She shifted in his arms, glancing up at him.
He pulled back only far enough to return her gaze. She was smiling, and he noticed a hint of a dimple in her right cheek. Without warning, he found himself fighting the urge to trace the crease with his tongue. How would her skin taste? “I didn't forget.”
“You didn't?” Her laughter faded a bit.
“Nope.”
“But you're not sneezing.”
“I know.” What Garrett was doing was taking a swift, mental inventory of every place where Murphy's soft, warm body touched him. There were a lot of places, and he contemplated every one. Thoroughly. He was very much aware of the shapely, silk-encased thigh beneath his splayed palm.
Her expression only half serious, she cupped his cheeks in her hands and opened her mouth to say…something. Whatever it was, the words never came; they clogged in her throat when her gaze descended, sweeping hotly over his lips. Her laughter—rather, what was left of it—evaporated.
Garrett sucked in a shaky breath; it was filled with the sweet, soapy scent of Murphy McKenna. “Ninety-nine point forty-four percent pure,” he whispered, his voice raw and husky.
“Huh?”
He shook his head, his hands rising, his palms blanketing the back of hers. Murphy's fingers opened; Garrett's settled between them. Her gaze never left his lips; his skin burned under the scrutiny. He wanted, needed, ached to kiss her.
“It's that other point fifty-six percent, the part you try so damn hard to hide, that gets to me, sweetheart,” he murmured as, his lips ravenous for the taste of her, descended.
“Garrett, what are you talking abou—?”
His mouth crashed down on hers, and he swallowed the rest of her words. Murphy, in turn, swallowed his husky groan of pleasure. She opened for him willingly. His tongue swept her mouth; like a man dying of thirst, he drank in the flavor of her.
Ah, God, she tasted good! Sweeter than honey, more potent than whiskey; a combination that would have knocked Garrett to his knees had he been standing. She tasted exactly like he remembered, as he'd dreamed she would. No, she tasted better.
There was so much he wanted to say, to ask. Her job and what had happened with it in the last three weeks being the most prominent. It would have to wait. He couldn't find the air to breathe, let alone talk.
Not that it mattered. Talking wasn't what he wanted to do right now, anyway. Oh, no, far from it! Time for that later. What he wanted to do—right here, right now, so badly he thought he'd go insane—was finish what they'd started in the confines of her Rabbit three weeks ago…when they'd been trapped in a blizzard with no obvious escape…when Murphy had thought they were going to die…when Garrett had thought he might, too, the instant he'd snuck his hand past her unzipped jeans and touched the hot, moist heat of her.
Murphy's tongue tangled with his in a frenzied way that suggested she'd been equally as hungry for the taste of him. A soft moan whispered past her lips when she turned, molding her front more fully to the sculpted hardness of his chest. Her fingers combed through his hair, fisted the sandy strands until his scalp burned. She pulled him closer.
The ragged give and take of her breaths felt torrid and misty against his cheek and jaw. They felt wonderful, as erratic and strained as his own.
The kiss, already at a fever-pitch, turned hot and wet and consuming. Garrett's mouth ate at hers. Murphy's lips sipped at his as though she never wanted the kiss to end. When he moved his attention lower, over the curve of her chin to the outer side of her neck, she threw her head back and released a shuddering sigh that cut through him like a knife.
His hands splayed her back. The fringe of her hair tickled his knuckles.
He'd asked her once, in the doctor's office in Greenville, what would have happened if Stephen and his truck hadn't shown up when they did. The question, and Murphy's too-vague answer, had tormented Garrett ever since.
Now he knew.
When his hands lifted, and his trembling fingers closed over the top seed pearl button at the base of her neck, he had his answer. She made no move to stop him. If anything, the way she squirmed in his lap—God that felt good!—said she was as eager as he was to get rid of the cumbersome barrier of clothing separating his hot, hungry flesh from hers.
Garrett's spirits soared when that theory proved itself out twofold. Murphy released his hair and her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt. Unlike Garrett, who was trying to be slow and careful, the way she released his buttons was rough and impatient. He'd no more freed half of hers when she parted his shirt wide and, with a whispered moan of appreciation, splayed her palms over his naked chest.
Garrett kissed her neck, suckled a salty patch of her skin into his mouth, his soul shaking from the contact. It felt like she'd literally burned the imprint of her hands into his flesh, so hot, so good did her touch feel. And even if she had, he wouldn't have minded a bit being branded by this woman.
But only if he could brand her in the same fashion.
It seemed to take forever, but he freed the buttons trailing down her spine. He parted the white linen plackets, hesitated for one throbbing heartbeat, then lowered the blouse over her the front of her shoulders, down her arms.
He sat back and watched, fascinated, as her creamy skin was revealed with nerve-shattering slowness.
Garrett's breath hitched when he saw that, instead of the cotton bra he'd expected, she was barely contained by a skimpy, peach lace demi-style underwire that gave her mouth-wateringly firm breasts a seductive uplift.
He tossed her shirt aside; it fluttered to the floor, landing in a puddle of spilled coffee and milk.