Free Wild Roses by Hannah Howell Page B

arrogant of me. And I’m not sure I really care what you want right now. That’s wrong, I know, but I can’t be right and honorable all the time. Right now I intend to steal something I have been thinking about far too much.”
    Ella murmured a half-hearted protest as he covered her mouth with his. His kiss was gentle, almost tender, and she felt all of her weak resistance vanish. It was flattering to know that he had been thinking about kissing her. Comforting as well, for it meant that she was not alone in suffering an inappropriate attraction.
    He teased her mouth with enticing, nibbling kisses, as if he savored the taste of her. When he shifted his body on top of hers, lightly rubbing against her, the feeling that shot through her was so strong it made her gasp. Harrigan took quick advantage of her parted lips, slipping his tongue between them and slowly stroking the sensitive inside of her mouth. The only clear thought Ella could grasp was that a mere kiss should not feel so good, firing her blood and making her heart pound so hard she could hear it.
    She lifted her arms to wrap them around him and a soft clinking noise yanked her out of the passionate stupor his kiss had sent her into. Even as she opened her eyes to stare at the manacle enclosing her wrist, she felt Harrigan tense. He slid off her, lying down at her side, as if he knew the moment of desire they had been indulging in was about to come to an abrupt end. Ella was not sure it was such a good thing that he could sense her change of mood so accurately.
    â€œYou are a complete cad,” she said, a little surprised at how amiable she sounded.
    â€œI know,” he replied with an equal calm. “It is the cross I must bear.”
    Harrigan breathed an inner sigh of relief. It appeared that Ella was not going to be outraged or furious, both of which she deserved to be. That seemed to confirm his opinion that she had suffered from the same curiosity he had.
    What he would really like to know now was if she had experienced any of the same feelings he had, but he doubted she would answer truthfully even if he had the courage to ask. He was also not sure he wanted to have that discussion, for he could inadvertently reveal some of what was deeply troubling him at the moment. That sweet, short kiss had sent him reeling. He had never wanted a woman so swiftly or so strongly before. Harrigan had been confident that it would be good, and it had been, dangerously so.
    She had shared his passion. He was sure of that. He had felt it in her every breath and the way her body had welcomed the weight of his. It was hard not to see the promise of more in her response and he desperately wanted more. A small voice in his head told him he would be a scoundrel to try and take more when he had every intention of completing the job he had been hired for, but he forcefully silenced it. Harrigan had never wanted anything as bad as he wanted Ella Carson and he suspected he never would again. Right or wrong, he was going to try for a fuller taste of the sweet passion she held in every tiny, delicate inch of her.
    â€œIf you have quite finished mauling me,” Ella said, forcing her eyes shut and wishing she could turn her back on him but restricted by the manacle, “I believe I will go to sleep now.”
    His soft laughter caused her to grit her teeth and she clenched her hands beneath the coarse blanket covering them. Ella decided it had been foolish to think she could make him think she had been disgusted by the kiss. Any man who looked like Harrigan Mahoney had to be experienced with women. He probably knew exactly what she had been feeling, or most of it.
    Ella inwardly sighed. It had seemed such an innocent, only slightly naughty thing to do. She had thought about kissing him so often that the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity had been too tempting to resist. There was no question that she had completely satisfied her curiosity, but she had opened a