Do you take this rebel - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,64

a flame.

“Really? Why not?”

“Do I really have to explain it?”

She regarded him thoughtfully for a second, then nodded. “Yes, I think you do.”

“Because we have issues,” he began, then all but groaned. Not a sixty-year-old prude. Maybe ninety—and a stiff-necked psychiatrist to boot.

She nodded, acknowledging what he said, but she didn’t look swayed. Nor did she budge one millimeter away from his thigh.

“Care to talk about them?” she asked, her tone only mildly curious.

Now there was a loaded question, if ever he’d heard one. If he said yes, he would be opening up the whole blasted can of worms he’d been trying so hard to ignore. If he said no, he was pretty sure she had some other way for them to spend the time.

He swallowed hard, cleared his throat, then shrugged. “What’s the point?” he asked, proud of himself for coming up with a third option, an evasion that might annoy her enough to convince her to leave.

“Oh, I don’t know. It might clear the air,” she said, sounding amused perhaps, but definitely not annoyed.

He, however, was getting downright irritable. Her attitude was exasperating. Her proximity was arousing. The conflicting messages were roaring around in his head…and elsewhere.

“It. Would. Not. Clear. The. Air.” He bit the words out from between clenched teeth.

She swung her legs, deliberately letting her calf brush his. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, her expression serious, even thoughtful. “We won’t know unless we try.”

He narrowed his gaze and studied her. “Is that what you really want?” he asked skeptically. “A nice, polite discussion, a chance to make a few excuses, maybe even some promises?”

A spark of anger flashed in her eyes, and he thought for a second she might really explode, tell him to take his sarcasm and shove it. Instead, she leaned over until her gaze was level with his, until he could feel the soft whisper of her breath against his cheek. His heart raced.

“No,” she said in that same quiet, intense tone. “This is what I want.”

Before he could even catch his breath, her mouth was on his, sweet and urgent and hot. Her tongue skimmed his lips, then slid inside, tangling with his. And Cole was pretty sure his entire body was going to go up in flames.

For one tiny, fleeting second, he considered a protest, ordered himself to utter it, in fact, but the moment passed in a frenzy of need. This was what he’d missed, this was what he and Cassie could be together if only he could let go of his anger and his stiff-necked pride. All it would take was the little matter of forgiving her, of letting go of the past. Right now he was too caught up in the moment to give a hang about anything, the past included.

He groaned and claimed her, deepening the kiss, blanking out all of the arguments against what was happening and seizing the pulse-pounding moment.

She slid into his lap, all willing and eager and hot as a winter fire, just the way he remembered. When he would have moved beyond the devastating kisses for more, she held him still, savoring the mating of their mouths, discovering the amazing nuances possible in a kiss.

His hand drifted to her thigh, skimmed along warm, supple skin until he reached the core of her heat. He hesitated there, knowing that they were crossing the point of no return. If he touched her intimately, if she let him, there would be no going back. He would have to bury himself inside her. He would have to discover if reality matched fantasy, if the present could equal the memory. He would have to rediscover every texture, every taste, every throbbing response. He would have to make her his.

And he would be hers. Forever. Without denials or recriminations or regrets. Forgiveness might be a struggle for some time to come, but this, this would be a given, a habit too hard to break for a second time in his life.

He sighed and held still, waiting for the panic to wash through him, waiting for the anger to resurface and destroy desire. He waited and waited, but it didn’t happen.

Instead, anticipation built…along with soul-wrenching need and astonishing heat.

And then she smoothed her hand across his brow as if to wipe away the worry, the distress that had kept him—kept them—from moving on. He was lost, caught up in the magical spell of her touch, in the powerful pull of her tenderness.

“I want you,” he admitted at long