Page 24 of Mountain Shadow

She laughed and reached out to put her hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I think I understand what you mean.”

She leaned up on her tiptoes, expected to kiss his cheek—until he turned his face and she ended up meeting his lips instead.

At first, neither of them moved, each giving the other the chance to move away.

Then Jens brushed his lips against hers—gently at first, then more insistently. His tongue came out to slide against her upper lip, and that lightest of touches sent shivers down her spine, waking up a desire that she hadn’t realized lived inside her.

She moaned gently against his mouth, and he responded in kind, a growl deep in his throat that made her feel alive and powerful. Her lungs warned her she needed to breathe, but it wasn't air she wanted. She wanted more of this—more of him.

She felt the moment his control snapped. His hands tightened against her back, bringing her closer so that their bodies also fell into the kiss, close enough that she could feel his heart beating hard against her chest, along with her own.

The kiss, which had started so soft and gentle, became urgent and wild, his mouth taking, plundering, and her mouth responding in kind.

In the end, it was Jens who broke the kiss, heaving a deep breath.

“God,” he said, his voice ragged. For the first time since they’d met, he didn’t sound like he was in control. His hand came up to her face, his thumb grazing her lip gently.

Sarah smiled, licking her lips, her tongue almost touching his thumb before he moved out of reach.

“If I’d known kissing you was going to feel like this, I would have done this sooner,” she said. “Maybe we can try it again?” she asked boldly.

Jens closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, they no longer smoldered. Instead, they were filled with sadness and impossibility.

Or not…

He ran a hand through his short hair. “We can't do this, Sarah.”

“Why not? Are you with someone else?” she asked, suddenly panicked. She hadn’t seen signs of another woman in his home, but that didn’t mean—

“No. It's not that. And I won’t hide the fact that I’m attracted to you, Sarah. Hell, that was … But you need to be able to trust me not to act on it. My first duty is to protect you, and I would cut off my own arm before taking advantage of you.”

Her mind tried, but failed, to compute. She reached out to touch his hand. “But it's not taking advantage if—“

“No. I promised Tess and Damien that I would keep you safe. And I will. But that means this cannot happen again—not until the threat against you is neutralized.”

With that, he turned around and walked ramrod straight out onto the balcony. His sandwich lay, untouched, on the table.

Sarah sat back down and chewed on her own sandwich furiously. She’d be damned if she was going to let it get cold.

Jens

Jens packed up his laptop and started clearing the dining table, which in the last few days had started doubling as his home office. He was frustrated by the conversation he’d just had with Damien—the London police were finally taking the case seriously, after Sarah’s stalker had graduated to breaking and entering, but they weren’t treating it with the urgency that Jens would have hoped. Now that Sarah was safe in France, and under the protection of the Chamonix police, the police somehow figured the stalker would forget about her.

A natural deescalation.

Jens wasn’t as hopeful.

Or maybe I just have too much riding on this, to leave it to hope.

“Is everything okay?” Sarah asked, walking back into the house from the balcony, where she’d unofficially set up her own home office.

Jens realized he was scowling.

“It’s fine. I’m just frustrated.”

“Has something else happened?” she asked, clutching her notebook tighter to her chest.

“No. The case is just not moving as fast as I’d hoped. The cameras outside the radio station didn’t catch much during the break-in—beyond the fact that he was male, dressed fully in black, and wearing a baseball cap.”