Cody Walker's Woman

“On what?”

Her nonchalant question didn’t fool him. “On how I felt about Mandy back then.”

She glanced up. “Back then?” she asked gruffly. “Or even now?”

His sixth sense was telling him his answer mattered to her. “Back then,” he said softly. Then he added with a complete honesty he didn’t stop to question, “And for a long time afterward.” He breathed deeply and let the air out slowly. “But not anymore.”

In the silence that followed, Cody watched as a red-tailed hawk lazily circled the sky, then suddenly dived toward the earth. Keira’s gaze also followed the hawk until it disappeared from view. Then, in a voice so casual he knew it was calculated to hide how she really felt, she asked, “Are you sure?”

Their eyes met, and Cody saw something in the depths of Keira’s brown eyes that shook him, an emotion he was afraid to name. “I’m sure,” he said, a second before his mouth descended on hers.

If anyone had told him his thirty-seven-year-old body could react to a simple kiss as if he were seventeen, he wouldn’t have believed it. But then, it wasn’t really a simple kiss. And his body was rock hard and hurting before he knew it.

Those firm lips, lips he’d once thought of as unkissable, melted beneath his. His arms slid around her, drawing her close, and closer, as the kiss went on. In some part of him he knew he should stop, but when she moaned softly deep in her throat and her hand came up around his neck, all rational thought deserted him.

They broke apart to breathe, but he couldn’t let her go. His blood was pounding in his veins, and his breath rasped in his throat. He wanted...wanted...

His lips found hers again. His hands threaded through her red-gold curls, and they were just as soft as he’d imagined they would be. Then his hands were cupping her face, and he was kissing her eyes, her cheeks, the hollow beneath her ear. And she was kissing him back. He might have been able to stop if not for that. At least that was what a corner of his brain said, but he knew it was a lie. Kissing Keira was rapidly becoming an obsession.

And not just kissing her. He desperately wanted to touch her in other places—soft, secret places. He wanted to know if she would melt there for him, too, the way her lips did. He wanted to taste every inch of her skin, to fill his senses with her, to hear her call his name when he brought her to the peak...and beyond.

She was still wearing her jacket, and he needed to feel her, to touch her everywhere. He whispered her name and pulled away slightly, his right hand sliding between their bodies to fondle her breast beneath the open jacket. Her unexpected whimper stopped him cold.

He drew back from her. She averted her face from his, but he caught her chin, forcing it up. Her eyes gave her away, and he knew. His face contracted in pain, and he cursed himself silently. “Keira, I...” He swallowed hard. He leaned his forehead against hers. “God, I’m sorry. I don’t know my own strength. I didn’t realize I...”

She shook her head slightly. “You told me to scream, but I couldn’t, so...”

Cody remembered the way he’d roughly assaulted her the night they’d met, the way he’d ripped her blouse open and groped her until she screamed, and was devastated. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered brokenly.

“You did what you had to do to rescue me—to rescue both of us,” she maintained fiercely, defending him and his actions. “It was the best way you could think of at the time. And I already told you I bruise easily.” Her face softened suddenly; her eyes softened even more as her right hand captured his left one and brought it to her right breast. “You can touch me here,” she invited in a breath of a whisper.

But the spell, or whatever it was that had gripped Cody, was broken. His desire ebbed, replaced by self-recrimination. He pulled abruptly away from her and stood, putting distance between him and temptation.

“Why don’t you just call me a son of a bitch and get it over with?” he asked, his anger at his earlier behavior forcing bitterness into his voice that was aimed at himself.

But she misunderstood. He could see it in her expression as she wrapped her arms around herself protectively. Despite that, she said firmly, “Because I don’t think of you that way. How many times do I have to tell you?”