"Feehan, Christine - Lover Beware 03 - Brand, Fiona - After Midnight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feehan Christine)

Raw heat flashed through her, making her belly clench and her knees turn to jelly. The moment Michael's gaze had locked on hers outside the police station replayed itself in her mind, and abruptly she was spun back almost seven years when she'd opened the door, and found him on her doorstep dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his hair damp as if he'd not long stepped from the shower. His wife had left just days before, and she had also been on her own because Patrick had been in hospital for an operation.
He hadn't asked to come in, and she hadn't offered any hospitality. The lack of manners on her part had been unspeak-

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ably rude for a small country community, but erecting some kind of barrier had been necessary, because the moment she looked into his dark gaze the reason he affected her so badly was suddenly clear, and the revelation shook her to the core.
His dark gaze pinned her. "The reason Clare left is that she knows I'm in love with you."
The words dropped into a pool of silence and for a moment she wondered if she'd misheard, or even worse, if her guilty mind had somehow supplied the words she wanted to hear.
She'd felt dazed, at once present and peculiarly removed from the scene taking place, as if there were two Janes-one who dealt in the solid currency of reality, and one who floated in a fantasy world.
He was in love with her.
Her heart slammed in her chest, and not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to stretch out in bed with him, to have that sensual male mouth on hers: to have him naked on top of her.
It should have shocked her that she was even considering what it might be like to make love with her next-door neighbour, but instead, all she could think of was that on top of everything else that was going wrong in her life, she shouldn't have to want Rider.
Rider must have read something in her expression, because instead of backing off, he stepped into her, his hands curved around her waist-the contact electrifying. "Damn," he murmured. "I didn't mean to upset you, and I wasn't going to do this."
His head dipped and his mouth captured hers. Jane's heart slammed in her chest and for a moment she was frozen, then, somewhere in the murky depths of her mind, sharp need welled out of the confusion that always gripped her whenever she thought about Michael Rider and the hazy notion of pushing free dissolved. If the kiss had been practiced or slick, maybe she could have resisted, but it was so hungry it made her toes curl.
His tongue stroked along hers and a low moan welled up from deep in her belly, and she closed off the guilt, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him back.
His hands closed on her bottom and she found herself lifted, until the hard ridge of his sex settled against the sensitive flesh

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between her legs. He pressed more firmly against her, and the tension coiled almost unbearably tight.
She broke the kiss. "If you keep doing that-"
"You'll come." His gaze locked with hers, dark and fierce. "God, don't say it-"
One hand closed on her hair, pulling her head back, the movement fierce as his mouth sank on hers. His tongue was hot and wet and salty in her mouth, and her whole being tensed as he walked her back a half step until she was pinned against the doorjamb, his muscled body tight against hers. Her breasts felt swollen and constricted, her skin so sensitive that every touch made her shiver and jerk, the hot ache between her legs so acute it bordered on pain.
She felt the hard, male shape of him straining for entrance despite the constricted layers of clothing, felt the shudder that swept him as he moved against her, and the gloomy afternoon dissolved in a raw flash of heat.
The buzz of the phone, the click of her answering machine engaging, registered, and abruptly, she recoiled.
Patrick. She'd forgotten about Patrick.
She'd forgotten she was married.
All Rider had had to do was kiss her and she'd practically forgotten her own name.
She shook her head, her throat tight. She still felt drawn, magnetized. She wanted to bury her face against the warm skin of his throat, breathe in his scent, open her mouth against his skin and taste him, and for a moment she teetered on the brink, shoved off balance by needs that were so alien and powerful she could barely breathe, let alone think.
She wanted Rider. It wasn't rational, and it wasn't right.
His dark gaze caught hers. His mouth dipped again, barely touching hers, and her body reacted, her hips sliding against his, and for a split second, she didn't care, she just wanted.
He lifted his head and pressed her face into his shoulder, and for endless seconds she clung to him, memorizing his scent, soaking in his warmth.
His breath stirred in her hair. "I've got to go."
"I know."
He eased back. "It's okay. Like I said, I didn't mean to"- his thumb swept across her lips-"do this, but I'm glad I did, because I'm going away and I don't know when I'll be back."

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"Or- if I'll be back" hung in the air, and as it turned out, that time he almost hadn't come back.
Jane didn't see him for more than eighteen months. Eventually, she'd heard secondhand in town that he'd been wounded on some overseas operation. The next time she'd been in Winslow, she'd gone to the library and searched back in the newspaper files, and finally found a small mention of the incident, where "a soldier" had been knifed and evacuated to a military hospital in Germany, his condition serious.
Worry had eaten at her, and her weight had plummeted, until she'd taken herself in hand and forced herself to eat. One day, months later, she'd turned around in the supermarket and seen him, larger than life and drop-dead gorgeous, loading groceries into a trolley. She couldn't remember what she'd gone to the supermarket to buy, she'd simply turned on her heel, walked back to her car, and driven home. She'd gotten through the rest of the day, she'd managed to function, but that moment in the supermarket had stunned her.
She'd had visions of him in intensive care, close to death. She'd even worried that he had died, and she simply hadn't heard. In the supermarket, he hadn't looked as if he'd suffered anything as traumatic as a life-threatening wound. If anything, he'd seemed even bigger, more muscular-more of everything.
Jane stared at the note in her hand, brought back to the soft scent of the night air, the whine of mosquitoes on the prowl. "What did you want to tell him?" she muttered to herself. "That you were head over heels in love with a man you barely knew?"
Because the fact was, falling in lust with a man had never happened to her before. She wasn't promiscuous, and she hadn't had that many relationships. Sexually, she'd always been as dead as a doornail unless she was emotionally involved. Crazy as it seemed, somehow she had become emotionally involved with Michael Rider; she had fallen in love.
Jess lolloped inside, her claws clicking on the hall floor. Automatically, Jane picked up her groceries, readjusted the strap of her purse on her shoulder, closed the door, and locked it. She was tired and she was hungry, and her feet were aching. She'd spent hours driving around Winslow, tramping the streets trying to buy a security alarm-without any luck. Ap-

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parently, they'd sold out within a day of the news breaking about the home invasion in Tayler's Creek. Security firms and appliance stores had more alarm systems on order, but it would take a couple of days for them to be shipped, and then there was a waiting list. If Jane wanted an alarm, she would have to stand in line like everyone else.
After stowing the groceries, she walked slowly upstairs, flicking light switches as she went, the note crumpled in her hand. When she got to her room, she stowed her bag and dropped the note on her dressing table, and walked over to the dormer window and looked in the direction of the Rider place. The faint glimmer of lights shone through the trees.
Her gaze shifted, caught by her own reflection in the glass, and for the first time in months she took the time to examine herself. She was medium height and slim, her breasts a respectable size and shape, her hips narrow enough that she had difficulty buying pants that fit and often had to shop for teenagers' sizes. She'd lost weight-enough that most of her clothes were loose on her now-but with Patrick dwindling away, her appetite had faded and she hadn't wanted to eat.
Her hair was long, and dark enough to be mistaken for black, her eyes a light amber and faintly slanted, and her skin was tanned a honey colour from spending so much time outside.
She lifted a hand to her lips. She hadn't worn lipstick in- She tried to think, and couldn't remember the last time she'd worn so much as a clear gloss, let alone makeup.
She was still attractive, despite the passage of years, and now she was fiercely glad she was pretty, glad that even if she felt old inside, the outer packaging looked young.