Dedicated To Deirdre. Anne Marie Winston

      Three

      It was the first time she had acknowledged the Christmas party where they’d met. He eyed her back, rigid and frozen where she had come to a halt by the rail, and he realized she was shaking. He hadn’t seen her lose it like this. Even when she’d had good reason, at that damned party, she’d been calm and collected, a miserable lady too well-bred to make a scene.

      Slowly, he walked across the porch, setting his wineglass on the wide railing. He reached around her and took hers from her and set it down. Then, driven by some instinct that he didn’t fully understand himself, he laid his palms on her shoulders, burrowing beneath the cloud of hair and gently rubbing the tense muscles of her neck.

      His thumbs stroked and molded, caressed and massaged as he offered her what comfort he could. For long moments he silently kneaded her flesh, feeling the tension ease out of her little by little.

      The stiffness in her shoulders relaxed and her body moved slightly with the pressure of his hands. Her head drooped forward, lolling from side to side, and her hair spilled over his hands. He was getting hard again simply from touching her satiny skin, and he took a deep breath. His hands slowed their massage until he was doing little more than sliding his fingers over the rounded joints of her shoulders.

      “I’m sorry,” he finally said, bending to offer the words into her ear, stirring curling tendrils of hair with his breath. “We can talk about something harmless, like the weather. Or—” he took her elbow and turned her gently around “—we can forget about talking.”

      Her eyes were wide and dark in the evening light. The only sign that she’d even registered his words was a slight parting of her lips. Without touching her anywhere else, he lifted his hand and slipped it along her cheekbone, cradling her small face in his palm. She said nothing, only watched him through opaque eyes as he lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers in the lightest of caresses.

      When he touched her lips, he had to restrain himself from devouring her on the spot, so tantalizing and arousing was the contact. An odd feeling spread through him. He’d thought of her so often in this context, but the reality was so much...more. His nerves were jumping and he told himself to calm down and quit overreacting. This didn’t mean that much, he assured himself. Even though it felt right somehow, in a way he’d never experienced before.

      The second kiss was bolder, firmer, though he deliberately reminded himself to go slowly, take it easy. She made no move to resist him, but he felt her mouth begin to stir, moving beneath his until he insistently thrust his tongue into her depths. She gasped. He pulled her against him, his arms wrapping around soft curves, his body meeting hers from shoulder to hip. For the first time, she touched him, putting her small hands tentatively to his shoulders, then sliding them around his neck as she allowed him to kiss her, and kiss her, deepening the contact with each stroke of his tongue.