Free Slow Fever by Cait London

about her sifting through the requirements of a husband amid the Bachelor Club. He could see her customers lining up, working on Tanner’s wooden boats and waiting in line for Kylie’s knowledgeable fingers. He resented the urge to keep her close and safe and her hands off other men. “I’ve got plenty of room at my electric shop in town. I use it mostly for storage, but the front part could be converted into what you want. I’maway a lot, so you’ll have the place to yourself. We could deduct the price of regular massages from the rent. I strain a few muscles now and then, and you’re right, I’m too tense.”
    Kylie’s fingers skimmed down to his shoulders and he stiffened as they dug into the tense muscle. “Knots there…. You mean you’re away a lot—with your women?”
    Just that nick of her temper took him over the edge. Michael turned and rolled Kylie beneath him. He glanced down the length of their bodies, his bare legs fitted between the legs of Kylie’s sweatpants. Then he studied her stunned expression, the sudden desire darkening her eyes. The mountain’s night air seemed to crackle between them like bolts of dancing electricity. He placed his hand on the soft, warm curve of her cheek and whispered, “I haven’t had a woman in years, Kylie. Does that shock you?”
    “Why not?” she whispered back, the sound intimate and soft and feminine as he knew she would sound on her wedding bed, when she was gently worn by life.
    “Maybe I’ve been waiting for you.” The truth tore out of him into the crisp night air, and he waited for her reaction.
    “I don’t believe you one minute. You’re not a waiting man,” she whispered unevenly. “You see. You want. You take.”
    “With you, yes. I’d like that. But maybe I’d like to be courted like other men. Maybe I’m sensitive and old-fashioned.” Michael lowered his mouth to hers, brushing the softness lightly. Dreams, he mused, she tastes of dreams.
    She arched to his hand as it slid to cover the fabric over her breast. “I can’t think—you’re too close. You’ve always done that to me, sucked away my ability to think.”
    He smiled slowly, aware of her trembling warm body,of the needs racing through her. He settled closer, placing his lips against her throat and kissing her fragrant silky skin. “Go with the flow, wasn’t that what you said? Don’t think. Relax, just as you told me to do.”
    Her fingertips dug into his shoulders, her eyes wide and shadowed in her pale face, a frothing mist of curls surrounding it. Her lips looked soft and dewy and just right—and her lids closed as he lowered his head.
    As he gently nibbled her lobe, Kylie tensed. Her arms shot around his neck and held him tight, and the surge of her hips against the hardness of his startled him. “Kylie?” he asked, uncertain of himself, of his reactions to her.
    “Michael….” Her husky appeal and warm, flushed cheek against his shattered him. He lay very still, braced upon her smaller softer body and listened to the heavy thump of their hearts as if they were meant to march together through life.
    Kylie’s hands smoothed his shoulders, not in the massage as she had before, but in the way a woman’s hands could gently tether a man forever. When her fingertips smoothed his cheeks, he turned to kiss her palm, and then her eyes were soft upon him. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” she whispered.
    “Maybe.” None of this should be happening. Not with Kylie. He could hurt her.
    “Why?”
    He closed his eyes and her fingertips gently caressed his lashes. He could have spent a lifetime under her hands, all his shadowy past purged by her light touch.
    “Don’t be so harsh on yourself.”
    He smiled against her fingertips as they cruised lightly over his lips. “You sound like your mother.”
    Her warm touch stopped and hovered above his lips. “But I’m not. I’m me.”
    “That’s the problem, dreamy-eyes,” Michael murmured and knew he had to ease away