The Return of the Stranger. Kate Walker

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СКАЧАТЬ this truly Heath? Was this her childhood friend; the companion of those wild, carefree days? This man looked like him. But Heath with the lighting of wildness burned out of him, the deep polished jet eyes cool and assessing, not flashing with fierce defiance as they had done in the past.

      ‘Heath …’

      It was as if she was trying his name on for size. As if she had never spoken it before or the person she used it for were a stranger, a newcomer into her life. A man who filled her senses, surrounded her so that she inhaled him with each breath.

      Somehow she managed to tilt her face up towards his, and this close there was no avoiding the changes in him. She could see the faint lines that time had etched round his nose and mouth, feel the scrape of the late afternoon’s growth of beard at his hard jawline, see the tiny flecks of grey at the temples of that black-as-night hair. From this angle the scar that Joe had inflicted on him was a distinct dent in his skin, a harsh white mark against the tan that he had brought back with him from wherever he had been.

      But that was when her thought processes stopped. When something changed. She couldn’t have put a name to it, couldn’t have explained it in any way. She only knew that it was as if the air she breathed had become charged, filled with sensual electricity so that it burned its way down to her lungs, searing the ends of nerves on the way.

      ‘I …’ she tried but the electrical storm had melted her brain and no more words would follow the single syllable.

      ‘You?’

      She saw that beautiful, sexy mouth twist, almost smile. But the next moment Heath’s grip tightened, cruel fingers digging into her arms. She was hauled up hard against him and fierce lips came down brutally on hers.

      For a moment everything was wild heated delirium, running burning and demanding along her veins. The world spun round her, any sense of reality lost in its stinging haze. She was burning, melting, losing herself. Out of her mind and out of her body.

      He had never kissed her before. She had never felt his lips on hers, only on her cheek, and once, awkwardly, on her hair. Their friendship had never been like that. They had held hands, hugged—hard—but never kissed. Not as a man kissed a woman. But she had never been kissed this way before. And she had never known that it could make her feel like this.

      This was something she had never experienced. This flare of heat and power, this rush.

      Of hunger?

      Sexual hunger?

      Was that the aching, burning sensation uncoiling in the pit of her stomach, spreading like wildfire along her nerves? A heady pulse seemed to have started between her legs, making her stir restlessly, her body as agitated as her mind that whirled in confusion and disorientation.

      Was this what it really felt like? What a woman was supposed to feel for a man? Was this what had been missing in her marriage all along? Had Arthur been right? That she had never been a real woman—until now.

      The thought shocked her, even frightened her, her heart thudding in a very different way. Her mind seemed to split in two, warring between wanting to sink into this, into his arms, into his kiss, take more of it, take all of it—and the almost panicked need to pull away, tear herself out of his grasp and put as much distance between herself and this shocking blaze of heat as she possibly could.

      ‘Heath …’

      She muttered his name against his lips, meaning it as a protest but finding that it only added to the dangerously erotic sensations his mouth was creating. The taste of his skin against hers was a smoky, sensual tang, the movement of her lips opening to him so that his tongue slid along the seam of her mouth, then dipped in, tasted, teased. Tormented.

      It was too much. Too intimate. Not what she wanted and yet so much what she craved. She tried to pull away, tried to twist from his arms, but he simply shifted his position, held her closer. One long powerful hand scored into her hair, grabbing at dark brown strands of it and twisting sharply, angling her head so that he had her exactly where he wanted her.

      This time his kiss was very different. If that first kiss had been the kiss of a conqueror, a kiss of dominance, of power, then this was surprisingly, shockingly gentle. A kiss of enticement, seduction, of temptation. Slow and sensuous, provocative, arousing, it seemed to steal her soul out of her body, melt the bones in her legs so that his strength was the only thing keeping her upright. She softened against him, swayed. Too close. So close that she could feel the heat and strength of his body under the fine clothes.

      Fine clothes that Heath had never worn, never owned before. Fine clothes that spoke of another man. A man so very different from her childhood friend that just the thought of him set up a fearful trembling in her limbs, tightening each nerve, stretching it almost to breaking point. She didn’t know this man. And yet he was so familiar.

      His body seemed to call to hers, waking it and stirring it in a way no one else had ever done.

      And hers to him. Because she was now so close that she could feel the hard, swollen evidence of his physical hunger for her pressed tight against the cradle of her pelvis.

      ‘Kat!’

      From inside the sitting room, Isobel’s impatient voice floated out to them. ‘What are you doing?’

      Shock froze Kat’s thoughts, startled her into total stillness, her mouth still captive under Heath’s, her mind lost in the sensual haze that had taken possession of it. She felt his sudden check too, the jolt that brought him back to the present, the stiffening of the powerful frame that just a heartbeat before had been pressed so tight against hers that it was as if they were blended into each other, not two spirits, but one.

      For the space of a couple of whirling seconds the world seemed to hang suspended, out of focus, all sense of reality lost. But then Isobel spoke again, her tone more petulant and discontented.

      ‘Kat, I really need that tea.’

      As if from a distance she heard Heath’s sudden, sharp bark of laughter, harshly cynical, drawn from some deep shadowy place inside him. And the mood that had held her captive and lost shattered once and for all. Heath lifted his dark head, took a step back. He distanced her from him too, setting her back on the floor so that only now did she become aware of the way that she had actually been lifted right off her feet, her toes barely keeping contact with the decorative tiles underneath her.

      With a sudden snatching breath reality came back to her and she was dropped back into the world. But a world that no longer seemed the same. A world that now seemed turned upside down and inside out and she was suddenly sure would never be the same again.

      What was happening to her? Who was the woman who had just gone up in flames in Heath’s arms? Surely that couldn’t truly be her?

      Without thought her hands went to her hair, trying to smooth tumbled strands that he had twisted and tangled up so mercilessly. The band that had held her ponytail was lost, pulled free and abandoned somewhere on the floor. So she had to content herself with the rough and ready combing out of the knots that those powerful fingers had created. Her dress too was crumpled, caught up high on her thighs when he had lifted her and now she tugged nervously at the material, trying to restore it to some sort of decency. And all the time she didn’t dare to lift her eyes to look at Heath; to meet the burning ebony gaze that she knew by fearful instinct was fixed firmly on her face.

      He waited, silent and dark, an ominous shadow СКАЧАТЬ