Borrowed Baby by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page B

than ready to meet him three quarters of the way, but that first move had to be his.
    He turned away and she wanted to kick him for being a coward. There could be no other reason he hadn't kissed her. She had seen the desire flare in his eyes, had felt his gaze hot and wanting on her face. Why hadn't he followed through? What was he afraid of?
    Well, there was a baby to see to, so her own needs had to go on hold. "You want me to check her out before you take her?" She came up beside him.
    He wasn't following her again. Damn it, why didn't the woman talk straight? "Check her out?"
    Casie was waving her hands about. Liz took one of them and curled her fingers around it. Casie gurgled in recognition.
    "To see if she's wet. Or would you rather do the honors yourself?" Liz raised her brow questioningly, barely hiding her amusement.
    Griff took a step back from the chair-surrounded bed, as if to give her room. "No, that's okay, you go right ahead."
    "You're all heart." She reached for a diaper from the pile on the nightstand. "It's made of stone, but you're all heart."
    "How would you know what my heart's made of?" he demanded, his voice dangerously low.
    He shouldn't have even bothered answering her, he told himself. Yet he had. Why was he allowing this woman to get under his skin this way?
    She deposited the wet diaper into the blue diaper pail, and glanced over her shoulder. "Then why didn't you kiss me just before?" The question exploded from her lips.
    Nice going, Liz. You really know how to play hard to get.
    Well, she had gone this far, no use leaving the rest dangling in the air. "You wanted to." Expertly, she tucked the baby's bottom onto the new diaper and secured it.
    If ever a woman deserved the label "impossible," it was the one before him. "I also wanted to strangle you a minute ago, but I didn't do that, either."
    "Murder's against the law." She smoothed own Casie's dress. "Kissing isn't."
    In a duel of words, he knew he was outmatched. The past half hour had taught him that. Still, he didn't back off. "Maybe it's against mine."
    "Laws are made to protect people."
    "Exactly."
    She turned, a challenge in her eyes. "Are you afraid of me?"
    He should have just ignored her, should have just taken his niece and driven away. Instead, he met her challenge head-on. He had done smarter things in his time.
    Afterward, when he tried to explore his reasons, he wasn't sure why he had done it, why he had walked into the lion's den and exposed himself to the danger that lurked within. Maybe it was to show her that he wasn't afraid. Maybe it was to show himself. Maybe it was just to silence her for a moment. More than likely it was because he really wanted to, because the question of what it would be like to kiss her had lingered in the back of his mind ever since she had winked at him yesterday afternoon.
    And when he could think, he also realized that his earlier assessment about being blown away had been very, very accurate.
    The kiss had not been gentle. There had been anger in it, then passion and wonder had begun turning around in his head like a fiery kaleidoscope that temporarily removed him from the real world. He had meant to silence her. He had never meant to wound himself.
    But he did.
    There was a laugh on Liz's lips when he began to kiss her. It vanished as his unbridled desire, naked and raw, surged up to meet her. Kissing Griff was like being sucked into the center of a tornado. There had been no time for her to prepare for what was happening, no time for her to build up to this. No way of knowing that there were going to be bombs bursting in air.
    His kiss ripped her away from her bedroom and transported her to Oz in one mind-blinding flash. Anchoring herself by putting her hands on his arms, she rose up on her toes, letting herself go, letting herself fall into the swirling abyss that he created for her.
    Hungers rose, full-bodied and demanding, within Griff. He cupped the back of her head with his hand, tipping her