Read Online Judgement By Fire by Glenys O'Connell - Free Book Online

deserve at least a
small kiss better?” 
    Even though
his voice teased, she felt her body respond dangerously as heat flooded through
her veins from a fire flaring deep in her belly.
    Jon reached
his free hand around behind Lauren’s head, pulling her down and closing the gap
between their lips in a smooth, experienced movement.
    Fire arced
between them like high voltage lightening through a grounded conductor. Their
kiss lasted only a moment, a gentle meeting of lips like the brushing of
butterfly wings against rose petals, but the wild feelings it aroused surged
and roared, threatening to swamp them totally.
    With a soft
groan, Jon resisted the temptation to kiss her again, to gorge himself on the
sweetness he’d just tasted and let the tidal wave of desire take them where it
would. Instead, he contented himself with stroking her soft cheek and planting
a swift kiss on her upturned nose. Then he rose to his feet in a flowing,
graceful motion, pulling her up beside him. 
    “You’re right,
at least in that it’s time to go. Shall I walk you back? It’s very dark.”
    Lauren
considered having him accompany her back, if only to prolong this oasis of time
together before the waves of the real world came crashing back on them. Her
heart urged her to keep him with her and her body joined in, clamoring its own
chaotic needs with a sly question about whether she’d ask him inside—and
whether she’d be able to let him leave or if they’d be drawn into her warm bed
together.
    Looking at
him, his hair bright in the starlight, his eyes shadowed and skin still pale
from the shock of the wound she had inflicted, Lauren almost gave in to the
temptation that was swamping her physically and emotionally. It took a mighty
effort to still all the voices that urged her on, and shook her head.
    “No, thanks, I
know these woods like the back of my hand and I often come out here at night.
Besides, you should be resting after that head wound,” she told him firmly,
almost choking on the guilt that hit her again for causing him such injury.
“Anyway, it’s not far, just a few minutes through the trees over there. You can
see the glow from my porch light.”
    “So I’m
sleeping in your back yard?” he said with a wicked grin. “Tell you what, so I
don’t have to come over and check on you, let me know you’ve got home safely by
flashing that light a couple of times before you switch it off, okay?”
    She felt a
little flutter of pleasure in her breast at his protectiveness. She laughed
lightly and told him not to worry about her, she could look after herself. And
she left him there, knowing he was staring after her and guessing he was
experiencing the same kind of longing that she was desperately trying to
suppress.
    As she left
the glowing circle of the campfire, hidden from Jon’s sight by the thickly
pressing trees, feet crunching on the hard snow as the temperatures continued
to drop into the night; Lauren felt suddenly that she was being watched.
    Sure Jon Rush
was following her to see her safely home—or had decided to take up the
invitation that she had barely managed to withhold—she turned on a wild impulse
to greet him. Her heated blood ignoring her head’s warning about truth and
consequences. She whirled around, but the path behind her was empty. Yet still
the feeling of being watched persisted.
    Just some
deer or a fox out a-hunting, she told herself. All the same, the uneasy
feeling caused her to quicken her steps, glad when she reached the shelter of
her own back porch. Turning off the porch light as she entered the house,
Lauren couldn’t help smiling to herself as she toggled the switch up and down a
couple of times.
    There, Jon
Rush ,she thought, I’m safely home. And the cheerful
welcoming space of her studio seemed less lonely somehow, knowing he was out
there.
    * *
*
    So that’s
how things stand, is it? Anger tightened the slender frame of the
watching man. She’d no time for him and all he could