Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [53]
Jo motioned toward the pleasant room. “It’s a nice place,” she said, then attempted a smile. “Homey.”
He touched her hair and smiled back at her. “Like you care about homey. You’re restless, Jo. Always have been.”
“I keep coming back to Black Falls.”
“So you do.”
But she saw that his mind wasn’t on his words. He let his hand fall to her waist, and she thought she heard him say her name as his mouth found hers. His arms encircled her, and he drew her toward him. She responded eagerly, welcoming the kiss, deepening it herself as she slipped her arms around him. He hadn’t worn a coat down to his woodpile. His soft sweater warmed her hands.
Even after fifteen years, he felt familiar, comfortable—as rugged and sexy and desirable as she remembered of their days together on the lake so long ago.
How out of their minds were they?
But the question evaporated from her mind as he lowered his hands to her hips, boldly easing them under her jacket and shirt and finding her bare skin. She heard her own sharp intake of air as desire spread through her. He lifted her off her feet and into him, and she could feel that he was hard already. He pressed himself against her in just the right spot. Her head spun, and with a start, she realized he wasn’t a teenager anymore. He was a man in his thirties, hard-edged and battle-scarred, literally and figuratively, in ways he hadn’t been at nineteen.
Finally, he raised his mouth from hers and set her down onto the hardwood floor. He dropped his hands from her. She stood back, breathless, wanting more. But she adjusted her shirt and her jacket and cleared her throat. She was hot now and she could see he was, too. As calm and controlled as he was outwardly, she noticed the flare of his nostrils, the dark cast to his eyes. His gaze skimmed over her as if she were naked. “Hell, Jo, you’re wearing me out. Takes a lot out of me to hold myself back with you. Kissing you is the easy part.” He traced one finger over her lips. “It always has been.”
“We’re in uncharted waters here, Elijah.”
“Not so uncharted.”
When they were growing up, it seemed as if they had nothing in common at all. Now, after they’d both been on their own, had left their families and small town, she could see that she and Elijah had more in common than they could possibly have realized as teenagers.
Which didn’t mean kissing him was smart.
“Would you like me to have a look around and tell you what I think?”
“Of what, my choice in sheets and towels?”
“As to whether or not someone searched your house,” she said.
“Ah. No, that’s okay. Want me to check out your cabin?”
“No.” She ignored his amused, knowing smile and continued, “Let me take a rain check on dinner. The brownie I ate at the café has my head spinning.”
“I don’t think it’s the brownie.”
“Elijah…”
His eyes held hers a moment, but he didn’t speak.
She did. “Your father came to see me when he was in Washington in early April.”
He lifted a log from a small stack on the brick hearth and opened the top of the stove and lowered the wood onto the fire. “I didn’t know he’d gone to Washington.”
“He said he didn’t tell anyone. He just went and let A.J. and Rose and everyone else in Black Falls think he was on a fishing trip. He wanted to see the cherry blossoms. I know that much.” She stood closer to the fire, felt its heat. “He told me he’d had a premonition that something bad was going to happen to you.”
“Anxiety about the dangers I faced isn’t the same as a premonition. He knew I was in Afghanistan.” Elijah adjusted the dampers on the woodstove. “It’s just a coincidence that I was wounded in April.”
“Maybe so. Drew was dealing with some guilt about us.” Jo didn’t go into detail. “We had