Breaking the Rules — Jennifer Lewis

A fortune teller predicted Joe Figueroa would meet the love of his life that very night, so he took fate by the horns and chose his wife. Now his marriage and his naval career are in ruins and he's got a bone to pick with that psychic. When he tracks her down the haunting gypsy beauty doesn't look a day older, just more entrancing than ever. Did Joe choose the wrong woman to marry that night? Susana Cigan barely recognizes the man whose fate she'd once seen linked with hers. Yet Joe awakens something inside her that stirs her body and threatens her psychic gift. She's tired of her gypsy heritage confining her in a narrow world of tradition and superstition and knows she could lead this wounded and hostile stranger on a journey to redemption. Will she dare to follow her heart and venture into unfamiliar -- and sensual -- territory with this man who threatens to break all her rules? *** She craved this man. Craved everything about him. His big hard body, his handsome scarred face, his pain-filled eyes. She kept her gaze fixed on the blue ink scrawled over his torso, avoiding the obvious sign of his fierce arousal beneath it. “You should stay a virgin.” Even as he said it she knew he didn't mean it. His hand skimmed along her arm, traced the curve of her armpit and slid down to glide along the underside of her bare breast. The sensation of fingertips on the sensitive skin made her suck in a breath. “You've saved yourself until now. You should wait until the right man comes along.” But what if you are the right man? She didn't say the question aloud, but he heard it anyway. “I can't offer you anything beyond a night of pleasure. I know I can offer you that.” His eyes narrowed. “Sexual pleasure is one area of life where I know I won't disappoint. Where I won't be disappointed. I guess that's why it beckons me now, when there's nothing else I can count on.” She dropped her eyes to the hand caressing her breast, then back up to meet his steady gaze. “If you think I should wait, why are you still touching me? You're breaking the rules.” Her voice emerged as a whisper, breathless with want. And with fear. Fear of her own aching need. “It's the beast inside me. The crazy, dangerous part that keeps me awake at nights when everyone else is sleeping. The beast wants you.” “And the honorable man?” “He wants you, too.”