Read Online Anything For You by Sarah Mayberry - Free Book Online Page A

he ran a hand over his short-cropped hair. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
    “Fine, here I am, unhurt. Can you please go now?”
    Sam’s eyes flashed with suspicion as they ran over her. She was painfully aware of her flushed face, of what she’d been doing when he pounded on the door.
    “He is still here, isn’t he? That’s why you’re so hot and bothered.”
    He made a move toward her bedroom, almost as though he was going to barge in there and inspect it. Delaney couldn’t believe the way he was behaving.
    “I just had a bath, Sam! If you must know.”
    Sam stopped in his tracks, and they eyed each other for a moment. “Oh,” he said.
    For some reason, she had the horrible feeling he’d just guessed exactly what she’d been doing in the bath.
    “The water was hot,” Delaney heard herself say a little defensively. Sam’s gaze dropped below her face, and she crossed her arms over her chest just in case her nipples were doing their usual “Hey, Sam, look at us” routine.
    “So you didn’t sleep with him?” Sam asked.
    Delaney let out a heavy sigh. “No. Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear? I’m still the same hard-up singleton I was last night.”
    Sam ran a hand over his head again, the movement drawing his T-shirt tight across his chest. Why did he have to be so fatally attractive to her? It was cruel, perverse and unfair.
    “Back to the needs thing again, huh?” he asked.
    “Whatever. Sam, I really think you should go. I had a crappy night’s sleep, and I’m really grumpy, and this conversation is just too weird for me right now.”
    “It’s just you’ve never told me you have…needs before,” Sam said.
    Delaney felt herself flush. “Well, I’m human. You like sex, don’t you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, there you go. You have needs, too.”
    Sam took a step toward her, his body jerky, uncoordinated. It almost looked as though it were moving against his will, and the look on his face was deeply uncertain and tortured.
    “What if I told you that last night my need was for you?” he said suddenly.
    The words hung between them for what seemed like an eternity. Delaney’s breath got caught somewhere between her chest and her throat. She felt her pulse beating thick and slow in her belly.
    What was he saying? That he was jealous of Jake? Surely not. Sam didn’t see her as a woman. She was his buddy, nothing more.
    His blue eyes were intent on her, his body tense.
    “I don’t know what you mean,” she finally whispered.
    Sam stepped forward again, within touching distance this time. Delaney watched with a strange, disconnected kind of astonishment as he reached out to wrap his hand around her forearm. His skin felt hot through the silk of her robe.
    “I mean I couldn’t stop thinking about you and Jake in bed. And it drove me crazy,” he said.
    So he was jealous of Jake. That had been what he was saying. Which meant…which meant that Sam desired her himself. Didn’t it?
    It was so close to her most cherished dream that Delaney flinched away from him, jerking her arm from his grasp. Whatever was going on with Sam, he hadn’t suddenly fallen in love with her. She would be the biggest fool in the world if she believed that.
    Sam’s grip remained firm, however, and she felt her arm slide within her silk sleeve as she pulled away. A sudden coolness across her right breast told her that her robe had slid off her shoulder before she looked down and confirmed it.
    There was a sudden, electric silence as they both stared at her exposed breast. As though her nipple knew it was the connoisseur of all eyes, it darkened and puckered, begging to be touched.
    Delaney heard the harsh intake of Sam’s breath.
    “Delaney,” he said in a choked voice, “for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
    And then he put his hand on her breast.

4
    A SHAFT OF PURE DESIRE rocketed through Delaney’s body. A low moan sounded in her throat as she watched Sam’s thumb slide over her nipple,