Page 16 of Bedroom Therapy

The window banged shut, and she didn’t know whether the guy was going to do the right thing or not. So much for small town neighborliness.

Turning back toward her house, she wondered what to do now. Zachary had disappeared inside, and she realized suddenly that he had put himself in danger—for her.

With her whole body rigid, she stood, staring at the front door as though that would give her insight into what was going on inside.

Although she could go in there, it was likely that she wasn’t going to be much help. Maybe she’d even make things worse.

Still, as centuries dragged by, she took a step closer and then another.

She jumped back and screamed when the front door flew open and a man emerged and fled across the lawn.

Seconds later, Zachary appeared—and took off after him. The two men disappeared in the darkness beside the river.

When she heard Zachary curse, she ran toward the sound of his voice and found him picking himself up from the ground, just as a car engine started somewhere nearby.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I tripped over a damn tree root, and the bastard got away.”

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he snapped, striding back toward her house.

She followed, limping slightly now because the bottoms of her feet hurt. When she’d stepped into the living room, Zachary closed the door, then turned to face her.

Hours ago, she’d kicked him out. Another man in the same position wouldn’t have felt compelled to rush over and rescue her. But somehow she’d known he would.

“Why did you go after him?” she asked softly, taking a step toward him

He didn’t answer, only moved toward her, and they met in the middle of the living room.

Reaching out, she clasped her arms around him. She wasn’t even sure why. To comfort herself? To tell him how grateful she was? To let him know how relieved she was that nothing serious had happened to him?

Now that the danger was over, she had started to shake.

“You’re fine. Everything’s okay,” he murmured, his hands soothing over her back and shoulders.

When she lifted her face to his, staring up into his dark eyes, the emotions of the moment overwhelmed her. “I got . . . got out of the house all right,” she stammered. “Then you went in. And I was scared for you.”

He looked down at her for a long moment. Then his eyes focused on her lips. She could have pulled back. But when he lowered his head toward hers, she raised up on tiptoes—meeting him halfway.

She’d always considered kissing a pleasant activity. She would never have labeled this kiss as merely pleasant.

The first mouth to mouth contact was like a bolt of electricity, sizzling along her nerve endings, swamping her mind and body.

She discovered very quickly that Zachary Grant knew how to kiss—with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. He was sensual and masterful, subtle and overwhelming by turns. And thoroughly absorbed in what he was doing, as though kissing were an end in itself.

She’d met few men like that. Usually kissing was a prelude to sex. Or that’s what they wanted it to be.

But she sensed that for Zachary Grant, it was an activity to be enjoyed for its own sake.

She made a small needy sound as she drank in the heady taste of the man who held her so firmly in his arms. She clung to him while he angled his head, first one way and then the other, as though he were greedy to experience her every way he could—and greedy to take the kiss to levels she’d never thought possible in mouth to mouth contact.

It wasn’t enough. Not for her. And apparently not for him, either. She felt one of his large hands slide down to her hips and slip under the hem of her tee shirt to pull her lower body in against his erection, as though he were desperate to satisfy his craving for intimate contact with her.

The other hand flattened against her back, pressing her breasts against his chest.

She had never lost her head with a man. She had always been cautious in her relationships. But she had never been this hot and needy. Really, she had been hot and needy since he’d interrupted her in the bedroom the afternoon before.

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