He wanted more than just to hold her. Far more.
What he didnât want was to move from her.
He eased his arms from her, anyway. Reaching between them, he circled her wrists with his forefingers and thumbs. He brushed his lips to her temple. âDo you have any coffee?â
Amy blinked. Confusion masked the banked yearning in her tone. âSure.â Her brow furrowed as she looked up at him. âYou want coffee?â
âNo,â he admitted, his breath warm on her face as he brushed his lips over hers. âItâs just that we need to do something before I kiss you.â
Her heart jerked in her chest. âYou just did.â
âThat wasnât a kiss.â
The longing sheâd veiled threatened to surface as his smoky grey gaze moved over her face, lingered on her mouth.
âIt wasnât?â
âNot even close,â he murmured.
âMaybe you should show me how itâs done.â
CHRISTINE FLYNN
admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships â especially the intense, bittersweet or even light-hearted relationships between men and women â is fascinating.
Dear Reader,
I believe in the fairy tale.
Really.
That said, Iâm not naive enough to believe every prince will be wealthy or ride in on a white horse. Iâve also never heard of a man who has remained consistently charming. I know too many Cinderellas who have to wipe runny noses, work weekends and do laundry. Happily-ever-after isnât a guarantee. It takes work. I know all that. So why do I believe in something that started out as a myth and became a childrenâs story? Itâs because of what, for me, is at the core of the modern Cinderella tale: that love is often found where a person least expects to find it, and that good things happen to good, ordinary people.
I hope you believe in the fairy tale, too.
Love,
Christine
J.T. Hunt sat sprawled in a deep, wing-backed armchair in his fatherâs spacious library, his head resting against the smooth leather. With a highball glass of hundred-year-old bourbon balanced on one thigh, he was trying hard to stay awake.
Beneath the long Tiffany lamp hanging over the pool table, his half brothers Justin, four years younger than his own thirty-eight, and Gray, older by six, killed time playing a game of eight ball. It was obvious from the muttering that Gray hadnât played in a while. Their other half brother, thirty-six-year-old Alex, watched from a matching armchair a few feet away.
The last time theyâd all been together at the Shack, as theyâd long ago christened the multimillion-dollar estate on the shores of Seattleâs Lake Washington, had been a month ago. That had been when their father, Harrison Hunt, the billionaire founder of HuntCom, had suffered a heart attack. J.T. couldnât remember how long it had been for him personally before that. He tended to be the black sheep. The prodigal. Though he was more circumspect than heâd been in his youth, he felt an outsider nonetheless. He only came to the home heâd been raised in when he absolutely had to.
He supposed that was mostly because he felt he had little in common with his tech-genius father and his half brothers, other than his passion for his portion of the business. As director of real estate development and the companyâs lead architect, he lived, ate and breathed his work designing the structures that held everything from HuntComâs thousands of employees, to the products they manufactured and shipped worldwide. The only thing that mattered as much to him as his work was the isolated island in the San Juans his father had bought when J.T. was a teenager. Hurricane Island was the only place on the planet where he felt anything remotely resembling a sense of peace. It was too bad he couldnât stay long enough to sail out to it for a while.
âDoes anybody know why the Old Man called this meeting?â Justin asked as he tapped one of the balls with his cue stick.
At six foot three, as long and lanky as the rest of them, Gray gave a shrug. âMy secretary said he wouldnât tell her the reason.â
Alex sat forward at that. âHarry called you himself? Me, too.â He waved his bottle of Black Sheep Ale toward J.T. âWhat about you, J. T? Did you get the message from his secretary, or from Harry personally?â
âFrom Harry.â Rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, he yawned and leaned forward himself. With his elbows on his thighs, he dangled his glass of bourbon between them. âI told him Iâd have to cancel meetings in New Delhi and spend half a day on the corporate jet to get home in time, but he insisted I be here.â
The trip made no sense to him, either. Since Harryâs health didnât seem to be the issue, given the vigor in his fatherâs voice when heâd called, J.T. couldnât imagine anything the man wanted that couldnât have been handled by phone, fax or e-mail. Harry had practically perfected the technologies. The least he could have done was use one of them.