Quade: The Irresistible One

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When she connected with a solid thunk, when it sailed out in an almost straight trajectory, he could see the delight in her face. In her smile. Felt it shining as brightly as the late-afternoon sunshine, reaching out to wrap him in its warmth. What could he do but smile right back?

“There you go,” he said through his smile.

“No need to sound so smug.” She swung the club around in several rapid-fire circles, like a gunslinger after a showdown. “I was hitting an occasional decent one before you happened along.”

“You were woeful.”

“Was not.”

Quade laughed out loud—at her belligerence and because he simply felt like it—and when she closed the distance between them and stood smiling up at him, he felt a powerful urge to capture that delight between his hands, to taste it on his lips. When he felt her gaze focus on his mouth, he knew he’d been staring at the source of his temptation.

That full-lipped, soft-textured, smart-talking mouth.

Sobering instantly, Chantal stared up at him. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he replied with equal gravity.

As she absorbed the shift in mood, everything inside her stilled. He was looking at her as if it had been a pleasure, as if he’d enjoyed standing close enough to breathe on her neck, as if he wanted to kiss her.

Now. On the lips.

A wave of longing washed through her, blindsiding her with its intensity, urging her to move closer, to place her hands on the broad wall of his chest. His heart pounded reassuringly loud so she slid her hands higher, up toward his neck.

She moistened her lips. Her lids drifted shut.

Suddenly hard fingers circled her wrists, forcibly removing her hands, setting her firmly back on her feet. When Chantal opened her eyes he was already striding out across the pasture, bending to pick up a golf ball, then moving on. Dang. No, this situation deserved a much harsher word than that old crock. Damn.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.

She’d been a whisper away from his lips, from his kiss. And she had no doubt that Cameron Quade would kiss with the same confidence, the same sure-handed skill, as he’d employed when tutoring her golf swing. Missing out on a kiss like that was enough to make a woman weep, especially a woman who’d never been kissed by a true craftsman. With a heavy sigh, she picked up her pail and stomped off after him.

Had she read him wrong? She didn’t think so, although perhaps she’d moved too fast. How fast was too fast? Some men didn’t like aggressive women…although her lame attempt at a kiss hardly fit that tag. And that girlfriend he’d had at Barker Cowan, that Gina Whatsername in Contracts, she hadn’t possessed a passive bone in her long, tightly strung body.

Perhaps she should have grabbed hold of his sweater. Or his face or his hair. Lord knows, she wanted to bury her fingers in that thick dark head of hair. Whatever, her prekissing technique obviously needed as much work as her golf game. Perhaps she should enquire if the local community college ran any classes along those lines. Seduction for Beginners. Or Bedroom Technique 101.