Page 10

The coals pop behind us. Her fingers curl through mine, small and cold and stained blue, and she steps close enough that I feel her breath against my throat.

"Why do you drive by every night?" she whispers.

I could give her the easy answer. The cop answer, about women alone in dark fields and a mile of empty road. It's true. It's also nowhere near the whole truth, and she knows it, and she's looking at me with those dark eyes asking for the rest.

"Because I wanted to see you."

Her breath catches.

I cup her jaw in my free hand and tip her face up, slow, giving her room to step away. She doesn't. She rocks up onto her toes and meets me.

Her mouth is soft and cold from the night air, and she tastes like cider. The first brush is careful. Then she makes a small sound in her throat and fists her hand in the front of my flannel, and careful goes straight out the window. I slide my hand into her hair and knock the pencil loose, her curls tumbling down over my wrist. My other arm wraps around her waist and hauls her against me. She's soft everywhere I touch, her hips full under my palm, her breasts pressed against my chest, and she kisses me back like she's starving.

It's been seven years since I kissed anybody. My body remembers exactly what to do.

When we finally break apart, she's breathing hard. So am I. Her forehead drops against my chest.

"This is such a bad idea," she mumbles into my shirt.

"Probably."

"I leave the Monday after next."

"So do I."

She lifts her head. Her lips are red and swollen, her hair a wild mess around her face, and she looks at me with something scared and hungry in her eyes.

Then she kisses me again.

Chapter Four

MONA

My rental cabin is a quarter mile from the festival grounds, and we don't make it past the front door.

He kisses me against it before I find the light switch. His hands are in my hair, his mouth hot on mine, his big body pinning me to the wood until my keys slip out of my fingers and hit the floor. Sergeant shoulders past us into the dark, sniffs once around the kitchen, and lies down across the bedroom doorway with a groan.

"Your dog has opinions," I gasp.

"He's got good taste." Josiah's mouth slides down my throat. "Lights."

I slap the wall until I hit the switch. The lamp by the couch clicks on, soft and yellow, and he pulls back far enough to look at me. His chest is heaving. His eyes are almost black. He looks at me like he's got all night, and he intends to use every minute of it.

My stomach flips over.

I grab the hem of his thermal and yank. He lifts his arms and lets me drag it over his head, and I forget how to breathe. He's broad and solid, dark skin stretched over hard muscle, a dusting of gray hair on his chest that trails down past his belt. There's a scar low on his ribs. I touch it and he shivers.

"Marines?"

"Bar fight in Okinawa." His mouth twitches. "I won."

I laugh, and he takes advantage of it, unbuttoning my flannel one button at a time with those steady hands. He's slow about it. Too slow. By the third button I'm squirming, and by the last one he's grinning, the bastard.

"You're doing this on purpose."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I told you not to call me that."