Cherished Beginnings by Pamela Browning Read Free Book Online Page B

remove her midwife's kit from his saddlebag. "Don't you go out with them?" he asked a bit sharply.
    Maura shook her head. "No. I'm not much into socializing." She had the craziest impulse to tell him how the very idea of a party frightened her, that she didn't remember how to dance and wouldn't have the nerve to drink a cocktail. She cast her eyes down. That at least was a reaction that came almost second nature.
    She waited for him to open his saddlebag, but he didn't. "I'll need my things," she said.
    "Oh, of course," he said, and he unbuckled the saddlebag, fumbling in the dark, and removed her leather bag. As she took it from him, their fingers brushed, and his touch fluttered through her, warm as the night wind.
    Silently he walked her to the door. Only a single porch spotlight was lit in this modern house of angles and glass, the light picking out the roughness of the weathered boards and glinting on the wide glass expanses of the windows.
    She turned to him in the glare of the spotlight, and a glance at his face arrested all thought. His eyes pulled her into their depths, treating her to a glimpse of the man's underlying sensuality and the passion beneath his smooth outer veneer. He wasn't trying to hide it, and yet she sensed a new reserve in his attitude toward her.
    "I'll see that you get your car back tomorrow," he said.
    She tried to smile, but she was suddenly so tired. "Thank you for everything," she told him, her voice low.
    The smoldering in his eyes pierced through her self-consciousness, and in that breathtaking moment Maura knew he had thrown aside his reserve and was going to kiss her. Like a child frightened of the unknown, she whirled quickly, running, but he was too quick for her.
    His hands were hot against her skin, his arms viselike as he wrenched her around to face him. The current that passed from him to her was electric, passionate. Maura had no time to voice even a token protest as his lips crushed hers in a kiss that took possession of her mouth in a way she had never dreamed a kiss could do.
    Releasing her mouth but not her body, Xan pressed her back into the shadowed alcove of the door, using his lean hard length to pin her against the rough siding so she couldn't move.
    "I've been wanting to do this ever since I saw you making something beautiful out of a life's beginning back in Annie Bodkin's house," he said unsteadily. "You were so lovely—you are so lovely."
    He drew her into a kiss so absorbing and passionate that she wanted to die from the exquisite sensation of it. His tongue burned against her lips, and without another thought she opened to him, only distantly aware of his body, every surging muscle of it, imprisoning her against the wall.
    Sweetly and insistently his hand skimmed its way upward and cupped the lush curve of her breast over her thin blouse, lifting the full weight of it in his hand so that for one wild moment she felt owned by him and wanted to yield to him totally and completely. When he sensed her impassioned response to his caress, he slowly trailed his tongue down the full length of her tender throat, breathing deeply of the scent of her in the shadowed hollow above the neckline of her garment.
    But this is insane, she thought in protest, struggling to regain control of herself. She threw her head back, breathing deeply of the night air damp and fragrant of the marsh, but that only aligned her breasts closer to his seeking lips. When he lifted her voluptuous breast to his mouth, contouring the shape of her with his gentle knowing fingers, she gasped.
    "Maura," he whispered, and she cradled his bowed head in her arms, pressing his moist lips to her even as she knew she must stop. "I can't believe you don't want this. You're melting in my arms." His breath was hot through her clothing, and his mouth left a damp spot there that clung to her skin.
    She let her arms go limp and dropped them to her sides. "I'm not ready," she told him evasively, the words a mere whisper.