Читать книгу Wicked Sexy - Anne Marsh, Anne Marsh - Страница 10

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SHE STILL WANTED to kiss him.

Daeg Ross had dropped into her lap like a gift from the gods. Dani Andrews snuck a peek at his hard face. The gods of war, maybe. Daeg Ross was a bad boy through and through. He wanted something from her and she didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what that something was. The slow glide of his hot gaze over her made his interest clear, as did the warm smile that lit up his eyes until they were crinkling with amusement. He’d done a number on her seventeen-year-old self, and apparently the experienced soldier could be even more lethal.

He’d let go of her, but that light touch of his fingers still burned against her skin. There was a military tattoo on his wrist, and he seemed tougher and stronger, almost impervious to the growing chill in the air. It was getting more and more dark, and a mean wind was turning the usually flat surface of the bay into tiny whitecaps and raising goose bumps on her arms. It wasn’t bikini weather but this was her vacation, damn it. This was supposed to be her honeymoon.

Her fingers caught the ties on the sides of her bikini bottom and she noticed his gaze dipping to the sight, betraying him. And then he brought his focus back up slowly to her face. For once, her big, tough navy man was showing some emotion. Surprise. He hadn’t expected to find her here of all places.

Too bad.

He’d walked away from her once, breaking her heart in the process, and the irony of it was he hadn’t even known. He’d seen a young girl on a beach and after giving her a kiss she’d never forget, he’d run like hell. Back to the military. Away from her.

She’d gotten over him, moved on. Now he was merely a memory. She swallowed. Unfortunately, he was still too darn sexy. Her older self appreciated what she was seeing, even more than what her younger self had. His face had matured. It was stamped with experience, and those eyes of his were intense and knowing. Confident. He was a man who made things happen, forced the world around him to change. It was all too easy to imagine him diving out of a rescue chopper and into wild, turbulent waters. He’d cut through the churn effortlessly like he had everything else in his path, because she’d never met a man so focused or determined.

She’d grown up, too, though. She’d left the island behind her and earned her finance degree from UCLA. She’d analyzed risks for Fortune 500 companies and then suggested ways to manage those risks, earning her way to the top of the consulting firm she worked for. Right now, however, the biggest risk of all was standing in front of her, and she refused to let him leave her tongue-tied. “Hello, Daeg.”

“Dani.” Her name was a rough growl on his lips. Was that a hint of something deeper in those watchful eyes of his? He was eyeing her, she realized, like she was dangerous.

The sensation was intoxicating.

And infuriating.

She hated how anger and desire competed inside her, leaving her uncertain and wanting. Mostly, she wanted to leave him standing there alone on the beach. Daeg Ross was wicked temptation, but as she reminded herself again, she’d grown up a long time ago. Maybe this meeting was a chance encounter, a handful of seconds soon over. But then his eyes were taking in her body, making her insides clench with need, and that definitely made her mad. How could he just look at her and the years fell away?

She wanted more. More memories. She should be the one to leave this time, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. He’d upended her whole world ten years ago with a simple kiss, but she still hadn’t learned her lesson.

The fact was, she still wanted Daeg Ross.

* * *

SHE WATCHED DAEG the entire two weeks of his leave, never getting up the nerve to approach him. He was five years older than she was, but decades older in terms of experience. She knew that. She knew there were at least a dozen good reasons why she shouldn’t go near him.

But she hoped.

And when he found her walking on the beach that night, after her prom date ditched her, she was glad. The whispers about his rough past before he’d come to the island didn’t scare her. He was big and sun-darkened, his hair cut close to his scalp with military precision. All the time he’d spent training in the water had given him broad, powerful shoulders, and she wanted to put her hands on those shoulders and hang on, because she knew he could take her with him, take her somewhere special.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Daeg told her, and concern filled his voice. “It’s late, Dani-girl.”

That smoky voice aroused her past a point of no return. “I don’t care.” She didn’t. Tonight was supposed to be magical and yet her date had been a dud, showing more interest in his friends and their bootleg six-pack of beer than in her.

Daeg looked down at her, and she wondered what he saw. “You should.”

“It’s late.” She used his own words on him. “You should walk with me.”

He frowned, but wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. At first, their bare feet splashed through the surf. She’d ditched her heels back where the steps cut down from the road to the sand, but her dress dragged in the water. She’d chosen the dress for its lavender color, the color of crocuses and bubble bath. The yards of tulle and sequins had winked at her from the rack in the store. When she’d tried it on she felt like a princess.

So far, the night had yielded none of that magic.

Later, she wasn’t sure if she’d stopped to check out the stars and everything else had just happened—or if she’d dropped her head back, turned toward him.

He groaned something—her name, she’d decided afterward, replaying the memory of it in her mind—and the arm around her shoulders brought her impossibly closer toward him. She went willingly into his arms, her body pressing into his full-on. He bent his head and his mouth met hers.

This was what she wanted, what she’d been waiting for.

Daeg’s mouth was everything she’d dreamed about and more. Some delicious, new sensation tugged at her.

He took charge of their kiss and her. When the incoming surf caught the backs of her knees, her mouth opened on a gasp and he swept inside. The rough, masculine taste and texture of his lips and tongue sent an unfamiliar pleasure rocketing through her.

He guided her from the water and down onto the sand. Covering her, he cupped her head gently in his hands as he devoured her mouth. Don’t stop, she begged silently, entranced by the feel of him, the weight of his big body pressed against hers.

He kissed her and kissed her and she didn’t know where the kiss might have taken them because she recognized instinctively that he was as lost as she was, but then the surf broke over their feet. The cold water was a shock. She shivered and he cursed, rolling off her.

“This is a bad idea, Dani. Go home.”

Confused, she reached for him, but he shoved to his feet. He held out a hand to help her up. However, he was back to being a stranger.

A stranger she’d kissed on the beach.

She had sand in her hair, on her legs. The sodden weight of the dress pulled at her and she didn’t feel like a princess anymore. The magic abruptly vanished from the night.

“Go home,” he repeated harshly. “You drive here, Dani?”

Mutely, she nodded.

“I’ll follow you home,” he said. “Make sure you get inside okay.”

“And then?” She needed there to be something more. Tonight couldn’t end like this.

He shrugged and then shook his head. “There is nothing more, Dani. This was just a kiss.”

* * *

TEN YEARS LATER, on the same beach, the man of her dreams was watching her again, and he sure didn’t sound as if their parting had done a number on him. Of course, he’d been every bit as eager to get off the island as she’d been to stay. She’d lost count of the number of states she’d lived in growing up. Her father would move them to New York one year for a big real estate deal, followed the next by Florida for a condo development her father had been sure would be the investment of a lifetime. Six months after that, they’d headed to Nevada because the Florida project was bankrupt. Ranches in Wyoming, a ski resort in Vermont... Her father had tried them all, ending, of course, with California because the Golden State had a white-hot real estate market. Summers on Discovery Island had been the one sure, stable thing in her life.

He scrubbed a hand over his short hair. “It’s been a while.”

“Has it?” she asked sweetly, instead of telling him to get lost. Something about Daeg Ross sent her straight back to her younger self. That part of her wanted to tease, to coax or to even hurt him the way he’d hurt her.

The adult part wanted to kiss him again.

Her taste in her men was clearly suspect. The guy she’d been engaged to for two years had become Mr. Wrong. And he’d excused his own infidelity by claiming she was terrible in bed. No matter how she looked at it, her love life was either a disaster or a disappointment. Take your pick. She was supposed to be on Discovery Island having hot, raunchy honeymoon sex in Sweet Moon’s finest suite. Instead, she was holding down the fort while her grandparents sailed down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on a cruise to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. They were undoubtedly having hot, raunchy second-honeymoon sex—which she was so not thinking about.

No more men, she insisted. Eventually, when she was ready to put her ex-fiancé behind her and start dating again, men like the soldier facing her wouldn’t make her list. Military men were outrageously built and beautiful, but they’d never be keepers. They shipped out, moved on and did everything but stay.

He peered down at her, and those eyes of his were hard. He’d seen things, done things. Those tours of duty had changed him. Well, she’d changed, too. She wasn’t that innocent girl walking along the beach.

Not anymore.

“Ten years,” he said, as if their timeline—or lack of one—was a challenge he was throwing down. “It’s been ten years, Dani.”

Numbers had always made sense to her. She was an actuary, which meant she turned risks into something you could calculate. In her world, loss was a formula and all you had to do was hold enough assets in reserve to offset those losses. Daeg lived in a different world, by different rules. Where she calculated risks, he took them.

Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know you were counting.”

Counting implied caring, and he’d never cared about her.

* * *

DAEG HADN’T COUNTED. Not every minute. But he thought about her more than he should have. He’d wanted to come back here to Discovery and finish what they’d started. He’d wanted to push that cupcake of a gown down her body. Touch her. Learn every lovely inch of her, inside and out.

She’d been too young.

She was a woman now. No longer a girl. She’d have had lovers. He captured her hand in his, entwining her pale, slim fingers with his. He noticed she didn’t have a ring.

“You’re not married.” Thank God. There were rules even he wouldn’t break. His lovers had been women who were only looking for the same thing he was. Casual, fun affairs featuring hot sex with a side of companionship. He liked waking up next to someone in bed and he wouldn’t rule out settling down eventually. Someday. At some point in the future when his body gave out and he couldn’t make the cut to be a rescue swimmer. But that wasn’t today.

“That’s none of your concern.” Anger flashed in her eyes. She tugged on his hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

For a long beat, he hung on. She was strong, but he was stronger. “It does.”

“To me, maybe.” She shrugged. “But whether or not I’m married doesn’t mean a thing to you, Daeg Ross.”

She was right. Whether she was married or not shouldn’t matter to him. But the lack of a husband, a boyfriend, someone who had claimed her for his own and whose claim she had welcomed—that would mean she was available. His body went on alert, adrenaline pumping through him like it did before he made a jump. She didn’t have to be off-limits. He could pursue her, kiss her, touch her.

He could strip off that cute bikini of hers and bury himself deep inside her.

He could make the biggest mistake of his life.

The words came out of his mouth, anyhow. “You’re back for the summer?”

“I’m out at Sweet Moon.” He knew the place. Her grandparents had run it for years, booking romantic cabins with four-posters and fireplaces. It was the kind of place a man took a special woman.

He’d never spent the night there.

“Important occasion?” He kept his voice deliberately light.

She shook her head. “Not anymore,” she replied, giving him a wry smile. “But my grandparents reserved a cabin for me, so here I am.”

“His loss,” he growled, and her eyes widened as if he was some kind of mind reader, because he’d put two and two together and come up with the correct answer. “Whoever he was, he messed up.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly, making it clear she had no intention of giving him the details about what had brought her here alone to Discovery Island. “It’s over. Water under the bridge. Things happen.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But maybe I can make it up to you? What about ice cream?” he asked. He definitely needed to work on his social skills. “I may not have been back here in years,” he coaxed, “but I still remember how good the ice cream is.”

She eyed him cautiously, her brown eyes examining him. He didn’t know what she saw, but it must have been something good because she nodded and a slow smile lit up her face. “I can let you do that.” She paused, toying with the strap of her tote bag.

He gestured toward the ice cream shack at the far end of the beach and started walking. The muscles in his knee knotted, putting a hitch in his gait.

“You okay?” Dani’s expression was all worry.

“Leg’s fine.” He wasn’t fielding questions, not today, so he returned the conversation, what there was of it, back on her. “We need to worry about you. First thing you do when you hit the beach? You lose the sandals.” Stopping, he pointed at her sandy flip-flops, holding out his hand. “You can’t be comfortable in those things. Let me carry them.”

She hesitated, clearly not sure if she wanted to hand over her shoes or jam them into her bag, sand and all. When she looked down at her feet, as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing, his gaze followed hers. The nail polish on her toes was perfect—more proof this was her first day on the beach.

Leaning in closer, he caught a whiff of coconut-scented sunscreen.

“You haven’t been on the island long, have you?”

“A week. What gave it away?”

The pristine beach tote and the perfect polish were his first clues. “No tan lines,” he said.

“Being pale is an occupational hazard. I work in an office. It increases my risk of dying from heart disease because I’m too sedentary, but decreases my risk of contracting skin cancer. At least the sun is a controllable risk.”

“Wow.” That was a first.

“Too much?” She made a face. “My day job is as an actuary. I only moonlight as a beachcomber.”

She toed off the shoes, shaking loose a small avalanche of sand. He captured the flip-flops, which looked ridiculously feminine in his hand.

She looked over at him. “You have any other suggestions for me?”

Did he ever. Indecent suggestions a decent man would never say out loud.

Because he wasn’t looking for a happily ever after. Getting serious and marriage weren’t something he’d ruled out for himself in the future—the very, very distant future. As it was now, he was away for months at a time on missions he couldn’t discuss. So Others May Live. That was the rescue swimmer’s motto, but it made commitment difficult.

And since he didn’t do forever, he shouldn’t be looking at Dani Andrews and wondering if she’d taste as good as she had the last time he’d kissed her.

Trouble.

She’d taste like trouble.

She was too sweet, too innocent even all these years later. She’d never faced real danger, never experienced the missions he had. That made him fiercely glad. She was safe because he’d done his job, and he’d keep her that way, no matter how badly he wanted to kiss her now that he had her close again. The breeze from the coming storm tumbled her hair around her face and shoulders.

He needed to let her go. He needed to wrap up this conversation and walk away. Again. Instead, he took a step closer, brushing up against her with his body. He was close enough to feel the heat radiating from her. “First storm of the summer’s arriving soon,” he said, brushing her arm briefly because he couldn’t take being this close and not touching her.

When a really violent storm blew in, the hotels opened up their conference rooms, ballrooms, whatever, putting down mattresses and offering bottled water for the locals. Sometimes the safest course of action was to put a kind of wall between yourself and any incoming storm. That could work for any number of things, he reminded himself.

She scanned the horizon. There were still several boats out on the bay. “It doesn’t look too bad. All those boats—they still stay here and ride out the storm?”

“Depends.” He pointed to a slim aluminum shell bobbing up and down just a few yards offshore. “Right there you’ve got your basic panga-type boat—aluminum sides, no cover, fifty horsepower motor.” He shrugged. “Not bad for a casual fishing trip inside a harbor or near shore, but nothing I’d want to trust my life to out on the open water. A bad storm’s going to toss one of those right up on the beach here if the owner doesn’t yank it out first. Then you’ve got your bigger boats.” He touched her shoulder lightly, directing her attention to a handful of larger vessels anchored farther away. “If the mooring’s good, those boats might ride it out. Bumpy as hell, but as long as they don’t get hit by debris, they’ll still be there in the morning. Then,” he said, smiling wide, “you’ve got your biggest boats.”

“Biggest?” She laughed, and he tried to ignore the urge to lean in and kiss her.

“Yeah, biggest. As in my boat’s the biggest. Perfect for your average midlife crisis or deep-sea fishing. Those guys hire the likes of me to pull the boat and get her under cover. Or, if they’re too cheap to pull the boat before the storm hits, they hire me after the fact to go salvage the pieces. You like sailing?”

She pursed her lips. “No. I don’t really care for the water much. Are they safe?”

“Enough.” He pushed the memories back. “I’ve pulled more than one captain out of the water.”

When she tilted her head, the question was clear in her eyes, so he continued. “With spec ops,” he explained. “After I left here, I did a couple tours with a helicopter sea-combat squadron as a rescue swimmer. We worked the Middle East and then Guam. I was the guy who jumped out of the chopper.” Was. He could still go back. He’d only been here three days and it wasn’t too late to re-up if he got his leg in fighting condition.

“It takes a brave person to do something like that.” She glanced at him up and down. He’d like to think she lingered on the good bits, but he wasn’t going to kid himself. “Are you all right?” she asked finally.

“Never better. This is just a little R & R.” The first day of spec ops training, he’d learned the “I am all right” signal. If you weren’t all right, you were off the job because otherwise you were a liability to the team. As long as a man could stay in the water, he was okay. He could keep on getting the job done.

He eyeballed their destination. The ice cream shack was coming up fast. Too fast.

“How about you? Is this trip all pleasure?” he asked, because he didn’t want to be done talking with her and couldn’t explain why. Stepping up to the order window, he bought two cones. The place only had the one flavor—chocolate and vanilla twisted together in a little cone. Her fingers grazed his as he handed her the napkin-wrapped cone, brushing aside her thanks for the cone before dropping a large bill into the tip jar.

“I had a vacation planned.” She looked down and fiddled with the tie on her bikini. “But now I’m helping my grandparents out, so business as well as pleasure. They’re on a cruise celebrating their fiftieth and I’m holding down the fort while they’re away. They were going to hire a temp from an agency, but I was here so...why not do it myself?”

“You’re walking on the beach.” He grinned at her. “The summer’s not a total loss.”

He headed back toward the water’s edge and she went with him.

She swiped at the ice cream, and now he knew why the ice cream shack had stayed in business for so long. That tongue of hers catching the creamy treat had him imagining carnal acts he had no business imagining. He wanted to wind his fingers in her hair and coax her down on the erection straining his jeans. Instead, he took a desperate bite of his own cone, welcoming the cold.

* * *

HER SEXY SPECIAL ops soldier was all rough and tumble. Blunt. Big and hard and tough. Odds were, he was also honorable, straight to the core. A man like him not only had rules—he kept to them. He was temptation personified—and Dani was a woman on a diet.

No more men for her.

After all, she’d already lost one fiancé. No, scratch that. You lost library books and socks and house keys. You lost those things because you couldn’t remember where you’d left them. As for her ex, she knew precisely where he was. Back in San Francisco with his new girlfriend.

Discovery Island was stunning at sunset, only a short distance away from the California mainland and surrounded by all that blue water. A beach walk with this man had seemed safe enough. Besides, who didn’t accept an offer of ice cream? The vanilla-and-chocolate sweetness was better than any orgasm she’d ever had, anyhow.

The chances of having a satisfying orgasm had gone down to nil when her fiancé had ditched her, although she was certain the chances hadn’t been that good before. She checked on the man keeping pace with her and reminded herself that she didn’t do casual sex. Not to mention her ex-boyfriend’s remark that having sex with her was far too predictable.

She took another bite of her ice cream cone.

Making cones with the soft-serve machine had been wonderfully precise, three twists of chocolate and vanilla, then the flick to finish the cone off. Exactly three point five ounces. She’d weighed her first cones, just to make sure, but she’d been a pro almost from the start. From the hard pull of the handle to start the flow to the sugary cardboard taste of the cone that was always soggy by the time she reached the bottom, she’d known what to expect.

Predictable.

The man eating up the sand in long, restless strides next to her was anything but predictable, however. Which made him perfect.

A burst of orange and yellow shot over their heads. The wind was strong enough that the beach ball was really flying. From the accompanying protest right before the ball hit the water with a sharp smack, the ball’s owner hadn’t expected it to go airborne quite so far or so fast. Small feet sprinted toward the surf, kicking up sand before the child came to a screeching halt at the water’s edge. He must have been told not to go in alone.

Her flip-flops hit the sand as Daeg shoved his cone into her hand. There was good-natured laughter in his voice as he pulled off his faded T-shirt. “I think we need a rescue here.”

The sight of that shirt coming off woke something inside her. The thin cotton had clung to some pretty impressive muscles, but bare chested he was spectacular, all thick ridges of muscles and sun-bronzed skin. He sported a handful of scars, including a long one that wrapped around his chest beneath two pairs of dog tags.

Still grinning, he plunged into the chilly water, jeans and all.

He dived effortlessly after the ball. Waterborne, the limp vanished and all she could see was the power of that body as he skimmed the waves.

“He your boyfriend?” The child by her side leaned into her, watching Daeg pop up to the surface, shaking water from his face as he snagged the ball.

“No.” That whole sworn-off-men thing.

“Why not?” Out of the mouths of babes.

Waist deep in the water, Daeg lobbed the ball back one-handed. The boy caught it, calling out his thanks as he scampered down the beach.

“Gallant,” she called. How many men did she know who would have been willing to soak themselves to the bone to rescue a child’s ball?

“Cold,” he countered, wading toward the shore. “We rescuers jump in first and think next. Occupational hazard.”

This was it.

This was her second chance.

The denim was molded to his powerful thighs as he left the surf. Wet, those jeans left nothing to the imagination—and boy, was she imagining things now. Starting with that sexy trickle down his chest as the water sluiced off him. Despite the June weather, the water was cold. His nipples were hard, tight nubs, and her mouth went dry. The look in his eyes was pure heat, though—and he was looking right at her. Stormy eyes. Dark green and framed by those ridiculously long lashes, still damp from his swim.

She could do this. Before she could second-guess herself, she carefully tucked his half-eaten cone on the ground beside his shirt and stepped into his body, sliding her arms up around his neck. The sensation of her skin meeting his was an icy shock.

“Nice rescue, sailor.”

Try as she might, she couldn’t spot any hesitation in him as he lowered his head to hers. The beach was almost empty now, the place all theirs. His eyes watched her until she wanted those lashes to drift shut, wanted him to lose himself in her. What if he didn’t desire her or she didn’t do this right? She shoved the hurtful memories of her ex’s accusations to a remote corner of her mind. Chances were, this could be different.

Better.

Then he groaned, not from pain, but from pleasure. His arms came up around her waist and back, one large hand resting on the back of her neck. Who knew that innocent touch could set her on fire so fast? “You’re killing me, you know that? I want you right now and we haven’t even finished our walk yet.”

Sweet relief and even sweeter arousal shot through her. She’d never been naughty, exactly, but now she tilted her head back as if she’d been born to flirt, trusting the weight of her head to that hand. Deliberately, she smiled, really slow. She could do this. Was doing this. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me right now.”

He smiled, and as he leaned in she forgot to breathe. Every inch of her was focused on the man holding her, bringing her mouth toward his mouth. His kiss. The pleasure was all consuming. She hadn’t known she could feel this way.

His mouth found the edge of her jaw, a soft brush of skin on skin. Was he waiting for her to do something? Tempting. His lips pressed a wicked pattern of kisses along her neck. She wasn’t sure what he wanted, but she knew she wanted to give it to him.

“Don’t tease,” she murmured. Her eyes drifted shut, closing against the last fiery rays of the setting sun.

“Not for too long,” he promised, and then his mouth found hers. Oh, this man knew how to kiss. His lips covered hers, exploring and tasting with every lick and stroke. His hand angled her head backward until she opened up for him and his tongue stroked inside her mouth.

Skin to skin, as they were, there was no missing that thick erection. But Daeg was taking his time. Her soldier was being a gentleman. She appreciated that, but she also wanted him, his heat and his strength. She wanted more than just his kisses.

His tongue dipped deeper, teasing her. The moan slipped from her throat before she could stop it. The raw, unfamiliar sound was shocking to her. She was losing this battle. The weakness in her legs warned her she had to stop before this went too far. But he felt so good.

Her soldier didn’t look bored—no, he looked 100 percent aroused.

Hungry.

For her.

* * *

DAEG HAD DIVED beneath icebergs and into plane wreckage where sharks were circling, but none of those missions had ever given him the adrenaline rush he felt when Dani licked the last bit of ice cream off her lips and proceeded to kiss the hell out of him. He was shocked—happily so—but he was also navy search and rescue to the bone. So he hadn’t thought—he’d reacted and kissed her right back.

And in the ten years since he’d last seen her, held her, Ms. Andrews had mastered the art of kissing. She was intense. Passionate. She didn’t give him her tongue right away. All that heat, right there, but she made him work for it, work for her. Coaxing. She wasn’t shy. She just knew what she liked now—and she hadn’t made up her mind about him.

He was going to make all her dreams come true.

When she slipped her hands from around his neck, he ignored the disappointment and the urge to keep her close.

“I need to go. I can’t—” she said, clearly at a loss for words. Good to know he wasn’t the only one that kiss of theirs had rattled.

“Dani...” he whispered, tracing her bottom lip gently with his finger. He wanted to kiss her again, and then he wanted to do more. Wanted to take her somewhere and make love to her until he couldn’t remember who he was or what he was doing here. That was a good plan, he decided, tightening his arm around her. An excellent plan, in fact. As a general rule, he didn’t take a woman to bed after a first kiss, but this was different, the exception.

“No,” she said and stepped away from him. His arm dropped to his sides.

Before he could say anything—or worse, not say anything—she began walking down the beach.

He let her go, but much to his surprise, he could still feel her, sense her presence. It was as if their kiss had branded him. And the taste of her. Sweet heat and all woman.

But what about her nerves?

Someone or something had spooked her badly. Recently. He’d like to fix whatever problems she had, smooth away the furrow she got right there in the center of her forehead as she stared at him. As if she was trying to figure out how she’d ended up in his arms, kissing the hell out of him.

He could have told her he didn’t know, either.

But he was sure he wanted it to happen again. He wasn’t done kissing her. Not by half. She’d given him a starting point and now he wanted more.

And he wasn’t waiting another ten years to get it.