Page 27 of Killer on the Homestead
Still that almost touch skittered through her like the sizzle of a lightning strike that hit close enough to worry about. “N-no.”
“Did you just stutter?” he asked, too much amusement in his tone as he leaned close enough that she could feel his breath against her cheek. He smelled like clean, crisp winter. A hint of pine.
But she didnotstutter. Wouldn’t. Her scoffing laugh was high-pitched even to her own ears. But he was soclose, and hewas so damntall. His eyes felt like magnets. Like entire solar systems that sucked her into their orbit.
She knew better than to be sucked in, than to get mixed up in anything that wasn’t light and easy. Anything she wasn’t in complete control of, and boy, was she not in control of this.
It was just…she could almost imagine it. His hands on her. His mouth on her. She could imagine it so well she was having a hard time reminding herself why she shouldn’t let it happen. There was a reason.
Wasn’t there?
“Rosalie.” He said her name in a way she couldn’t even describe. It was low, almost…pained. Like he felt even half the two polarizing things tearing her apart. She couldfeelhis dark eyes searching her for some explanation, some answer, because for whatever reason there was thisquestionbetween them, an unknowing she wanted an answer to.
And at the very same time, didn’t want at all.
“Let’s just see,” he murmured. “Let me.”
It wasn’t a question. There was no answer she was supposed to have. It was almost an order, not that she ever took orders.
Ever.
But shelet himanyway.
His mouth touched hers, the lightest, nothing touch. His eyes were still open and on hers. An answer to a question she didn’t understand, because there were too many layers to it. To him. To her.
That would have been enough to have her stepping away, but it was like he sensed it. Her closing in and up, and he didn’t let her. He deepened the kiss instead, bringing his hand up to cup her head and pull her in.
It was like being catapulted into a carnival ride. All spins, and dips, and a strange weightless joy. He didn’t taste like cottoncandy though. No, there was an edge to him, a danger at the periphery of all that summer sweetness.
And Rosalie had always been a little too intrigued by danger, the rush of it all. Because danger was simple, and temporary. It destroyed in little ways.
It was secrets, and time, and believing too much that destroyed in big ways. And that was what seemed to twist inside of her now. It was too big, too…something.
But the kiss was like a drug, even knowing it was a bad idea, she shouldn’t do it, and it would be terrible for her, she sank into it, and him, and the sweet twining of want and need.
He eased his mouth away, his hand still cupped around her head, keeping her close. Too close. She blinked up at him, not altogether certain she was breathing. His dark, intense gaze just held hers, with a seriousness she couldn’tbear.
What the hell was she doing?
“I have to go.” She ducked out from his light grip, didn’t look back. She had never been a coward in her life. Not once. But she needed to be one now. “You get all that information. Call me when you do.”
Maybe he said her name, maybe she imagined it. But she got the hell out of Dodge while she could.
Chapter Eight
Though Duncan was tempted to follow her, he didn’t. She’d looked…rattled, and he couldn’t say he loved seeing rattled on steady, sturdy Rosalie Young.
He liked everything else he’d seen. The blush in her cheeks, her blue eyes shaded toward violet, that catch in her breath.
Did he know what he was doing? Hell no. He wasn’t sure where to slot that kiss. He’d never once dipped his toes in complicated waters, because since he’d been twelve years old, and a coach had taken his parents aside after a Little League game and told them he had agift, his one true love and passion had been baseball.
Sure, there’d been women, but there hadn’t been relationships. He didn’t have the time or inclination for complications, even in the offseason.
He didn’t have to be in a relationship with Rosalie, or even know her all that well, to know there was no way to do casual in this world he found himself in.
So it was best that she’d run away.
But he looked around at his new life. Sans baseball—because just before this little interlude, he’d told Scott once more that he had no plans to attempt a comeback, take a coaching job, or anything remotely related to broadcasting.
