Yours, Mine & Ours by Jennifer Greene Read Free Book Online Page B

she was still astonished when Mike—out of the complete blue—pulled her onto his lap.
    The last she knew, they’d been talking, not flirting.
    The last she knew—positively—they’d been talking about celibacy. His intention to be celibate. Her intention to be celibate. Their completely agreeing with each other.
    So the fire started from nothing, came from nowhere. The smolder and snap of sparks suddenly caught, and just as suddenly spread. The heat startledher nerves, her skin, turned her senses incredibly tender. Smoke clogged her brain and fogged her vision. Sirens echoed in her ears—not sirens communicating danger, but a siren song calling mesmerizing, wicked things to her.
    It was just a kiss, for Pete’s sake.
    She’d been kissing boys since she was fourteen. She’d been married. There wasn’t a reason in the universe that this one should be so different.
    But it was.
    He was.
    He’d kind of tumbled her onto his lap. His mouth had found hers before she’d found her balance. It was just all suddenly…there. The solid warmth of his body. The strength in his thighs and chest, the manly smell of him, the swoop of his arms creating a natural cradle.
    And then there was the whole problem with his mouth. His lips were softer than butter. He offered a skim of a taste, then settled in, in a tangle of his taste and hers, the combination unexpectedly explosive.
    She figured she should raise her hand and express a little outrage…but she couldn’t seem to conjure any up. Objections appeared in the back of her mind, but never showed up at the front door.
    This wasn’t nice .
    He didn’t kiss nice .
    He kissed as if he wanted to swallow her whole.
    As if no touch, no kiss, no woman had ever ransomed his attention as she did.
    Thrills shot through her blood as if she were on a roller-coaster ride.
    She shifted, accidentally jamming her elbow into his ribs—but she had to look at him, had to catch her breath. His eyes were as glazed as hers. His breath coming as heavy. His frown just as dark.
    But that made no sense. She went back for another kiss, to figure out what was really going on. A kiss—a few kisses—couldn’t rock a girl’s world. It had to be something else. Maybe some unusual kind of allergy attack. Or maybe pheromones were raining down from the sky. There had to be something that could be logically explained if she just studied it long enough.
    So she studied a long, deep, eyes-closed kiss on him. The experiment failed. It seemed… Well, it seemed that she couldn’t argue with a tsunami. She wrapped her arms around him, held on and just hoped she didn’t drown—or if she was stuck drowning, that he was going down with her.
    She felt his fingers tangling in her hair, holding her still, felt the sudden hard tumescence against her thigh, heard the shuddering breath coming out of him as he lifted his head…then dove back for more of that tsunami business.
    A few hours later, she lifted her head.
    Conceivably only a few minutes had passed, butdefinitely long enough for her to feel both exhausted and energized. Exhausted, as if she craved a nap. Energized, as if the only thing she could think of was jumping him.
    He had dark brown eyes. Liquid brown. The badboy disreputable attitude was gone. Now, she suspected that attitude thing was just a defense. This man, the Mike so close she could see every line and bone on his face, was as serious about life as she was.
    Maybe even as vulnerable.
    â€œI think,” he said slowly, “that we just both found out how big the problem is.” He helped her off his lap. They were both standing against each other for a millisecond, but Mike swiftly retreated to the side of the deck rail.
    â€œA major uh-oh,” she echoed, trying to make her voice sound light and easy. She didn’t want him realizing how wild she’d felt in his arms. How crazy. How totally unlike