vicinity.
He cleared his throat. “I was just making dinner. Would you like to join me?”
Her gaze came up to meet his eyes. “Sure.”
Even though he knew he must look like a rattled teenage boy, he strode from the room as if he was afraid she’d attack. Or worse, that he wanted her to.
He busied himself with checking on the stew, wrestling with the lid of the old kettle, which hadn’t had a handle for as long as he could remember.
He glanced at the woman. She smiled slightly, watching his struggle. He had the feeling that the small grin was about both his struggle with the lid and with her being there.
“My granddad really needs new cookware,” he said, for no other reason than to fill the excited air between them.
She leaned against the kitchen table, idly fingering the back of one of the ladder-back chairs.
“Do you live with your granddad?”
Jensen nodded, his gaze locked on the gentle caresses of her long, elegant fingers over the smooth wood.
“Is he home?”
He shook his head. “Gone. Bingo.”
The woman smiled—a wide, hungry, very predatory smile. Blood rushed through him at the sight, centering in one part of his body. A part that was already stealing its own fair share.
“Then we’re all alone?”
“Yeah.” At least he’d managed that one word without sounding like an overeager, yet scared shitless, teenager.
Her smile widened—she had an amazing smile. A smile he couldn’t look away from. That is, until her hands slid down over her thighs, catching the loose fabric of her skirt.
Slowly she knotted the material, each bunching of the skirt drawing it higher and higher until her calves were exposed. Then her knees. Then the smooth, creamy skin of her thighs. Finally she stopped, the material billowing just high enough to glimpse the pouty curve of her sex and small thatch of tight curls hiding the moisture beneath.
His breathing stopped. His body hardened, ripcord tight. He stared, unable to look away from her sweet body.
“I thought... ” Her words trailed off, and that finally brought him out of his dazed amazement—and trance.
When he met her eyes, he saw just a glimpse of apprehension there. Uncertainty. Somehow that, combined with the utter brazenness of hiking her skirt up, made his blood ignite. He wanted this woman. God, he did.
“I thought maybe we could have a repeat of last night.”
For just the briefest moment, sanity held, and Jensen hesitated. They couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t. He couldn’t have another day like today. The guilt, the regret, the longing for more.
Longing for more—that was what got him. The other two emotions hadn’t tempered that one—not in the least. He still wanted this woman—as much as his next breath.
“Do you want me?” she asked, and again he thought he heard uncertainty in her voice.
He stared at her for a moment. Was she kidding? What man could turn down this invitation, offering herself to him as she was.
A man whose love of his life died in his arms, his lucid brain informed him.
But still, he took a step toward her. Then another and another, until he was standing directly in front of her, looking into her pale, pale eyes. Rather than down at her still-raised skirt, which brushed his thighs. He could feel it through the denim of his jeans.
Like last night, fingers traced the curve of lips, of cheeks, of jawline. Except tonight, it was his turn to explore her, tracing her features. Just as she’d done to him.
She remained perfectly still under his exploration, but her eyes seemed to touch him back. Pale moonlight caressed his skin.
“Why me?” he finally asked. This woman could have any man she wanted—why had she picked him? Why had she tracked him down? Why had she wanted him again? Had she spent the whole day remembering, just as he had?
“I... ” She touched the tip of her tongue to the center of her lush top lip as she struggled for the words. “I don’t know.”
The words were hardly