LITMIR.BIZ

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little stunned, Christine watched him go. Got the distinct impression that he was running away, when only moments ago he hadn’t been able to get close enough fast enough.

      She was still standing in the same spot when he peeled away from the curb. Her lips were still tingling from his kiss when she went to bed half an hour later. And her mind—Lord above, her mind was still spinning.

      Her experience with sex was limited and for the most part unsatisfying. Her fault, is what she’d always figured. She didn’t do well with touching. Didn’t do well with trust. Sexual encounter made for more tension than passion. But Jacob Thorne had just proven there were exceptions to some rules she’d taken for granted as unbreakable.

      To her utter surprise, she’d liked being touched by him. She’d loved being kissed by him. Trust hadn’t even been an issue. Or maybe it had been the entire issue and she’d instinctively trusted him when he’d drawn her in, wrapped her tight and made love to her mouth with the enthusiasm and the expertise of a lover. One who sensed exactly what she wanted, exactly what she needed, and made it clear with the touch of his hand, the heat of his mouth, that he knew precisely how to deliver.

      And he had delivered—until he’d abruptly dragged himself away, looked at her as though he didn’t know how she’d ended up in his arms and hadn’t been able to leave fast enough.

      He had acted as though it had been a colossal mistake to kiss her.

      But it hadn’t felt like a mistake. It had felt…wow. It had felt incredible.

      Now, however, she felt incredibly confused.

      And alone. Most of all, alone.

      Of all the things in the world she’d ever wanted, ever dreamed or fantasized about, being alone for the rest of her life hadn’t been one of them. Never had she been more aware that the choices she’d made and the barri ers she’d erected might have guaranteed that she always would be alone.

      She was so lost in those dismal conclusions that it didn’t even dawn on her until much later that they had never gotten around to discussing the hoops she had to jump through to get him to give her Jess Golden’s things.

       Chapter Six

      Later that night, Jake sat at the bar in the Texas Cattleman’s Club nursing a beer. Normally he found a certain amount of contentment in the sprawling, exclusive gentlemen’s club Henry “Tex” Langley had established nearly one hundred years ago. Everything about the place was male, from the rich, dark paneling, heavy leather furniture and massive fireplace to the huge oil paintings, animal heads and antique guns displayed on the walls.

      He needed the no-frills, no-female atmosphere. But tonight instead of enjoying it, he was brooding. He’d left Chrissie Travers over two hours ago. Kissable, crushable, vulnerable, incredible Chrissie Travers.

       Lord above, could he get lost in that woman’s kisses. And he had been lost—without-a-map-or-a-compass lost—until his brains had finally come in and, with a mad scramble, he’d gotten his bearings. Then he’d run, not walked, away from the glut of emotions that had scuffled with his better judgment.

      He kept seeing her and her sweet, soft, swollen lips. Her and her gray-green eyes, wide open and wondering.

       Whoa.

      Seemed to be the word of the night.

      “You look like you’re in a mood.”

      He glanced over his shoulder, surprised to see his twin brother, Connor, ease onto a bar stool beside him. It was like looking into a mirror. Folks still remarked that if it weren’t for the hair, they wouldn’t be able to tell the twins apart. Connor wore his dark brown hair in a clipped military cut—a holdover from his Army Ranger days. Jake preferred to let his hair grow, sometimes to the point of being shaggy—a holdover from his rebellious youth.

      “I’m in a mood?” Jake grunted and returned his attention to his beer. “This from Mr. Mood Swing himself.”

      Immediately Jake regretted the offhand remark. Par for the course, he always seemed to say the wrong thing to Connor lately, and in this case Connor was right. Jake was in a mood.

      Jake motioned to the bartender. “Give us two more, would ya, Joe? Seems the Thorne boys are of the same mind tonight.” He turned toward his brother, prepared to make atonement. “What brings you out this time of night?”

       It was getting close to last call. Connor wasn’t known for frequenting the bar, so Jake had been surprised when his brother had sat beside him. Jake had been so mired in his own pickle, though, he hadn’t given it much thought at first.

      “Couldn’t sleep,” Connor said with a throwaway shrug as he reached for his longneck and took a deep pull.

      Tell me about it, Jake thought but didn’t say as much. Ever since he’d left Chris Travers standing at her front door, he’d been as revved as a DuPont Chevy on NASCAR race day.

      “Figured there’d be a poker game goin’ on,” Connor added while Jake huddled over his beer and tried to forget the things that prickly woman had done to him. Like turn him on, fire him up and wring him out.

      “Game broke up about midnight,” Jake said. He’d turned down the offer to join in. In his state of mind, he would have lost the business and wouldn’t even have cared.

      But he wasn’t so self-consumed that he didn’t notice something was up with Connor. Jake cared about his brother. Connor hadn’t been the same since returning from the Middle East. He had followed their father’s footsteps in an attempt to win the old man’s favor by becoming a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger and then an engineer.

      Jake, an adrenaline junkie, had opted for a different type of career adventure. After his four-year hitch with the Army, during which time he took college credit classes that he finished up at University of Texas, he’d gone to work for Red Adair fighting oil-well fires.

      He’d became so addicted to the danger, he’d wanted a greater hand in it and left Red to form his own company, Hellfire, International. While his twin had been fighting terrorists in the Middle East, Jake made his own statement for freedom and patriotism by fighting oil fires in the same war-torn countries.

      They’d both been there. Now they were back. And some things had never changed. Such as sensing when there was a problem.

      “Heard from the old man lately?” Jake asked, wondering if a recent set-to with their father was at the root of Connor’s dark mood.

      Connor’s grunt gave Jake his answer. Yeah, Connor had had another tangle with their father. Even though his folks had moved to Florida, James Thorne still could reach out and touch all kinds of raw nerves.

      When Connor had retired from active duty, he’d made the ultimate sacrifice. He’d taken over the family engineering firm when their father retired. Jake owed his twin big-time for that. It had gotten the old man off his back.

      Some would call his father’s repeated wish for Jake to take over the business the burden of the favored son. Jake called it something else—damn unfortunate.

      He knew that their father’s blatant favoritism toward Jake had always made Connor feel like second banana. Oh, Connor had never said as much. He didn’t have to. Actions spoke louder than any words. Even when they were kids, Jake often had talked his way out of a sound pounding with the old man’s belt. Connor, on the rare occasion he bucked the old man, never even tried. He just took the beating. And as a result, Jake had watched Connor turn deeper into himself, bottle up his pain and anger until the dark mood would hit him.

      Like tonight.

      “Tell you what, brother mine,” Jake said, slinging an arm over Connor’s shoulder, knowing there were some things embedded so deep, no amount of heart-to-heart sessions would drag them out, “how about we blow this place, dive into a case of brew and the two of us get rip-roaring drunk? I haven’t tied one on in a coon’s age. You game?”

      That

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