Free Harry St Clair: Rogue or Doctor? by Fiona McArthur Page B

again, deliberately, and she felt more warmth sear through his jeans, the surge of intenseawareness she would always associate with Harry. Not fair. Poor Jeremy had never been like this.
    They looked at each other and it was as if invisible threads were looping and diving over each other in an intricate dance until she was encapsulated within a tapestry of secret knowledge they shared. Ridiculous. They shared nothing in common except today’s experiences.
    Her own gaze dropped to his mouth, those gorgeous lips she’d admired at Jimbaran, and she saw him smile, and just as quickly she blushed again. Harry stood up and she found herself beside him as he gathered her fingers into his hand and tugged her closer until her hip was touching his.
    She moved into his arms as they stood together on his porch. Harry stared, unsmiling, down into her face and his eyes became deep royal blue, dark and promising, and she told herself it was because his pupils had dilated, a physiological event, not a revelation.
    ‘I’d like to kiss you,’ he murmured, his voice a physical caress.
    Her heart tripped, stuttered and gathered speed. Her mouth dried. ‘Why?’
    He smiled with his eyes but still not his mouth. ‘Because I think we’d both enjoy it.’
    Lordy, yes. ‘Oh.’
    He leaned closer. At the last minute she closed her eyes, all the better to feel him with, and his mouth touched hers, gently. Homecoming—strange, when she’d never visited before. Like nothing she’d expected and much, much better.
    He was the first man she’d kissed since Jeremy, andinstead of the masculine assertion that had always left her backpedalling away in confusion, Harry held the notion of mastery back. She could still taste the edges of his intent but it was infinitely subtle. Subdued by patience, imbibed with the same sense of peace she’d felt as she’d come through his garden gate. She felt like she belonged here. In Harry’s arms. And kissing as he allowed her to choose the pace.
    A novel idea, and tentatively she opened her mouth and tilted her tongue to his. Just a flutter. His arms tightened around her, he made a tiny sound in his throat as he pulled her closer into his body, and her other hand drifted to encircle his neck of its own free will.
    And so the kiss gradually deepened, evolved, ripened into something tangibly alive and nourishing and enriching to her soul. To both their souls, she decided as she pushed closer, suddenly unable to be hard enough against his chest. She sighed with the rightness and connection and joy she hadn’t experienced before.
    Then, with a premonition she hadn’t expected, like the dampness of a sun shower, she felt the tears in her eyes, a poignancy of devastation to come for when it must end, and that thought gave the connection a heartrending simplicity she could barely endure.
    It seemed Harry’s arms were a place she’d been searching for and never known she’d missed, and when he gently withdrew, as warned, she was bereft.
    How to hide what she’d just discovered? She stepped back and turned away and behind her back she could feel the wall rise between them—not surprising for two fort dwellers—and no doubt Harry’s closed expression mirrored hers.
    This was dangerous and foolhardy for a woman only just recovered from a broken heart. How could she have been so stupid?
    ‘Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea,’ he murmured. She turned back, her face mostly under control, the tears wiped away surreptitiously. He smiled with his mouth this time, but not his eyes, no humour in his face. She knew just how he felt. ‘Perhaps I should show you the house and grounds?’
    She nodded, and they walked into the house, but again he captured her hand and she didn’t want him to let her go.
    The afternoon was surreal after that. The house seemed spread over many levels; because of the hillside, it floated up and down between rooms. Floated like the aura that floated between them.
    Each window and landing