“Then admit it. You avoid me.”
“Very well.” He drew to a stop. “I avoid you.”
“Now tell me why.”
He turned to face her, and his ice-blue eyes burned into hers. But he didn’t say a word.
Kate’s breath left her lungs in a sigh, and her shoulders fell. “Come along,” she coaxed. “Say it. It’s all right. After all these years, I think it would be a mercy to hear someone speak the truth. Just be honest.”
In an impulsive move, she reached for his hand and brought it to her face, touching his fingertips to her birthmark. He tried pull back, but she wouldn’t let him escape. If she had to live with this mark every day, he could bear to touch it just this once.
She stepped closer, pressing her pigment-stained temple to his palm. His hand was cool.
She said, “This is the reason. Isn’t it? The reason you don’t take an interest. The reason no men take an interest.”
“Miss Taylor, I—” His jaw tensed. “No. It isn’t like that.”
“Then what is it?”
No reply.
Her face burned. She wanted to beat at his chest, crack him open. “What is it? For God’s sake, what is it about me you find so intolerable? So wretchedly unbearable you can’t even stand to be in the same room?”
He muttered an oath. “Stop provoking me. You won’t like the answer.”
“I want to hear it anyhow.”
He plunged one hand into her hair, startling a gasp from her lips. Strong fingers curled to cup the back of her head. His eyes searched her face, and every nerve ending in her body crackled with tension. The sinking sun threw a last flare of red-orange light between them, setting the moment ablaze.
“It’s this.”
With a flex of his arm, he pulled her into a kiss.
And he kissed her the way he did everything. Intensely, and with quiet force. His lips pressed firm against hers, demanding a response.
Acting out of pure instinct, Kate shoved at his chest. “Release me.”
“I will. But not yet.”
His grip kept her immobile. She had no escape.
Nevertheless, she didn’t fear him. No, she feared whatever was rapidly filling the space between them. The raw hunger in his eyes. This heat welling between their bodies. The sudden heaviness in her limbs, her abdomen, her br**sts. The mad acceleration of her pulse. The air around them seemed charged with intent. And not all of it was on his side.
He bent to kiss her again, and this time her instincts were different.
She stretched to meet him halfway.
When his strong lips touched hers, she went soft everywhere. He pulled her close, wrapping his other arm about her waist. She didn’t even try to resist. The voice of her conscience went mute, and her eyelids fluttered in exquisite surrender. She sighed into the kiss. A shameless confession of longing.
His lips were so warm. And for all his cool, stony appearance, he tasted delicious and comforting. Like freshly baked bread, mixed with some faint memory of bitters by the pint. She had a vision of him earlier that day, drinking in a dimly lit tavern. Alone. The poignant solitude of that image made her want to hold him. She had to settle for clutching his coat lapels, nestling close to his chest.
She let her lips fall apart, the better to breathe him in. He caught her top lip between his, then sipped at the lower. As though he craved the taste of her, too.
He brushed firm kisses to the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the pounding pulse in her throat. Each press of his lips was swift and strong. She could feel each kiss’s imprint linger like a fiery brand on her skin. He was marking her with stamps of his approval.
Her passion-swelled mouth . . . Wanted.
Her softly arching neck . . . Desired.
The sweep of her cheekbone . . . Lovely.
And last—the wine-splashed mark at her temple . . . Sweet.
His kiss lingered there for several moments. His breath moved in and out, stirring her hair. Standing like this, pressed so close to him, she could feel the barely restrained power coursing through his body. His whole being shuddered with palpable desire.
Then he pulled away.
She clung to his coat, dizzied. “I—”
“Don’t be concerned. That won’t happen again.”
“It won’t?”
“No.”
“Then why did it happen in the first place?”
He put a single fingertip under her chin, tilting her face to his. “Don’t ever—ever—think no man wants you. That’s all.”
That’s all?
She stared up at the hardened, handsome, impossible man. He would kiss her at sunset in a field of heather, make her feel beautiful and desired, set her whole body throbbing with sensation . . . only to set her back on her feet and say, “That’s all”?
His weight shifted, as though he would retreat.
“Wait.” She tightened her grip and held him in place. “What if I want more?”
Chapter Four
More.