Page 46 of Stolen Kiss

“Well you’re not me.”

Heidi slammed her beer on the table, spilling suds and not caring.

“We’re not done,” she said pointing at him.

Keith didn’t answer her, instead he looked out to see, his face closed off. She circled the coffee table, jumped off the end of the veranda and hurried down the side path that led down to the beach. Jason had said to meet him by the dunes.

She needed the walk along the beach in the stiff wind to calm down. What the hell was her brother hiding?

Speed walking down the path that was hard earth, trodden on by hundreds of people and dried out by the sun, she eventually hit loose sand. Walking through like she was wading through quick sand in her deck shoes, she trudged until she got to firmer, semi-wet sand and took a deep breath in.

Heidi was glad she’d taken Jason’s advice to wear a jumper to meet him. The wind was whipping up loose sand grains that lashed at her face but she barely felt it. Her stomach twisted atthe thought her brother had lied to her. But if he lied who was he protecting. Surely it wasn’t her?

After ten breaths she was calmer. Turning her back to the headwind, she had a rear assisted pace that had her half walking half trotting towards Jason. She could see him in the distance and she stopped still.

In each of his hands were the reins to horses. The one on his left was pure white and the one in his right hand was black as night. She grinned as she started running to where he was. She hadn’t been on a horse since the last time she was with him. He’d taken her horse riding on their first date. By the time she reached him, she was free of her anger to Keith, packing it away for another time.

Heidi stood right in his space, deep breathing to calm herself before she could speak. An amused smile played on Jason’s lips as she raised her finger, turned to the side and bent at the waist. Somehow this made her get her breath back faster. Making a mental note to take more walks at lunchtime and not surf social media, she swallowed hard and stood upright.

“I apologise for my lack of fitness, I blame the roast potatoes,” she said. “My father was not happy I rocked up with mine. My cooking was perfectly okay until he tasted your deliciousness.”

She felt her blush at her words. Thinking dirty thoughts of the last time they were together.

Jason chuckled and gave her his trademark kiss with the corner of his mouth touching the corner of hers.

“You were full of energy the last time we were together.”

She sighed, she hadn’t gotten away with the comment.

“Ah,” she said, trying to will away the flush on her cheeks knowing what he was referring to. “I was able to lie down doing that.”

Another chuckle from Jason had her relaxing.

“Let’s try hello again, shall we?” Jason said.

He looped the reins through his arms and stepped up against Heidi’s body. She swooned at his closeness. He held her tight, arms around her back and then he dipped his head and kissed her properly. She opened immediately and relished the feel on his tongue inside her mouth. Heidi broke away first then pressed her lips to his mouth once. She stepped out of his hold and looked up at him.

“Where did you get the horses?”

“Apparently we have stables,” Jason said. “I didn’t know this until I was chatting with my aunt.”

“Cynthia?”

“Yeah. I only have one aunt, sweetheart.”

He was giving her a dazzling, warm smile and she wanted to look away but couldn’t.

“You said chatting. I can’t imagine the lady ever chatting. She seems too impatient to entertain the pastime.”

“That’s true enough, but she seems to want to chat to me. Daisy and Luke avoid her at all costs and Archer tolerates her because he’s the oldest and now has to learn how the estate works. But their conversations are mainly business.”

“Sounds riveting.”

“It is not, trust me. Anyway, when I asked her where I could get two horses she casually dropped that there were horses stabled on the estate.”

Jason lifted the reins to the white horse, “this is Petal, and she’s yours for this afternoon. My horse is Pluto. I don’t know why they have these names, I didn’t ask.”

Heidi took a step to Petal and stoked down her nose with the flat of her palm. Heidi cooed quiet words, lulling the animal to her whim. While she was looking her horse in the eye, she missed Jason get up into the saddle. She found the ability to putone foot in the stirrup and then up and over the sexiest action. A man riding at speed was her second favourite.

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