Free Kisses From Heaven by Jennifer Greene

enough…it was a physical pain, after the long years of denial. “So sweet,” he murmured. “Lord, I want you, Loren. I never intended…”
    She forgave him the lie. Perhaps he even believed he hadn’t intended to go so far. She knew better and had known it from the start. They were old enough to know that a struck match meant flame, to recognize the potential for flame every time they looked at each other. “I need you,” she murmured back. His mouth found hers again…and again, and again. She did need him, his strength and his warmth, his passion and his unique, fierce gentleness. It was nothing like it had ever been with Hal; she had never envisioned anything like this with any man. She teased as he did, her palm smoothing down his chest to his ribs, gliding over his hip to his lean, hard thighs. She felt the explosive pounding in his chest, heard his breath quicken… They were lost…or perhaps found.

Chapter Six
    The back door slammed in some other universe. Loren couldn’t have cared less. She felt a stinging little slap on her bottom that was intended to reverse that. Still, her lips lingered on his throat, her fingers still grazed inside of his thigh… He slapped again. “ Dammit, Loren.”
    His eyes were glazed, and his voice was furious; those huge fingers of his fumbled impossibly with the buttons of her blouse. She refused to help, loving the look in his eyes, hating the interruption she knew was coming…but there was a rich promise in seeing the evidence of her own feminine powers. He was all but coming apart at the seams.
    “Loren? I came home early. The movie was an absolute bomb. Listen, I…oh!”
    Angela stopped dead with her hand in midair as if she had been just about to brush back her fluffy blond hair. Buck and Loren were sitting by the hearth, undeniably together, but by then all the buttons had been conquered. Loren was sitting on her bra and Buck was finishing his glass of wine in a single gulp.
    “Well! I mean…I think I’ll go upstairs to bed now,” Angela said hastily. Her sassy smile clearly offended Buck.
    He raised himself up with a scowl and grabbed for Loren’s hand, nearly wrenching her arm from its socket as he pulled her up next to him. “I’m taking your sister out for a while,” he said flatly to Angela. “Bill’s sleeping, but you stick around.”
    “Sure.”
    Angela hastily disappeared, but Buck was still pulling Loren. He went first to the closet for her coat and his, stalked through the kitchen, grabbed the bottle of wine, corked it one-handed, buried it on the top shelf of a cupboard Bill Shephard couldn’t see without a chair, and propelled them both into the freezing-cold night before he released her aching wrist long enough to allow them both to put on their coats.
    “Do you know how old I am?” he demanded harshly, but she could see the good humor beginning to return to his eyes as he reached down, gruffly shoving her hands away so he could button her coat himself. “It’s your fault, dammit. I never did intend for anything to go that far, not in your house. I like privacy. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been caught in a compromising position?”
    “How long?” she asked obediently, trying not to laugh.
    “Never.” He buttoned his coat then and grabbed for her arm as if he thought she were about to protest against going with him. But she wasn’t. “I’m not going to touch you,” he promised her rigidly. “I just want you to myself for a while. Any objections?”
    “You’re beginning to hurt my wrist,” she said mildly.
    So he released her wrist, opened the car door and urged her in much more gently, locking her side as if he were still afraid she was planning a getaway. When he got in on his side, he fumbled for the ignition key and started the engine promptly. “I’ll take you home whenever you want to go, you know.”
    “We seem to be having a rather major argument here. The problem is that only one of us is