Free KCPD Protector by Julie Miller Page B

of his unbuttoned collar. “George?” she breathed.
    “Beats sir.” For a split second, his gray eyes locked on to hers. They were so close, she could read every hue of granite, smoke and steel in the irises there. Then his gaze dropped lower, to her mouth, and a deep-pitched groan rumbled beneath her hands.
    George dipped his head, touching his mouth to hers, kindling a slow, liquid fire in Elise’s blood that chased away the chill of doubt and fear. The kiss was as tender as the graze across her forehead had been. A simple meeting of skin against skin. At first.
    When she didn’t resist, George’s lips urged hers apart. His warm breath rushed in to mingle with hers. Elise’s fingers fisted in his shirt. Her tongue darted out to sample the smooth, male plane of his bottom lip, and his own tongue forced hers back to taste the soft skin inside her mouth. The cold she’d felt moments earlier shattered with bursts of heat inside her belly and at the tips of her breasts.
    It was, by far, the most potent, most surprising, most spontaneous response she’d ever had to a man’s kiss. Every place they touched—her lips, her earlobes and neck where he held her against his mouth, her fingers clinging to the muscles of his chest, her hip and bottom nestled against his thighs—was on fire.
    And that’s when the alarm bells went off inside her head and she knew she had to stop. She eased her grip on George’s collar and pushed at his chin, leaning back when he moved to resume the kiss. “What are you doing?” she asked on a throaty whisper.
    George’s fingers tensed before he untangled them from her hair. “I’m more rusty at this than I thought if you have to ask.”
    She’d loved Quinn Gallagher with hopeless devotion. She’d given herself to Nikolai Titov out of loneliness and lust. But this was different. She’d never felt this alive, this desired, this needy in a man’s arms before. And if anything frightened her, it was the knowledge that she could very easily fall for George Madigan—for the wrong man—all over again. “I...I can’t. We can’t.”
    “My mistake.” His eyes shuttered as he moved his hands to her waist and lifted her off his lap. Elise landed on the seat cushion beside him, catching herself before she tumbled back into his side.
    “No. I was a part of that as much as you were. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking for a minute there. I was just...scared.” She pointed to his grim expression, then to her own shaky smile. “Boss, assistant—remember?” He might think she was quoting departmental protocol, but reminding herself of the hazards of getting into a relationship with this man was more a matter of her own emotional survival. “I shouldn’t have encouraged you—”
    “What else has happened besides the intruder and the mystery of the roses?” George’s tone was as sharply articulate and impersonal as it had been hushed and indulgent moments earlier.
    Although the worst of the spooky chill that had numbed her of self-sufficiency and common sense had dissipated inside George’s embrace, Elise reluctantly shrugged his jacket off her shoulders. She folded it neatly in her lap to return to him, fearing it was too much of an imposition to reject his kiss, yet still ask for his comfort. “George. It’s not you. It’s—”
    “What else has happened?” So they weren’t going to talk about that kiss. Because this, whatever it was, didn’t—couldn’t—exist between them. She’d said as much to him this morning. George rolled up his sleeves, literally and figuratively transforming himself into work mode. He nodded at the dog sitting at his feet, staring at them as if he wanted the people to make room for him on the crowded couch. “So this is the guy on your desk at work. What’s his name?”
    “Spike.”
    “Is he friendly?” Elise nodded, holding out the suit coat to return to him.
    Instead of accepting the jacket, George reached down with one hand to scoop up the