glared at him. “What?”
“It’s only a kiss.”
“Oh, I just don’t—”
“Katie. Do you want to kiss me?”
“We’ve just about talked this to death, don’t you think?”
“But do you want to kiss me?”
“Oh, all right, damn it.” Katie rarely swore. But right then, damn it seemed the only thing to say.
“But do you?”
“Yes.” The word came out breathless-sounding. “I do.”
“Good.” He lowered his mouth to hers.
Katie sighed once and she sighed again.
Her hands slipped up to encircle his neck and she held on for dear life as he played with her mouth. With that clever tongue of his, he traced the seam where her lips met, teasingly at first and then with a more insistent pressure. She couldn’t resist him—didn’t want to resist him. Shyly, she let her lips relax and he swept that tongue of his inside.
It was a shocking, thrilling thing, the way Justin Caldwell could use that mouth of his. And it was a truly wonderful thing, the way his body felt, so warm and close, pressed against her side, the way he smelled of soap and shaving cream.
His cold nose touched hers and his hot breath burned her icy cheek. As he kissed her, he stroked her with his hands. That was wonderful, too. Each separate caress left a burning trail of longing in its wake. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled a little, so they were both on their sides, and his hand moved lower, to the small of her back. He rubbed there, a sweet, firm pressure, soothing muscles cramped from sleeping on that lumpy ancient mattress last night.
She moaned and pressed herself all the tighter against him. His hand swept lower. He cupped her bottom and tucked her up into him.
That was when she felt the hard ridge in his jeans.
Oh, my.
Time to stop.
Time to stop right now.
She braced her hands on his shoulders and tore her mouth away from his. “That’s enough.” She looked at his face and she feared…
What?
She realized she didn’t know. Her fear was formless, and yet she did feel it.
Remember the others, she reminded herself. They were after your money. They hurt you. He could so easily do the same…
But even as she thought of that, she didn’t believe it. Oh, he might hurt her, yes. But in her heart, she simply didn’t believe it would be for her money.
Which probably made her the biggest fool in Montana.
He loosened his hold on her. With a deep sigh, he pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re right,” he said. “Enough.”
She slid her hands down to his hard chest. Beneath her palms, she could feel his heat, and his heart racing. His breath came out in ragged puffs—just like hers.
She whispered, “We’d better go in.”
He touched her hair. She thought that she’d never felt anything quite so lovely in her whole life as that—the tender caress of his hand on her hair. He threaded his chilled bare fingers up under the tangled strands and cupped the back of her neck. She took his cue and tipped her head up to look at him.
“Yeah,” he said. His mouth was swollen from what he’d been doing to her, his eyes twin blue flames. “We’ll go in. Now.” He pressed one more quick, hard kiss on her lips—as if he realized he shouldn’t, but couldn’t resist. Her mouth burned at the contact.
Then he reached across her to grab his discarded glove. Rolling away from her, he rose. She scuttled to a sitting position.
“Here,” he said.
She stared at his outstretched hand. It seemed…too dangerous to take it.
Her gaze tracked upward, to his face. She knew by the heated look in his eyes that if she reached out, he would only pull her close and start kissing her again—and the thrumming of her blood through her body left her no doubt that she would end up kissing him right back.
No. Not going to happen. She’d known this man less than twenty-four hours. And she refused to end up rolling around naked with him on a bed of hay in a freezing old shed.
“I can manage, thanks.” She pulled off a glove and felt in her hair. It was just as she’d suspected: threaded through with bits of hay. “Oh, just look at me…”
Justin let his hand drop to his side. “I am.” His voice was husky and low. And in his eyes she saw desire—real desire. For her.
And not only desire, but also something dark and lonely, something that might have been regret.
Katie’s mouth went dust-dry. This was danger—a danger far beyond any threat a mere fortune hunter might pose. Peril to her tender heart, to her very soul.
No doubt about it. She wanted him—with a kind of bone-melting yearning, with a merciless desire the like of which she’d never known before.
It was…a physical aching. A hunger in the blood.
Oh, she would have to watch herself with him. She would have to exercise a little caution, or she’d be in way over her head.
Somewhere far back in her mind, a taunting voice whispered, Katie. Come on. You’re already over your head. Over your head and falling fast…
Chapter Four
He shouldn’t have kissed her.
It had been a major error in judgment and Justin damn well knew that it had.
He shouldn’t have kissed her. Not so soon, anyway—and certainly not in a prickly bed of hay on the frozen dirt floor of the shed out back, with that irritating old mare looking on.
Getting hot and heavy so fast had spooked her. She had her guard up and now he couldn’t get past it.
They spent the rest of the endless day playing checkers, watching the snow fall, stoking the fire in the stove out front and reading books and magazines they found stacked in the storage room. Whenever they spoke, she made sure it was in polite generalities.
The snow kept falling. The radio played only static. And the phone stayed dead.
Justin could have kicked himself with his rummage sale Converse All-Star. The big loss of ground with her was his own damn fault. He’d sucked her in beautifully, had her right in the palm of his hand once he’d told her the story of that lonely week in the cabin when he was thirteen. He’d hit the perfect common nerve: a lonely childhood; parents who weren’t all they should have been.
It
