Free The Morning After The Wedding Before by Anne Oliver Page A

pound in earnest. He was going to kiss her … And she wasn’t in a fit state to be running anywhere.
    Her legs trembled and her mind turned to mush as anticipation spun through her and she looked up. His face was so close she could feel the warmth of his skin, could see its evening shadow of stubble. He had the longest, darkest eyelashes she’d ever seen on a man. And his eyes … had she ever seen such eyes? As bottomless as the yawning chasm they’d come to view.
    Then a half-moon slid from behind a cloud, bathing his perfect features in silver, as if the gods had hammered him so.
    ‘You can tell me no.’ He loosened his hold around her waist slightly. ‘Right here in front of the Sisters you can exercise your free will as a modern woman. Push me away if you want. Or you can accept what we’ve been tiptoeing around for the past few days and kiss me.’
    ‘Tiptoeing?’ she whispered. ‘I haven’t—’
    ‘And it’s time it stopped.’
    ‘Kiss you …?’ Her words floated into the air on a little white puff as she looked up into his eyes. Dark and deep and direct. Had he mentioned free will? Her will had suddenly gone AWOL; she’d felt it drift out of her and hang somewhere over Jamieson Valley with the evening mist.
    His gaze dropped to her mouth. Strong fingers curled around her biceps. ‘And this time I’m warning you I’m not letting you go until I’m good and ready.’
    The way he said it, all male attitude and arrogance, sent a shiver of excitement along her nerve-endings. Emma heard a whisper of sound issue from her throat an instant before his lips touched hers.
    Then she was lost. In his taste: rich and velvety, like the world’s finest chocolate. His cool mossy scent mingled with leather. The warmth of his body as he shifted her against him for a closer fit.
    She should have stopped it right there, told him no—he’d given her the option. But her response was torn from her like autumn’s last leaf in a storm-ravaged forest. Irrational. Irresistible. Irrevocable.
    Voices ebbed and flowed in the distance but she barely heard them above the pounding of her pulse, her murmur of approval as she melted against him like butter on a barbecue grill. Her arms slid around his waist to burrow under his jacket, where he was warm and solid through the T-shirt’s soft jersey.
    Jake felt her resistance soften, her luscious lips grow pliant as she opened for him, giving him full access, and he plunged right in. Dark, decadent delight. Moans and murmurs. Her tongue tangled with his, velvet on satin, and her taste was as sweet as spun sugar.
    Dragging her against him, he moved closer, his fingertips tracking down her spine, over the flare of her backside, where he pressed her closer so he could feel her heat.
    So she could feel his rapidly growing erection butting against her.
    He felt the change instantly—subtle, but sure. A tensing of muscles. A change in her stance. She didn’t move away and her lips were still locked with his, but …
    Breaking the kiss with a good deal of reluctance, he leaned back to look at her. They were the same age—both twenty-seven—but she looked impossibly young with her hair scraped back from her face, her eyes huge dark pools in the moonlight, her mouth plundered.
    He stroked a finger over the groove that had formed between her brows. ‘You’re thinking too hard.’
    ‘One of us should.’ She didn’t look away. Nor did the frown smooth out.
    ‘Okay. Talk to me.’
    She took a step back. ‘This … thing between us is getting way too complicated.’
    ‘Seems pretty straightforward to me. So I’m proposing a deal,’ he went on before she could argue, resting his hands on her shoulders. ‘This weekend neither of us talks about work.’ He touched his forehead to hers. ‘We don’t
think
about work. We’re both between partners, so we’ll enjoy the wedding and each other’s company … and whatever happens
happens
. No complications. One weekend,