drabs of information about your mother.”
His knuckles tightened on the envelope. “You don’t need to know why! Just give me anything relating to her and keep your mouth shut in the village.”
Hot color stained Kelsey’s cheeks. “I don’t indulge in local gossip.”
He should apologize. He didn’t. Instead he dropped the envelope on the table and closed the distance between them in two quick strides. Taking her in his arms, he plundered her mouth, his teeth grazing her lip.
And was lost in the red haze, the furious ache of hunger.
CHAPTER THREE
FOR THE SPACE of two full seconds Kelsey was frozen in Luke’s embrace. His arms were tight as steel bands. Through her palms, pressed to his chest, she felt the heat of his body, his muscles’ taut strength. She couldn’t have escaped if she’d wanted to.
She didn’t want to. The hard pounding of his heart beneath her fingertips excited her beyond measure. She’d never been kissed like this in her life, with such searching intensity, such a depth of need and desire. She looped her fingers around his neck, feeling with a shock of pleasure the silken thickness of his hair. When his tongue brushed her lower lip, she opened to him, yearning for him to taste her, to invade her.
His hands moved lower, grasping her hips, thrusting her against another hardness; like flame, desire surged through her veins. Knees weak, she clung to him. Her tongue danced with his, their mouths welded in a kiss that she wanted to last forever.
Then he thrust her away so roughly that she stumbled, bumping her hip against the table. He said harshly, “Forget I did that—it won’t happen again. I’ll see you at eight-thirty tomorrow.”
The image of her shocked face imprinted on his brain, Luke strode down the hall as though all the demons in hell were after him. What had possessed him to kiss her like that? Like a man starved for nourishment. Like an addict needing his fix.
He didn’t need her. He didn’t need anyone. Never had.
He unlatched the door and stepped outside into the chill star-spangled night. That was what he needed, he thought savagely, a sense of perspective. The stars were good at providing that.
He’d just broken two of his cardinal rules: never get involved with an employee, and never make the first move without explaining the way the game worked. Not that kissing Kelsey North could in any way be called a game. From the moment his lips had found hers he’d been engulfed by her. Absorbed in her. Desperate for her.
Thank God he’d found the strength to walk away from her. And away from her was where he intended to stay.
His car was parked under the trees. He fumbled for his keys in his pocket, then whipped around as he heard steps behind him on the gravel driveway.
Kelsey said jaggedly, “You forgot the photographs.”
Her hair was in a wild tumble around her face, her eyes huge dark pools. Through the thin fabric of her shirt he could see the little bumps of her nipples. Goddammit, he wasn’t going to kiss her again. He took the envelope from her with the tips of his fingers. “Thanks.”
She stepped back, hugging her arms to her chest. “I’m not one of your super-sophisticated Manhattan women, Luke. Don’t toy with me like that—kissing me as though I’m the only woman in the world and then dropping me as though I disgust you.”
“Disgust?” His laugh had no amusement in it. “If I hadn’t dropped you, we’d be making love on the kitchen floor right now.”
She took another step back. “Am I supposed to believe that?”
“You know I wanted you.”
Shivering, she said in a low voice, “I’ve never met anyone like you. I don’t know what to believe.”
He was suddenly pierced with guilt; wasn’t she telling him she was way out of her depth? “Go inside—you’re cold. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With a tiny sound of distress, she whirled and ran for the house. The door slammed shut behind her.
Luke got into his car and drove back to Griffin’s Keep, grimly concentrating on the road. He was going to put her right out of his mind. His lifestyle didn’t begin to accommodate women like Kelsey North. Never had and never would.
The mansion’s dark bulk loomed against the stars, secretive and unwelcoming. Could he blame his mother for running away? Would the contents of the boxes bring him any closer to understanding her?
He went inside, and in the room where he and Kelsey had been working he spread the photos over the table. They were all images of Rosemary as a young girl; she looked happy and carefree. He couldn’t ever remember her looking happy like that.
Briefly he buried his head in his hands, his nostrils assaulted with the long-ago smells of the apartment block where they’d lived. Rotting garbage, urine, cigarette butts, the lazy drift of dope.
He’d never have to go back to a place like that. The money he’d made since then guaranteed it. He was safe. As that little boy in a slum apartment block hadn’t ever been safe.
THAT NIGHT LUKE went through four more boxes, rewarded by finding some of Rosemary’s school reports. Doesn’t like to sit still and Stirs up trouble were repeated themes. It was nearly three in the morning when he trailed upstairs, every limb weighted with exhaustion. But when he fell into bed it wasn’t Rosemary who kept him wide-eyed and awake, staring up into the darkness. It was Kelsey.
He loathed how desperate he’d felt, how driven. He liked sex as much as the next man. But he also liked being in control.
Tomorrow—today, rather—he wouldn’t lay as much as a finger on her. If she had any sense, she’d wear the brown tweed suit to work.
Trouble was, now he knew what was hidden underneath it. And he could remember all too clearly how she’d opened to his kiss, digging her nails into his nape, her hips pressed to his erection.
Hell, he’d never get to sleep at this rate. With a superhuman effort, Luke forced himself to focus on the trend in oil prices, and eventually he did fall asleep. To dream a long-familiar dream of the shadowy woman who had been his mother. She was holding out a pretty red candy and promising it could be his. As he reached for it, already tasting its sweetness, she snatched it back at the very last minute…
Later, much later, he gradually sank into another dream. One of Kelsey lying naked in a field of summer flowers, opening her arms to him, voluptuous and beautiful.
EVEN THOUGH SHE was tempted to do so, Kelsey didn’t wear the brown tweed suit the next morning. But the jeans she chose were loose-fitting, and her sweater enveloped her from throat to hip in bright green wool.
If Luke Griffin made the slightest move toward her, she’d belt him first and then she’d quit.
In January’s weak sunlight, Griffin’s Keep looked ridiculously like the haunted house of a thousand books and movies. She marched up the front steps and found the door firmly locked.
Yesterday Luke had unlocked it before she’d arrived.
