Banished by Tamara Gill Read Free Book Online Page B

the kiss. Never had she been kissed with such
passion and need. It was almost as if she could taste his desire for her, his
craving to consume her as his own.
    Chloe kissed him
back. To do so under the passionate onslaught from Cian would have been
impossible to deny. And if truthful with herself, she didn’t want to deny him.
She had wanted to kiss him from the first moment she’d seen him in the bar. No
matter how wrong it was, how bad it made her look, right at this moment she
didn’t care. All that mattered was his touch, his lips on hers and tongue
dancing with her own.
    Cian was as
delicious as he looked.
    He pulled her
against his chest, the awkwardness of the gear stick and handbrake forgotten. Chloe
ran her hands over his taut shoulders and clasped him about his neck. Her
breasts grazed against his shirt and left her almost panting with desire.
    “I want you,” he
said, pulling back and gazing at her.
    Chloe shuddered
and wondered what he saw when he looked at her. “I. Umm.”
    Cian lifted her
chin to gain her attention. It wasn’t necessary, he had her full attention.
    “Chloe?”
    Chloe touched
her lips, swollen and tingling after their kiss. A kiss she never wanted to
end. A pain jabbed in her skull again and she winced. “I must go. I think I’m
getting a headache.” Not to mention what else was aching with no reprieve in
sight. “Goodnight, Cian.”
    This time she
jumped out the car before he could call her back. Should he kiss her, touch or
look at her again, Chloe wasn’t certain she could keep her hands to herself.
What was wrong with her? Never had she acted in such a forward, needy, sex-starved
way.
    She fumbled with
the key and walked inside, shutting the door quickly behind her. How on earth
was she to get through their nature walk tomorrow without her jumping his bones
and having him on some wilderness footpath?
    Chloe stood in the
dark. How indeed.

Chapter Five
    Chloe stepped
over a fallen tree log and all but melted into a puddle of desire when Cian
clasped her arm. She thanked him and walked on. The dense trees obscured the
sunlight at times. A nearby stream trickled and the odd bird call was the only
interruption in the quiet forest. Other than her ragged breaths at having such
a specimen of a man so close to her.
    Her phone rang
and, recognizing Eddy’s number, she quickly answered. She spoke to him about
him moving out and what he’d left at her apartment in London. Chloe turned away
from Cian’s penetrating stare, his intense attention toward her making her
uneasy.
    “Are you all right,
Chloe?” he asked when she hung up.
    Chloe nodded. “It
was Eddy. He’s moved out of our home. He was just telling me where he left the
keys and some other stuff.” She pushed away thoughts of guilt. Eddy sounded
happy. Happier than he’d sounded in a long time. Their break up was a good
thing.
    “He’s back in
London.”
    Chloe pushed
away a low lying fern and continued on. “Yes.”
    He stopped. “So,
you’re here alone and single?”
    “I’m here. Alone,
yes. And single is how I’d like to stay,” she said.
    “You’re not making
this very easy on me are you lass?”
    Chloe heard the
frustration in his tone and dismissed it. She didn’t want to start another
relationship, be it a one night stand or a lasting one. She turned at the sound
of crunching leaves only to find Cian not a foot away from her.
    “Answer me, Chloe?”
    She strode on
not bothering to look and see if he followed. “I’ve answered you already. That
you choose not to believe me is your problem.”
    She cast her
eyes down over the littered walkway. The last thing she needed was to fall over
and have the laird pick her up. The thought of his hands on her body unnerved
her and not in a bad way. She wasn’t herself when around him and that point
scared her most of all.
    Cian pulled her
to a stop. “What does that mean?” His eyes swept her face and Chloe felt a
prickling under her scalp. She instinctively