Free Jezebel's Blues by Barbara Samuel, Ruth Wind

certain contentment. When the ground dried a little, she would go ahead with her plans for her garden. She’d clean and repair her grandmother’s house, repaint and renew and do whatever it took. Let them wander. Celia had found her home.
    When Eric returned, she was collecting twigs, branches and assorted trash and putting it all into a pile. She held up a pair of pants, practically new. “She’ll eat anything, won’t she?”
    Eric gave Celia a reluctant grin. “You better believe it.” He came down the stairs, loose limbed and sexy as a movie star, even with the grime of the days just past and his morning’s work clinging to him. In the sunshine, his dark blue eyes glowed nearly sapphire, and whatever her resolve, Celia couldn’t help the leap of her belly at the sight.
    His pack was firmly hiked over his shoulder. “I looked from one end of the house to the other and didn’t find any more snakes. Put a rope on the steps if it’ll make you feel better.”
    “A rope?”
    He lifted one shoulder. “Supposedly they won’t cross a rope.”
    “It’s worth a try,” she said.
    “Well.” He glanced down the road, shifted his weight, looked at Celia. “Guess I’ll be heading out now.”
    Celia tossed the pants she’d found onto the porch, thinking they’d wash up and be good for something. She looked at him. Nodded.
    “Want to thank you for taking me in,” he said.
    Her heart sped up a little. “My pleasure.” A sense of sorrow and lost chances washed over her. She looked at his face very carefully, trying to imprint it forever upon her memory—his full lips and black hair, the harsh planes and rough dark beard shadowing a hard jaw. Her chest ached when she looked into his jeweled and lonely eyes.
    It was again a scene torn from one of her father’s books. She was playing the wistful heroine right down to the ache in her heart.
    Jacob Moon’s scenarios be damned. Without knowing she would, she walked up to Eric and put her hand on his cheek. “You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen, Eric Putman,” she said in a soft voice.
    Then because she couldn’t stand to let him walk away without kissing him just once, she stood on her toes and when that wasn’t enough, tugged his big head down gently to hers.
    Their lips met and Celia felt his surprise in the sudden softness in his mouth, in the off-center way he met her. There was no resistance in him, only that broad and oddly vulnerable surprise.
    And if her heart had ached before, it now pounded with a virulent and shattering pain. His hair was thick against her fingers, his body broad and strong, his mouth tender and firm as a nectarine.
    After a moment, he let the pack slide from his shoulder and with a small, low growl, he pulled her into him, shifting his head to suckle gently at her lips. This time, his arms were not loose around her. His hands splayed possessively over her back, and his arms curled with power around her shoulders, pulling her so close that her breasts were nearly crushed against his ribs.
    And his mouth—his mouth. Celia tilted her head against the crook of his elbow, feeling the hard press of his biceps against her ear as his mouth tenderly explored hers. His tongue teased for entrance and Celia parted her lips to give it, feeling reason spin away as they tangled and danced together. His chest was pressed so closely to hers that she could feel his heartbeat, deep and thrumming, and a small but discernible tremble quivering through his limbs.
    For a moment he ceased, pulling back an inch or two, and his broad, scarred hand cupped her cheek. His sapphire eyes glittered with something lost and sad and so hungry that Celia felt her own body shaking with the need to fill it. For a long moment she felt suspended in that painful, jeweled gaze, and then he lowered his head once more to kiss her mouth with such gentleness, it bordered on reverence. He kissed her slowly, then touched her nose and both cheeks, letting her go an inch