Preacher's Daughter - Flora Ferrari Page 0,15

and in three steps she’s out of sight as I hear her answering the phone.

I feel myself chewing my own lip now, a bad habit I know I’ve just caught from Faith.

It’s not comforting, but it gives me something else to do as I try to think of what to do next.

Picking up the case and bringing it into the lounge, if only to feel I’m still doing what I’m supposed to – move the damned thing, I can hear Faith in the kitchen.

I don’t think it’s her Dad, after all, probably just both of us feeling a little guilty.

One of us anyway, I’ve got no regrets so far, except maybe wishing I’d taken her away first thing.

But I also know she doesn’t want to leave, not really.

Home for me right now is my truck, so I totally get that home for Faith can have a different meaning from my own.

Hearing her tone getting upset, I move towards the kitchen, pushing the case under the coffee table with my foot as I go.

“It’s none of your damned business, that’s why!” she exclaims before hanging the heavy phone up with a clang.

I wince at the sound and feel a separate feeling, a thrill running through me as I watch Faith’s temper first hand.

She’s sexy as all hell when she’s mad.

I like that a lot.

“What are you smiling about?” she snaps, her face flushed and her still naked chest heaving as I scan her whole body, feeling my two day old hard on getting just a little harder still in my pants.

“Well!?” she shouts, and I can’t help it, I grab her with open arms, smothering her and peppering her with so many kisses until she finally laughs too.

“Who was it?” I ask, only holding her far enough away to see her eyes as they flash with fresh anger at the question.

“That idiot, Fitz! He’s damn well told the whole town you’re here alone with me by now. Said he told my Dad too, no wonder Dad was acting so weird.”

I stop my clowning, the definite mental image of an old Southern style lynching springs to mind.

“Who’d he tell?” I ask her, borrowing all her seriousness now as she seems to relax a little under my touch.

She shrugs. “I dunno, I told him to go to hell you heard me. I just know Fitz. He’s such a sticky beak, worse than an old woman. If he’s told my Dad, I can only imagine who else knows by now.”

I don’t like it. A part of me would rather it was her Dad calling back, not some pig faced kid sticking that trough-scraping snout of his into my business.

Our business.

“D’you think he’ll come back?” I ask, not worried if he does but only needing to know if I should keep an ear out.

She shakes her head. “Nah. I think you gave him enough of a scare earlier, plus he knows once he gets me mad, his life won’t be worth living if he does anything too stupid.”

I feel my lip curling. “How well do you know this guy?” I ask, getting another attack of that defensive, fist-balling feeling that makes me suddenly want to slam anything that comes near my girl.

“Not as well as I know you, Noah Templeton,” she says, curtly, distracting me perfectly by grabbing my hand and slipping it between her legs.

“Now come help hose me down in the shower before I have to have your face between my legs again.”

I growl with enthusiasm, instantly forgetting again.

Forgetting the case.

Forgetting the little pig-nosed repairman.

Forgetting her Dad and the whole town that knows I’m here by now.

There’s something in her touch, when her skin’s against mine, it just makes me forget everything else.

And I just know I have the same effect on her.

That much I can tell already, my job, the reason I’m here so far at the back of my mind now, I couldn’t care.

My only interest is what she’s just said.

Shower and her. The two words in the same sentence are instant amnesia for me.

I watch her from behind as she leads me up those stairs again, this time to her room for a very different reason.

It’s hot now, the sun higher in the cloudy sky and a definite moist heat in the air.

Something we’re both glad to escape for a long while under the cool jets of her shower.

Chapter Nine

Faith

Totally naked, under a cool shower with Noah. His rock hard body has deep tan lines, with the most sensitive areas