Free Carol Finch by Oklahoma Bride Page A

she couldn’t tell which way was up—and couldn’t care less.
    Brawny arms crushed her to him and held her fast. His mouth was like liquid fire on hers and she could feel his heart hammering in frantic rhythm with hers. Every unruly emotion that had hounded her throughout the evening fueled this newly discovered sensation of desire and compelled her to kiss him as if there was no tomorrow.
    Karissa lost herself in the unprecedented pleasure, lost herself in this man who stood squarely between her and her dream of a home that could support her family and grant them a new start in life. Yet, at the moment, Rafe Hunter’s incredible kisses seemed to be the only thing she needed to survive from one instant to the next.
    While Karissa’s thoughts spun out of control, Rafe kissed Karissa the way he had never kissed a woman—without the slightest restraint. As fragile as her emotions were at the moment he shouldn’t have kissed her at all. But not kissing her was like telling himself not to breathe.
    She tasted spicy—so like her temperament. She felt like every man’s forbidden dream in his arms. She held him as tightly to her as he held her to him—like two drowning castaways floundering on a storm-tossed sea. And even knowing he was breaking his impeccable code of honor he still couldn’t stop himself from caressing the shapely curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts.
    Rafe had never felt so reckless, and he was a man who prided himself on logic and self-restraint. More than anything he wanted to peel off that tattered dress and press his lips and fingertips to every luscious inchof Karissa’s body. He ached to let this obsessive desire run its fiery course and finally allow him to reclaim his sanity.
    Yet, a quiet voice whispered they were alone in the middle of nowhere and no one would know if he took his pleasure in Karissa while she overcame her tormenting experiences by losing herself in his eager arms.
    No one would know. But Rafe would know and Karissa would most likely expect him to grant her request to remain on her claim if he took what she had offered to him that first night at the fort.
    Just a few more heart-stopping kisses and tantalizing caresses, he bargained with himself. Then he would step back into his role of responsibility and respectability and clear his befuddled head.
    “My God,” she wheezed when she came up for a breath of air. “I never knew passion could feel like this.”
    Those enormous green eyes, so full of hungry wonder, dropped to his lips, and Rafe realized he hadn’t had enough of her yet. She was the worst kind of temptress a man could encounter. She was complex and complicated. She was spirit, strength, temptation and vulnerability rolled into one enticing package.
    There was an innocence about her, even when she’d confided that life had dealt her a difficult hand. But she had defied her fate and fought back with every ounce of energy she could muster, just as she had battled the three men who’d tried to reduce her to an object of sexual gratification.
    Rafe knew he’d never held more woman in his arms. That knowledge was an aphrodisiac that left him plundering her mouth and filling his hands with her shapelybody. He simply could not get enough of her fast enough to satisfy himself.
    He was sorry to say that it wasn’t his own good sense that finally prompted him to remove his wandering hands from her generous curves; it was the sudden hoot of an owl. Guilt and frustration hit him like a fist to the jaw. Damnation, for a man who prided himself on honor, duty and commitment, he was no better than the three men who had pounced on Karissa.
    He opened his mouth to apologize, wondering if the astounded look on Karissa’s face mirrored his expression. Probably. It seemed neither of them wanted to acknowledge the powerful attraction that exploded between them like blasting powder.
    In the aftermath of their reckless surrender to desire, her gaze dropped like a rock and