Free Anne Stuart's Out-of-Print Gems by Anne Stuart Page A

expression. “I think I will,” he said softly. And he put his mouth on hers.
    If she’d expected anything at all, it was a light, paternal feathering of her lips. But she hadn’t expected it, and his mouth didn’t brush hers. It covered hers, opening her soft, dry lips against his as he kissed her with a leisurely thoroughness, as if he had the whole night, the whole of his life, to learn her mouth.
    The burning in her chest was fading, replaced by a burning lower, in the pit of her stomach, a crazy longing that was as ridiculous as this entire situation. Common sense didn’t help. She was being seduced by the night, by the man, by her own sickness, and if she had an ounce of strength, she would have kissed him back.
    He lifted his head, inches away from hers, and she could have sworn he was smiling. “That’s what bubble gum tastes like?”
    She couldn’t answer. She wanted him to kiss her again. She was so hot—she wanted him to strip off her clothes and lay her down on that high, soft bed. She wanted him to lie beside her. He was so strong, so invincible that not even the darkness troubled him. But she couldn’t tell him that. She could do nothing but lean against him, pressing her face against the soft white shirt and the bone and muscle beneath it.
    â€œYou’re going to live,” he said, his voice fierce. “You’re not going to leave me. I’m not going to let you go.”
    She’d heard those words before, and knew that somehow Ethan Winslowe was holding her. Ethan Winslowe had kissed her. Ethan Winslowe was keeping her alive. “I’m going to live,” she agreed, her voice no more than a thread of sound, as an unutterable weariness began to wash away the last remnants of consciousness. “I’m not going to leave you,” she whispered. And then the darkness closed in completely, as she gave in.
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    E THAN DIDN’T BOTHER trying to relight the candles after he set Megan’s frail body down on the bed. He didn’t need them to see her, and the wind would just blow them out. He stood over her, watching carefully. Her skin was cooler now, her temperature dropping. It had dropped before, and risen higher again, but somehow he knew that this time it was finally on its way down for good. She’d passed the crisis. Despite everything, she was going to make it.
    I’m not going to leave you, she’d said. Words spoken in fever, in sickness, in gratitude. She hadn’t known what she was saying. And she most certainly hadn’t known to whom, to what, she was saying them. She hadn’t known he had every intention of holding her to that promise.
    No one had ever said that to him before. He’d never wanted it, not since he’d been seven years old and finally accepted his mother’s unwillingness to look at his face.
    But he wanted it this time. Wanted it so much, with such a fierce possessiveness that nothing was going to stop him. Nothing was going to take Meg Carey away from him.
    Ethan wondered for one brief moment whether he’d finally gone over the edge. Whether the lifetime of isolation had finally turned him into the madman the townspeople believed him to be. One look at a woman and he was ready to risk his safety, privacy, everything, just to keep her with him.
    He didn’t know her, had scarcely talked with her. While pretty enough, she was no ravishing beauty to obsess him so. And yet, he could hardly force himself to leave her side. And the thought of her leaving his house at all was a torment he couldn’t have imagined.
    His obsession made no sense, but it existed. He needed her, more than he’d ever needed anyone, and he wasn’t about to be noble or self-sacrificing. He needed her, he wanted her and he was going to have her. And no one and nothing was going to get her away from him until he was ready to release her.
    He heard Sal’s heavy approach. He knew the