Page 33 of Killer on the Homestead
A kiss wasn’t a vow, she told herself as she kissed him back. It was just a kiss, and kisses were fun, she reminded herself, even as his arms came around her and pulled her flush with the long, muscular frame of his body…one arm holding on a little tighter than the other.
And because it did, because she wanted to fix that injury for him in spite of herself, she wrapped her own arms around his neck and held on tight with her two good arms.
His big hand smoothed down her back, and this kiss eased, ended. But he pressed another one to the corner of her mouth, then her jaw, her neck. Soft, almost reverent, and that slowdown had alarm bells trying to sound in her head.
Her heart was vibrating in her chest. She wasn’t sure she could walk straight if she had to. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, but she knew she couldn’t trust it. She knew she had to hate it.
“I’m not starting anything with you, Duncan.” Because that was what this all felt like. A start. And just thethoughthad tears she refused to shed springing to her eyes. Almost like she was painfully, wistfully, desperate for some kind ofstartwith him.
Not in the cards.
Except he made a noncommittal kind of sound, then pressed his mouth to hers again. Soft, a little needy, like a man seeking comfort. And she might have resisted that, she told herself she would have had that strength because needy was dangerous, but then he spoke against her mouth. “Thank you for coming.”
“You already said that,” she returned, not pulling away from him. The fact that he kept saying it warmed her in ways it shouldn’t. In ways she didn’t like. Didn’twantto like.
“I really mean it,” he murmured, still there against her mouth. Like they were fused, connected,right.
“I have to go.” But she wasn’t pushing him away, was she? No, she let his arm stay wound around her, she let his mouth stay on hers.
“You don’thaveto go.”
Tempting. Damn it, why was he so tempting? “You want me to solve a murder or you want to talk me into bed?”
“Why can’t it be both?”
She shouldn’t laugh, but she couldn’t help herself. Nothing was funny about this, and she wanted to accuse him of not taking it seriously. But she’d seen him in there with his parents, how he tried to shield them.
She’d said she protected her own and he’d said “so do I” like it was a vow.
But she wasn’t his, and she wasn’t about to fool herself into thinking there was any way for this to work out. She gave him a nudge, and he went. She refused to acknowledge that his expression, only dimly illuminated by his parents’ porch light, was one of amusement as he let himself be nudged away.
But he didn’t let her go without a parting shot.
“I’ve got a thing for you, Rosalie.”
“Keep thatthingin your pants,” she muttered, even knowing that’s not what he meant. She turned her back to him so she could unlock her truck and jerk her door open.
“You can play that game if you’ve got to, but I don’t.”
She heard it, that hard edge of warning in his tone. She didn’t take the warning. “Last I checked, you played a game for a living.”
“Past tense, as you well know. I’m home now. New life. New…everything. And I’m happy to be patient, to focus on murder investigations. For a time. But only a time.”
“You’ll be sorely disappointed.”
“Why, Rosalie Young, what makes you think I’d be disappointed in a thing about you?” He said it with a grin, but his eyes were serious. He backed away, then slowly turned, and headed back to his parents’ house.
Leaving her there, blinking after him. Rocked to her core.
Because of course she wasn’t disappointing. That wasn’t what she’d meant.
But it felt like he’d lanced her through just the same.
Stay away from this man, Rosalie. Far, far away.
She repeated that mantra all the way home.
Chapter Ten
