Back The Perfect Hope
Chapters (30)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Nora Roberts
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Contents
  8. Map
  9. CHAPTER ONE
  10. CHAPTER TWO
  11. CHAPTER THREE
  12. CHAPTER FOUR
  13. CHAPTER FIVE
  14. CHAPTER SIX
  15. CHAPTER SEVEN
  16. CHAPTER EIGHT
  17. CHAPTER NINE
  18. CHAPTER TEN
  19. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  20. CHAPTER TWELVE
  21. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  23. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  25. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  26. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  27. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY
  29. EPILOGUE
  30. Special Excerpt from The Next Always

“Christ. Damn it.” He’d sworn he’d keep his hands off her until after dinner—until after the movie, or at least until during. But the way she looked, smelled, sounded . . . It was too much. Just too much.

He filled his hands with her breasts, ravaged her mouth.

And she gave back—as eager, as desperate as he. She tugged his shirt up and off, tossed it away, scraped her nails up his bare back, and tied his guts into knots.

When he lifted her off her feet, she melted against him, hot, fragrant wax.

She felt weightless. He carried her up the stairs as if she were. She’d never been carried up the stairs before, and certainly not with her dress in a heap behind her.

Glorious.

She fed herself on his neck, his face, feasted on his mouth as he moved through the bedroom door.

“I can’t keep my hands off you.”

“Don’t.” She wrapped tight as they fell on the bed. “Don’t keep your hands off me.”

He wanted that warm, smooth flesh, the long, slim lines and curves. And the taste of her filling him as he worked his way down her body. She arched up, crying out.

He knew he was rough, tried to slow, tried to gentle, even a little. Tried to remember her delicacy and the hardness of his own hands. He brought his mouth back to hers, softer now, deep and lingering. The revving engine of her body went to purr.

Something turned inside her, a slow, liquid spin, and another, another, that left her dizzy, left her weak.

She breathed out his name as his lips slid over her, featherlight now. A drug seeping into her blood.

She reached for him again, her own hands stroking lightly, dreaming as sensations fell over her like tissue paper.

Now to savor rather than devour, to seduce rather than ravish, they moved together in the quieting light.

When she cupped his face in her hands, when their eyes met, she felt joy merged with desire.

He saw her lips curve before he lowered his to brush them. Felt her fingers thread through his hair. And now when she arched to him, when she opened, welcomed, he slid into her, into velvet heat.

Her breath caught, released, caught again. And those eyes held his as they rose and fell together. Deep, dazzled eyes that went dark and blind as he urged her up and up, and over.

Her body held, taut as a bow, and held quivering until it went slack with release.

He pressed his face into the curve of her throat, and took his own.