Night Embrace

"

 

No doubt. Sunshine leaned her cheek against the stranger's head and listened to his slow, deep breaths.

 

What was it about him that she found so irresistible?

 

"Man,"Wayne said after a brief silence. "Your father is going to be pissed about this. He'll have my balls for dinner when he finds out I took an unknown guy up to your place.

 

"

 

"Then don't tell him.

 

"

 

Waynegave her a mean and nasty glare. "I cannot not tell him. If something happened to you, it would be my fault."

 

She sighed irritably as she traced the sharp line of the stranger's arched brows. Why did he seem so familiar to her? She'd never seen him before and yet she had a strange sense of déjà vu. As if she knew him somehow.

 

Weird. Very, very weird.

 

But then she was used to weirdness. Her mother had written the book on the subject, and Sunshine had redefined it.

 

"I'm a big girl, Wayne, I can take care of myself."

 

"Yeah and I lived for twelve years with a bunch of big hairy men who made meals off little girls like you who thought they could take care of themselves."

 

"Fine," she said. "We'll put him in my bed and I'll sleep at my parents'. Then in the morning, I'll check on him with my mother or one of my brothers."

 

"What if he wakes up before you get home and steals you blind?"

 

"Steals what?" she asked. "My clothes won't fit him and I have nothing of any value. Not unless he likes my Peter, Paul and Mary collection anyway."

 

 

 

Waynerolled his eyes. "All right, but you better swear to me you won't give him a chance to hurt you."

 

"I promise."

 

Waynelooked less than pleased, but he remained technically quiet as he drove them toward her loft onCanal Street . However, he cursed underneath his breath the entire way.

 

Luckily Sunshine was used to ignoring men who did that around her.

 

Once they reached her loft, which was located directly over her father's bar, it took them a good fifteen

 

 

 

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) minutes to get the stranger out of the truck and inside her home.

 

Sunshine ledWayne through her loft to the area where she'd strung tie-dyed pink cotton fabric along a wire to seal her bedroom area off from the rest of the large room.

 

Carefully, they placed her unknown guest on her bed.

 

"Well, let's go,"Wayne said, taking her by the arm.

 

Sunshine gently shrugged his touch away. "We can't leave him like that."

 

"Why not?"

 

"He's covered in blood."

 

Wayne's face showed his exasperation. It was a look everyone had around her sooner or later—okay, it was most often sooner. "Go sit on the couch and let me undress him."

 

"Sunshine…"

 

"Wayne, I'm twenty-nine years old, a divorced artist who took nude drawing in college, and I was raised with two older brothers. I know what men look like naked. Okay?"

 

Growling low in his throat, he stepped out of her bedroom and went to sit on her sofa.

 

Sunshine took a deep breath as she turned back to her hero dressed all in black. He looked humongous on her bed.

 

He was also a total mess.

 

Tentatively, so as not to hurt him, she reached to unzip his motorcycle jacket, which was the neatest thing she'd ever seen. Someone had painted gold and red Celtic scrollwork all over it. It was simply beautiful. A true study in ancient artistry, and she should know. All her life, she had been drawn to Celtic things. She'd cut her teeth on their art and culture.

 

As soon as she unzipped the jacket, she paused in shock as she saw he wore nothing underneath it.

 

Nothing except lush, tawny skin that made her mouth water and her body instantly throb. Never in real life had she beheld a man with a body so hard and so well toned. Every muscle was defined, and even while relaxed, his strength was evident.

 

The man was a god!

 

 

 

She ached to draw those perfect proportions and immortalize them. A body this fine definitely needed preserving. She pulled the jacket off and carefully laid it on the bed.

 

Turning on the lamp that rested on her scarf-covered nightstand, she took a good look at him and was floored by what she saw.

 

Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) Ca-ram-ba!

 

He was even more gorgeous than the people who had attacked her. His wavy blond hair curled becomingly around the nape of his neck, and two long, thin braids hung down to his bare chest. His eyes were closed, but his dark eyelashes were sinfully long. His face was perfectly sculpted with high, arching brows and he had a very dignified, yet untamed look to him.

 

Again, she had a strange sense of déjà vu as her mind flashed on an image of him awake and poised above her. Of him smiling down at her while he slid himself slowly in and out of her body…

 

Sunshine licked her lips at the thought as she throbbed in painful need.

 

It had been a long time since she had been this attracted to a stranger. But something about this man really made her ache for a taste of him.

 

Girl, you have been too long without a man.