Page 93 of Deathmarch

She touched the goop with a tentative finger. “I should still be able to hit the road tomorrow, right? I have to get back to work. I need to leave.”

Okay, so maybe he didn’t have another day. Maybe he did need to tell her now. He wanted her to stay, and his reasons were far from medical.

“Now how am I supposed kiss you?” He put himself out there. If she smacked him down, so be it.

Instead, the corner of her mouth turned up. “I can be kissed in other places.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I can be kissed in other places?

Allie squeezed her eyes shut, mortified. Had she just said that to Harper? Maybe that slap had reactivated her concussion. Her brain was definitely addled.

Also, he was sitting too close, and she could smell his shampoo’s woodlandsy scent. His shoulders filled out his jacket distractingly well. She knew the hard muscles of those shoulders; she’d been hanging on to them enough lately. He no longer had a lanky boy’s body, the one she remembered.

He’d been her first.

God, she did not want to rememberthat,right at this very moment. Or anything sex related that involved Harper. She did not want to remember what he used to look like naked. Or wonder what he would look like now, out of his clothes.

He held her gaze, the heat in his eyes sending a shiver of anticipation down her spine. “I’d like to kiss you in other places.”

“I didn’t mean…” she said in an embarrassed whisper.

“Let’s pretend you did.” Harper brushed his lips over her cheek.

Then down the line of her jaw.

Her heart began to race.

He kissed her neck. She turned her head to give him better access.

Harper Finnegan’s lips were on herskin. Her bones turned into rubber.

Then his hands were on the buttons of her shirt, and his persistent fingers parted the fabric in seconds. He was touching her, and she ached with a decade-long ache and allowed herself to finally think what she hadn’t allowed herself to think until now.

She’d missed him.

“More?” he asked in a ragged whisper against her tingling skin.

“More.”

He freed her breasts from her bra, and then his hot lips closed around her nipple.

Okay, maybe that was too much.No. Just right.She arched her back to press closer, digging her fingers into his thick hair. “Harper.”

“What do you need?” he asked around her nipple.

“Harper.”

He sucked. Hard. No preliminary niceties, starting at full speed. The heat that spread across her skin stole her breath.

Nothing existed but him…and the footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Harper!”

He heard the sound too and was pulling away already, putting her behind him, reaching for the gun in his holster.

A rapid knock, then, without waiting for an answer, Kennan popped in, holding a steaming bowl.