Page 25 of Tasting Fire
“Cash, I didn’t mean—”
“Far be it for people in the mountains of North Carolina to have ambitions or careers that rival yours. Why did you come back here at all?”
Why was she trying to avoid telling Cash? Because she was embarrassed at the state of her life? Or because she might blurt out that she still had feelings for him?
Then again, it was past time for a little honesty.
“I don’t have a fiancé, and I was fired from my job at BaltGen,” she said in a rush.
“What?” He shook his head as if trying to filter her words through his brain. “But when I asked if you missed him—”
“I thought you meant my dad.” Which was another topic she wasn’t ready to discuss, with Cash or anyone else.
“Why were you fired?”
“Do you want the reason Oliver Amory put in my personnel file or the real one?”
“I’ve only ever wanted the truth from you.”
“I’d had a horrible day at work, and he proposed, if you can call it that, right there in the ER. It was like he was doing nothing more important than scheduling a lunch meeting. But when I turned him down, he told me BaltGen no longer needed my services.”
“So you were forced to crawl back to Steele Ridge.”
“That’s not fair and you know it. I could’ve had my choice of ER jobs even without a reference from BaltGen’s chief of staff.” They stopped in front of the Murchison building, and she gestured up toward her apartment windows. “I want to be here. I love my hometown.”
“Which you showed so eloquently by leaving.”
“Yes, I had to leave to become a doctor, and I won’t apologize for building a successful career, but...”
“But what?”
“I wasn’t building the life I really wanted.”
“You are something else. Never satisfied, are you? And now you think you can find the life you’re looking for here, in Steele Ridge?”
“Yes.” She risked putting her hand against his cheek, savored the prickly feel of short scruff. Her pulse sped up at the simple contact.
“At one time, I wanted to build a life with you,” he said, his voice edged with bitterness.
“We were young. Naive,” Emmy whispered. “But the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”
Cash took a step, moving closer until Emmy was forced to back up. The bricks of the Murchison building caught the fabric of her shirt, the rough texture at her back making her skin ripple. She lifted her hands to his chest, and her fingers curled into the softness of his T-shirt.
He leaned in, lowering his face until their lips were within breathing distance. “Pain is a helluva teacher. I’ve gotten some smarts since you left, Emmy. But apparently not enough, because I still want to kiss you.”
Standing right here on Main Street, Emmy had the impulse to loop her arms around Cash’s neck and jump into his arms. Squeeze her thighs around his waist and plaster her front to his. That was the kiss she wanted.
But that was too much, way too soon.
Still, she couldn’t resist touching him, so she lifted to her toes and pressed her mouth to his. Their long-overdue kiss was just a touch of lips. A sweet slow slide that was supposed to soothe away his anger. Instead, it yanked the very breath out of Emmy. Every millimeter of her skin was suddenly clamoring for his touch, simply because she was holding back the torrent of need inside her.
Then Cash skimmed the tip of his tongue along her bottom lip. Thank goodness the wall was at her back or her knees might’ve been in trouble.
She grasped for his waistband to steady herself and hooked two fingers inside, against his hot skin. But when she tugged, he didn’t budge, just slowly heated up the kiss, degree by degree.
Good Lord, he’d learned a thing or two since the last time they kissed. And he’d been a knock-her-socks-off kisser then.
When Cash finally opened his mouth over hers and took the kiss to tongues, hot breath, and heaving chests, Emmy’s brain stopped thinking and turned everything over to her body.
