Free Wild and Wonderful by Janet Dailey Page A

told him.
    "Glenna, I never say anything I don't mean." The firmness of his tone enforced his statement, compelling her to tip her head up to examine his face.
    There were still signs of tiredness and lack of sleep etched in his features, but the smoldering intensity of his eyes shallowed out her breathing. Jett eliminated the last few inches to claim her curving mouth while his hands slid down her back to enfold her in his arms.
    Her senses erupted with a wonderful rawness that needed his embrace to soothe it. Everywhere her body came in contact with his muscled frame a wild current seemed to flow between them—a current that spread its tingling pleasure through the rest of her flesh. The ache of passion knotted her abdomen. Its sudden presence tempered the ardency of her response until she regained control of her senses to end the kiss.
    She had always been cognizant of the sexual attraction Jett had aroused, but their previous kisses had not led her to expect this flaming leap into desire. It shook her. Glenna felt the weakness in her knees and didn't try to immediately move away from him. Her hands were spread across his shirt front. Beneath them she could feel the thudding of his heartbeat, its tempo disturbed like hers was.
    "Your volatility isn't limited to your temper, is it?" Jett mused.
    "I don't know what happened. I—" Glenna half turned, self-conscious and unnerved.
    "Hey, I'm not complaining," he chuckled and caught at her hand, clasping it warmly within his fingers. "That looks like a comfortable tree. Why don't we sit down, rest a little before making the long walk back to the hotel?" He led her toward a large tree on the lawn.
    "The grass is wet," she pointed out, the green blades of grass glistening with the sheen of dew. Jett solved that problem by spreading his suit jacket on the grass. "It'll get grass stains on it."
    "So? I'll send it to the cleaners." He lowered himself to the ground and pulled Glenna down beside him on the other half of his jacket. The trunk of the tree served as a backrest for him, but it wasn't wide enough for Glenna to lean against it, too. Instead Jett shifted her so she was resting diagonally across his chest, his arms overlapping around her waist. "Mmm." He nuzzled the curve of her neck. "Maybe I couldn't sleep last night because I was missing this," he suggested.
    The stubble of his beard growth was pleasantly rough against her sensitive skin. It conveyed the rasping caress of a cat's tongue as he rubbed his chin and jaw along her neck. The hard support of his chest and arms, and the pressure of his hipbone began to embed themselves on her flesh. Glenna felt herself slipping again into that mindless oblivion of sensation. She changed her position to elude the mouth exploring the sensitive hollow behind her ear, turning sideways in his arms to rest a shoulder against his chest.
    "Is something wrong?" Jett cupped a hand to her cheek, tipping her head so he could inspect her face.
    "Not really." It seemed impossible that she had only known him for two days. The angled planes of his features seemed so very familiar to her. It was just that the pace of their relationship had just accelerated, and Glenna wanted to slow it down before it carried her away.
    His hand idly left her face to reach down to lift her left hand. His gaze studied the bareness of her fingers, his thumb running over the tops of them. When he lifted his gaze there was interest, curiosity, and the banked flame of desire gleaming in his look.
    "No rings," Jett observed. "Have there ever been any?"
    "If you mean, have I ever been married? No," she replied with a slight shake of her head.
    "Engaged?"
    "No." The latent sexiness of his look was having a chaotic effect on her pulse.
    "How old are you?" Jett continued with his questions.
    "Twenty-four."
    "No steady boyfriends?"
    "None." At the skeptical lift of his eyebrow, Glenna qualified her answer. "Not unless you count Bruce."
    "Bruce Hawkins. The man who manages the