LITMIR.BIZ

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make yourself too comfortable,’ she warned drily. ‘I won’t be long.’

      He didn’t answer, just gave her a searching look as he moved past.

      Jessie wished she’d shut her mouth. Saying too much was almost as bad as saying too little.

      She hadn’t done much talking during the roast-lamb dinner. Dora and Emily had done enough. And Kane, of course. Brother, could that man talk.

      The trouble was he was so darned interesting. And entertaining. Yet, in retrospect, he hadn’t actually talked about himself, an unusual trait for a man. His concentration had mostly been on Emily and Dora.

      Dora must have told him her whole life story during the course of the meal, from her childhood to her childless marriage to her husband’s death, then her recent years of looking after her increasingly fragile widowed mother. She had even revealed how much she resented her younger brother’s not having helped with their mother, something she hadn’t even told Jessie.

      Kane had made all the right noises at the appropriate places. He had a knack with sympathetic murmurs, that was for sure.

      Emily had tried to outdo Dora, giving Kane a minute-by-minute description of everything she did every day, pausing for words of praise at intervals, which she duly got.

      Jessie smiled wryly down at her daughter as she tucked the sheet around her. Cheeky little devil. A right little flirt too, fluttering her long eyelashes up at Kane all the time.

      Jessie had steadfastly not fluttered or flattered or flirted with the man in any way all evening. But despite her keeping a safe distance, he’d still got to her. A quiet look here. A smile there.

      Oh, yes, he’d got to her. Made her want things she hated herself for wanting. Not just sex. But more. Too much more.

      He was the devil in disguise, tempting her, tormenting her. She knew she should resist him, but feared she was fighting a losing battle. All she could salvage was a bit of pride by not making her surrender too easy. Jessie suspected that Kane Marshall had always found winning much too easy. It would do him good to work for her conquest, such as it would be. Nothing special to him. Just another bit of skirt. Another notch on his gun.

      Jessie wondered how many women there’d been since he’d split with his wife. She resolved to never let him know he was the first man she’d even looked at since Lyall, let alone wanted this badly.

      ‘All finished,’ she said brusquely as she marched from the bedroom into the living room. ‘Let’s go.’

      He was sitting on the sofa, the one that ran along the wall opposite the television. It was a very roomy sofa. His suit jacket, she noted, had been removed and was draped over one of the kitchen chairs. His tie was there as well, and the top button of his business shirt was undone.

      Clearly, he had seduction on his mind, not leaving.

      A tremor raced through Jessie.

      ‘You have a very intelligent little girl,’ he said as he snapped shut the book he’d been flicking through, placed it on the side-table next to the sofa and stood up. ‘Very sweet, too,’ he added.

      ‘Unlike her mother,’ Jessie snapped, once again folding her arms across her chest.

      ‘Oh, I suspect the mother could be even sweeter than the daughter,’ he said as he walked slowly towards her, bypassing the chair with the jacket and tie. ‘In the right circumstances.’

      ‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ she warned when he was less than an arm-length away.

      She was standing in the middle of the kitchenette, with her back not far from the kitchen sink.

      He stopped and frowned at her. ‘You do realise you are being ridiculous,’ he said softly.

      Was she?

      Possibly. But she wasn’t about to back down.

      ‘I will not have sex with you with my daughter sleeping in the next room.’

      His eyebrows lifted. ‘Sex was not what I had in mind for now, Jessie. Just a kiss. Or two.’

      ‘Huh! Men like you don’t stop at a kiss or two.’

      He frowned. ‘Men like me,’ he murmured. ‘Now, I wonder what you mean by that? Presumably nothing very complimentary. I suspect you’ve already lumped me in with the type of divorced guy who wants to sow his wild oats, with no strings attached. Or perhaps the sleazebags you told me about who target single mothers because they think they’re desperates. Am I right?’

      ‘Something like that.’

      ‘You’re wrong. I’m nothing like that at all.’

      ‘I only have your word for that.’

      ‘I haven’t been with a woman since my divorce,’ he shocked her by saying. ‘Natalie was the last woman I slept with.’

      Jessie blinked. It was over a year since he’d left his wife! It didn’t seem possible. A man like him, so handsome and virile-looking. Women would have been throwing themselves at him all the time.

      ‘But why? Are you seriously undersexed or something?’

      He laughed. ‘You wish.’

      ‘But…but…’

      ‘Look, I guess after the failure of my marriage I became a bit wary, and very selective. Casual sex held little appeal. I wanted a real relationship with an intelligent woman who wanted the same things I wanted.’

      A career woman, she interpreted that to mean. One who’d give him company and sex, but not expect him to fulfill the traditional roles as husband and father of her children.

      Jessie couldn’t see a single mother with a demanding four-year-old filling those requirements. Not on a permanent basis.

      ‘Then last Friday night,’ he went on, ‘I was hit by a thunderbolt. You. Suddenly, I didn’t care what you were or who you were. I just had to have you. Be with you. Make mad, passionate love to you.’

      She looked away from his eyes, lest he see the same crazy compulsion in hers. He reached out to turn her face back to the front again, his fingers both gentle and possessive. Her arms—suddenly heavy—slipped out of their crossed mode to hang loosely by her sides.

      ‘You want that too, Jessie,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t deny it. I’ve seen the desire in your eyes. And the fear. You think I’ll hurt you. You and Emily. But I won’t. I promise. I’d cut out my heart before I did anything to hurt either of you. I can see how special you are together. More special than any mother and daughter I have ever known. I want only good things for you both. Trust me. I’m one of the good guys. Now kiss me, Jessie Denton.’

      She didn’t kiss him. Because he kissed her first, cupping her face and taking her mouth with his, not waiting long before prying her lips open and sending his tongue to meet hers. The contact was electric, firing a heat that raced through her veins and skin, spreading like a bushfire raging out of control. Her arms rose of their own accord to slide around his body, her palms cementing themselves to his back as she pulled him closer. Then closer still.

      He moaned deep in his throat, the sound an echo of what was going through her own head. The yearning for even closer contact was acute, but they couldn’t be any closer if they tried. They were already glued together, mouth to mouth, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, thigh to thigh.

      The anticipation of how he would feel, filling her to the utmost, took Jessie’s breath away. If only she wasn’t wearing jeans. A skirt could have been lifted, panties thrust aside. They could have done it right there and then, standing up. She’d never done it like that, standing up. She’d never even thought about it before.

      She thought about it now and literally went weak at the knees. Did he feel her falling? Was that why he pushed her back up against the sink, to stop her from falling to the floor?

      Jessie instinctively

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