locked stares with her and she felt the world beginning to spin again. “What exactly do you want? Right now I’d give you anything.”
Her lips parted and he took the opportunity she hadn’t fully meant to give. His mouth covered hers and she was lost once more. She wrapped her arms around his neck, shivering as she slid his hands to her waist and molded even closer to her. It was so intimate, and with someone she swore she wanted no conversation with, let alone this .
And yet there was no way to resist it. This was attraction, plain and simple, something she couldn’t control. He stroked her tongue with his and her body grew hot and liquid. For the first time, she understood how Claire could be swept away by a dangerous man with only pretty whispers and sweet kisses to recommend him.
Her eyes flew open at that thought. Claire had been swept away by passion. Dangerous passion just like this one. And she had paid the price.
With a groan of pain, she pushed away from Evan and shook her head. “No, no I can’t. I-I must go now. Please don’t follow me. Please.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but she refused to allow it when she knew his seductive words would only draw her back into his web. She walked away and this time he did not follow.
Evan was still standing in the billiard room nearly an hour after Josie left him a second time. And although his mind was filled with wild thoughts, he had made no sense out of what had transpired between them.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her. Or chase her. Or corner her. Or kiss her again. He certainly had never had the intention of wanting her. Her? Josie Westfall? Never.
Except that he did. Even now he could feel her soft, full curves pressed against his body and he went hard at the memory. How he wished he had just thrown caution and shared history and gentlemanliness out the window and laid her across the billiards table. He could have made her come in few moments, he could have tasted her, claimed her.
“And then where would you be?” he snapped out loud as a way to wake himself from his odd daydream. “Shackled to Josie?”
The door behind him opened and Gabriel strode into the room. His brother’s face was drawn down in a deep scowl and his brows were furrowed together in the same look that all the Woodley clan shared when frustrated.
“Gabriel,” Evan said.
His brother blinked, as if he had been unaware of Evan’s presence until his name was said. “Oh, yes, hello.”
“Were you looking for me?” Evan asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “No. No. I don’t know. I suppose I wondered where you went off to when Josie came back to the parlor alone.”
Evan tensed at the mention of her name. “Are they still here?”
“Josie and her mother? No, Josie claimed a headache and they went home just a short while ago.”
“Then why do you look so troubled? Only Josie Westfall could inspire such frustration as far as I’m concerned.”
His brother stared at him like he had grown a second head. “Trust I hardly think of Josie—she could not upset a flea. No, I just had a conversation with Juliet about Mama.”
Evan blinked as he tried to place who in the world Juliet was. And then it came to him. He tilted his head. “Miss Gray? The healer?”
“Yes, that’s what I said,” Gabriel snapped.
Any curiosity Evan might have had about that statement was replaced with tense concern. “Is Mama all right? Is something wrong?”
“No,” Gabriel ground out. “Mama is fine. It was a simple disagreement, that is all.”
“You had a disagreement with—”
Gabriel cut him off with a wave of his hand. “What about Josie, though?”
“What about Josie?” Evan asked, tension tightening in his chest.
“Did you discover something?” Gabriel pushed as he moved to the sidebar and poured himself a drink.
Evan let out a long breath. Oh, he had discovered a great deal. Like how Josie felt like heaven. Or tasted like ripe peaches. He had discovered that
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