Cole Dempsey's Back In Town. Suzanne McMinn

long beat passed. Her eyes seemed to search his, and he had no idea what she was looking for. She looked achingly beautiful in the gossamer-gleam of her room. She could have been sixteen, she looked so young and vulnerable suddenly.

      Then she drew in a deep, shaky breath. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

      “I’m not your enemy, Bryn.”

      Her gaze held on to him. “Then what are you?”

      As he gazed back at her, he saw realization creeping into her eyes. The tension shifted into something else, something nearly electric. And now that the fear was past, the blood thrumming through him was communicating an altogether different need. And she felt it, too. He saw her desire in the glitter of her tear-drenched eyes.

      His gaze flicked to her mouth. Her soft lips parted as if in readiness. It had been so long since he’d touched her this way. So long since he’d kissed her.

      And yet he remembered exactly how she fitted in his arms. He knew her taste, her slight sigh and the way she tipped her head to the right just as his lips closed on hers.

      Her mouth was warm and she made him think of summertime and sugarcane. He remembered her kiss, her innocence, and all these years later she was only that much more intoxicating for not being quite so innocent anymore. He deepened the kiss with all the pent-up passion he’d blocked for so long. Her hands crept up to tentatively touch his chest, and she was kissing him back. He felt the fever in her response, and heard the choked sob in her throat—and he knew she was feeling everything he was feeling. Pain and need and rightness—