Touch the Stars (27 page)
Authors: Pamela Browning
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EVER SINCE EVE
The Keeping Secrets Series
Book One
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Excerpt from
Ever Since Eve
The Keeping Secrets Series
Book One
by
Pamela Browning
Award-winning Author
Derek steered the Corvette around a huge puddle in the middle of the road. Tropical Storm Dondi, downgraded last night from a hurricane, had moved in from the coast and was dumping torrential rains on the North Carolina Piedmont.
He shifted uneasily in his seat, his damp shirt sticking to his back, and wished longingly for the cool, crisp weather of October. This was the last week of an unusually humid September, which meant approximately four weeks to go until relief arrived in the form of the first frost.
He slowed his speed as he approached the L & D Cafe at Dugan's Crossroads. The windshield wipers scrambled frantically, barely able to keep up with the deluge.
Believe it or not, there was a woman actually walking alongside the road in this horrendous weather. He noticed her, tried not to splash her, then cast a backward glance in utter disbelief.
She wore a loose, nondescript raincoat over a white uniform, and she held an umbrella over her head, which didn't help much to protect her from the rain. But her hairstyle, blunt-cut and precise, was familiar. So were the angle of her head and the long elegant sweep of her neck.
"Eve," he muttered, straining for a better view of her. A van loomed behind him, riding his bumper, and the last he saw of her, someone was holding the door of the restaurant so she could duck inside.
Derek had come home to the Myers Park house from his business trip three months ago and found Eve gone. He discovered the bank passbook with its untouched three thousand dollars placed in the exact center of his desk, a silent rebuke.
Still, he'd fully expected Eve to turn up after the abortion and ask for her money. When she didn't, he wondered why. The only way he might have found her was through the Queen City Fertility Clinic, but he didn't try—too many unhappy memories there. He convinced himself that after he'd left on his business trip, Eve had seen the light and had the abortion. He figured she'd find him when she needed the money.
Ever Since Eve
The Keeping Secrets Series
Book One
by
Pamela Browning
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Ever Since Eve
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THE BEACH BACHELORS
Sea of Gold
Book One
Excerpt from
The Beach Bachelors
Sea of Gold
Book One
by
Pamela Browning
Award-winning Author
Fragrant honeysuckle, sweet and languorous, dipped in bunches and swirls between the bars of the trellis, separating them. But slowly, their movements seemingly inhibited by the heavy air around them, they moved toward each other, first wanting, then seeking. They met before a great loop of flowers, cool and edged with green, and she saw that his eyes, cupped by their lower lids, now revealed a new sultriness. Her own lids felt heavy, and she wondered what she must look like to him.
Self-consciousness vanished as he dipped his head toward hers through the loop of honeysuckle and caught her mouth with his.
She didn't know which was the more prominent sensation—that of honeysuckle framing their faces, wrapping them in fragrance, or Ponce Cabrera's lips touching hers for the first time. But then there was no question; his lips won, first tentative, finding her out, discovering the contours of her own lips now totally possessed by his.
Then, more confidently, he moved upon her mouth with such tenderness, with such knowing and wanting, that even the honeysuckle faded away into the night, leaving her aware of nothing but the warm moistness of his lips, so amazingly, unbelievably sensual and desirable. This one kiss seemed to lift her into a suspended world, a place where skin tingled, where sensation spread from the confluence of their lips and melted through her, diffusing hotly through her body.
The sweet fruity scent of honeysuckle brought forth a ripeness within her; she burgeoned, swelled, grew impatient for the picking.
His lips released hers, and impatiently he brushed the encircling branch of honeysuckle away. He stood before her now, and his arms went around her in a singularly possessive gesture, pressing the full length of her to his hard, masculine body. Then he was kissing her again, and this was no tentative, romantic kiss; this was a kiss of power and might, of passion and promise, of forthright desire. And she clung to him, not denying her own answering passion, wondering if she had lost her mind. She ceased to smell the cloying scent of honeysuckle—her nostrils, her whole being, filled with the musky male scent of Ponce Cabrera.
"You know I want you?" The question was sharp, direct, and for a moment she buried her face in his broad chest, drawing her hands forward and resting them on his shoulders, noting the little knobs beneath the skin there, protrusions of the bone. There must be other little secrets that his body held, small deviations from the norm; everyone had those little differences, whether they were moles, odd curves or soft convexes where there should have been hollows.
Would she get to know the idiosyncrasies that distinguished Ponce from the rest of the male populace? Would he learn hers? A blanket of intimacies spread out before her, and she wondered if they would pick it up, wrap it around them and cloak themselves in its warmth.