Snowbound - Harlequin.com

JANICE KAY JOHNSON 203
of disappointment. They were intense, glowing with a
fire he had obviously banked, and she saw that his
relaxed pose was an illusion. He’d been waiting.
He rose to his feet, the chair rocking a few times
behind him. Gaze never leaving her, he crossed the room.
“Your cheeks are pink.”
“I think I ran the water too hot.” Her voice sounded
like someone else’s.
He grazed his knuckles down her warm cheek. His
voice was a murmur, gravelly enough to make heat pool
low in her belly. “I wanted you the first time I saw you.”
“I…I think I wanted you, too.”
He brushed his lips over hers. “You think?”
In fact, she couldn’t think.
“I was cold, and scared, and so grateful.” She let her
head fall back as he moved his mouth down her neck.
“And…and you weren’t very friendly.”
He lifted his head to look at her. “I was scared, too.
By you.”
A bubble of laughter came out as a hiccup, startling
her. “And of my horde of teenagers.”
“Yeah, of them, too. But—” now he stroked her
throat with his fingers “—not the same way.”
“I’m…not very scary,” she managed to say, the
words scarcely more substantial than her exhaled
breath.
For a moment, a shadow crossed his face. “Yeah,
you are.”
“No.” She lifted her hands and laid them on his
cheeks, feeling the texture of the day’s growth of beard.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”