backward, slipped and would have crashed to the floor of the tub if she hadn’t grasped the soap rack.
    Oh, she was pathetic. If Quinn didn’t make love to her soon, she would explode into a million pieces. That would go over big on the New York social register—and with her mother!
    Shaking her head, Kay turned off the water, eased out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself.
    Okay. No more nonsense. She was going to stop thinking about Quinn. She had work to do.
    Twenty minutes later she was in the Paradise Diner enjoying blueberry pancakes and surrounded by a curious contingency of Bear Creek’s entertaining citizens.
    Kay knew she was a novelty, and they were asking her more questions than she was asking them. Jake Gerard introduced her to Caleb Greenleaf, the only wife-hunting bachelor she hadn’t yet met.
    Caleb turned out to be a serious man with almost unbelievable good looks. It took a lot of coaxing, but after a while he told her about his job as a naturalist for the state of Alaska. He was quite different from his buddies. Introverted, where the other three were clearly extroverts.
    Everyone in Bear Creek was friendly, open, welcoming, so very unlike some of the New Yorkers she knew, who had a tendency to be curt, suspicious and unimpressed. They enthusiastically told her many things about their lives. They were so trusting. Too trusting, to her way of thinking. But that’s what she liked most about them.
    Her New York life seemed very far away, and she couldn’t think of anything she missed.
    Later, after she’d already compiled copious notes and recorded more than three hours worth of conversations, an attractive, middle-aged couple, holding hands and grinning at each other as if they shared the secret to long-term romance, came in for lunch.
    The woman stepped carefully, slowed by a booted walking cast on her right foot. Her husband solicitously helped her up to the counter. They sat on Kay’s left, the man taking the stool Caleb had vacated.
    He held out his hand to her and gave her a friendly smile. “Jim Scofield. We just had to come over to meet the reporter our son coaxed to come here all the way from New York City.”
    “You’re Quinn’s parents? Thanks so much for letting me use your extra car.” Kay ran a hand self-consciously through her hair. She hadn’t bothered to blow-dry and style it that morning since she knew she would