The Haunting of Josie by Kay Hooper

Author:Kay Hooper
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780553904352
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-25T16:00:00+00:00

SIX

FOR A MOMENT, gazing into tarnished-silver eyes that saw too much, Josie was tempted to tell him the truth. But it had become a conditioned reflex to shy away, to avoid talking about what had happened to her father. Definitely once and probably twice in the past twenty years, confiding had cost her a romance, and it had definitely cost her at least one friend.

She had learned to be wary.

Slowly, carefully, because she had a notion something would break if she wasn’t cautious, she said, “I don’t think Luke is going to show up tonight. Perhaps you should go.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Perhaps I should. But I’d like you to answer something—honestly—before I go.”

She didn’t say she’d have to hear it first; both of them knew that. So she merely waited.

“Are you so sure there’s no room in your life for me? So sure that you aren’t even willing to give us a chance?”

“I’m sure.” But she wasn’t, and even she could hear that in her voice. Already, he’d gotten too close, and she didn’t even know how he’d done it.

“Are you?” Without another word, Marc leaned over and covered her startled lips with his in an abrupt kiss.

He didn’t hold her in place; his unencumbered right hand lifted, but only to lie gently against her neck while his thumb brushed her jaw. Yet she couldn’t escape him.

She didn’t want to escape him.

If the first kiss between them, days ago, had shaken her, this one was devastating. It was as if her body, stirred awake by his touch, recognized him as its master in some deeply primitive way she hardly understood. All she knew was that she could no more prevent her response than she could willfully stop the beating of her heart.

There was nothing tentative about Marc, nothing hesitant. He wanted her, and he meant her to have no doubts about that. His mouth plundered hers, not bruising and yet with a hungry intensity that flooded her senses with molten heat. She was hardly aware of turning more toward him until her thigh pushed against the corn popper between them and her hands touched his chest.

The flannel of his shirt was soft beneath her fingers, and beneath the shirt his body was surprisingly hard, with little give to the flesh. He smelled of a spicy musk and woodsmoke, the combination curiously potent. Josie heard a faint sound escape her, shockingly sensual, and his heart was pounding beneath her hand, or maybe it was her own pulse she felt….

The hardness of his cast brushed past her shoulder, and his fingers touched her hair near her temple. His right hand still lay against her neck, those fingers brushing her nape in a whisper touch she found wildly arousing, and his mouth was moving on hers, his tongue a shattering possession.

She wanted, suddenly and violently, to be closer to him, to feel the powerful length of his body against hers. She wanted their clothing gone, wanted them naked together here in front of the fire.

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