LITMIR.BIZ

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* *

      Finn Conaill had been trying to work it out in his head. Ever since he’d met her something was tugging him to her. Connecting.

      It must be the family connection, he’d thought. Or it must be her past.

      She looked stubborn, indecisive, defiant.

      She looked afraid.

      She’d taken a step back from him and she was staring down at the bear in her arms as if it was a bomb about to detonate.

      She didn’t want family. She didn’t want home.

      And yet...

      She wanted the teddy. He knew she did.

      By now he had some insight into what her childhood must have been. A kid alone, passed from foster family to foster family. Moved on whenever the ties grew so strong someone wanted her.

      Learning that love meant separation. Grief.

      Learning that family wasn’t for her.

      A cluster of wild pigeons was fussing on the cobblestones near the stables. Their soft cooing was a soothing background, a reassurance that all was well on this peaceful morning. And yet all wasn’t well with this woman before him. He watched her stare down at the teddy with something akin to despair.

      She wanted the teddy. She wanted...more.

      Only she couldn’t want. Wanting had been battered out of her.

      She was so alone.

      Family... The word slammed into his mind and stayed. He’d been loyal to Maeve for so many years he couldn’t remember and he’d thought that loyalty was inviolate. But he’d known Jo for only three days, and somehow she was slipping into his heart. He was starting to care.

      ‘Jo...’ he said into the silence and she stared up at him with eyes that were hopelessly confused, hopelessly lost.

      ‘Jo,’ he said again.

      And what happened next seemed to happen of its own volition. It was no conscious movement on his part, or hers.

      It was nothing to do with them and yet it was everything.

      He took the teddy from her grasp and placed it carefully on the ground.

      He took her hands in his. He drew her forward—and he kissed her.

      Had he meant to?

      He didn’t have a clue. This was unchartered territory.

      For this wasn’t a kiss of passion. It wasn’t a kiss he’d ever experienced before. In truth, in its beginning it hardly felt like a kiss.

      He tilted her chin very gently, with the image of a wild creature strongly with him. She could pull away, and he half expected her to. But she stayed passive, staring mutely up at him before his mouth met hers. Her chin tilted with the pressure of his fingers and she gazed into his eyes with an expression he couldn’t begin to understand. There was a sort of resigned indifference, an expression which should have had him stepping back, but behind the indifference he saw a flare of frightened...hope?

      He didn’t want her indifferent, and it would be worse to frighten her. But the hope was there, and she was beautiful and her mouth was lush and partly open. And her eyes invited him in...

      It was the gentlest of kisses, a soft, tentative exploration, a kiss that understood there were boundaries and he wasn’t sure where they were but he wasn’t about to broach them.

      His kiss said Trust me. His kiss matched that flare of hope he was sure he’d seen. His kiss said, You’re beautiful and I don’t understand it but something inside is drawing me to you. And it said, This kiss is just the beginning.

      * * *

      Her first reaction was almost hysterical. Her roller coaster of emotions had her feeling this was happening to someone other than her.

      But it was her. She was letting the Lord of Glenconaill kiss her.

      Was she out of her mind?

      No. Of course she wasn’t. This was just a kiss, after all, and she was no prude. She was twenty-eight years old and there’d been men before. Of course there had. Nothing serious—she didn’t do serious—but she certainly had fun. And this man was lovely. Gorgeous even. She could take him right now, she thought. She could tug him to her bed, or maybe they should use his bed because hers was ridiculously small. And then she could tear off his gear and see his naked body, which she was sure would be excellent, and she was sure the sex would be great...

      Instead of which, her lips were barely touching his and her body was responding with a fear that said, Go no further. Go no further because one thing she valued above all others was control, and if she let this man hold her...

      Except he was holding her. His kiss was warm and strong and true.

      True? What sort of description was that for a kiss?

      But then, in an instant, she was no longer thinking of descriptions. She wasn’t thinking of anything at all. The kiss was taking over. The kiss was taking her to places she’d never been before. The kiss was...mind-blowing.

      It was as if there’d been some sort of shorting to her brain. Every single nerve ending was snapped to attention, discarding whatever it was they’d been concentrating on and rerouting to her mouth. To his mouth. To the fusing of their bodies.

      To the heat of him, to the strength, to the feeling of solid, fierce desire. For this was no cousinly kiss. This wasn’t even a standard kiss between man and woman or if it was it wasn’t something Jo had ever experienced before.

      She was losing her mind. No, she’d lost it. She was lost in his kiss, melting, moulding against him, opening her lips, savouring the heat, the taste, the want—and she wanted more.

      Her body was screaming for more. That was what all those nerve endings were doing—they’d forgotten their no doubt normally sensible functions and they were screaming, This is where you’re meant to be. Have. Hold.

      This is your...your...

      No.

      Whatever it was, whatever her body had been about to yell, she was suddenly closing down in fright. She was tugging away, pushing, shoving back. He released her the instant she pushed. She stood in the silent courtyard and stared at him as if he had two heads.

      He didn’t have two heads. He was just a guy. Just a stranger who happened to be vaguely related.

      He was just the guy who’d saved her teddy.

      She stared down at the bear at her feet, gasped and stooped to grab it. But Finn was before her, stooping to pick it up before she did. Their gaze met on the way up, and he handed over the bear with all solemnity.

      ‘Was that why we stopped?’ he asked. ‘Because you’d dropped your bear?’

      ‘Don’t...don’t be ridiculous.’

      ‘Then don’t look scared. Sweetheart, it was just a kiss.’

      ‘I’m not your sweetheart.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘And I couldn’t care less about the teddy.’ But she did, she realised.

      Why?

      Because Finn had offered to burn it for her?

      Because Finn had saved it?

      The stupid twisting inside her was still going on and she didn’t understand it. She didn’t want it. It felt as if she was exposing something that hurt.

      ‘We can give these things to charity,’ she managed. ‘That’d be more sensible than burning.’

      ‘Much more sensible,’ he agreed. Then he picked up the giraffe. ‘I’ll still be keeping this lad, though. No one would be wanting a stuffed giraffe with a wobbly neck.’

      ‘I’ll

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