Lover Beware 03 - After Midnight

dealt in the solid currency of reality, and one who floated in a fantasy world.
    He was in love with her.
    Her heart slammed in her chest, and not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to stretch out in bed with him, to have that sensual male mouth on hers: to have him naked on top of her.
    It should have shocked her that she was even considering what it might be like to make love with her next-door neighbour, but instead, all she could think of was that on top of everything else that was going wrong in her life, she shouldn't have to want Rider.
    Rider must have read something in her expression, because instead of backing off, he stepped into her, his hands curved around her waist—the contact electrifying. "Damn," he murmured. "I didn't mean to upset you, and I wasn't going to do this."
    His head dipped and his mouth captured hers. Jane's heart slammed in her chest and for a moment she was frozen, then, somewhere in the murky depths of her mind, sharp need welled out of the confusion that always gripped her whenever she thought about Michael Rider and the hazy notion of pushing free dissolved. If the kiss had been practiced or slick, maybe she could have resisted, but it was so hungry it made her toes curl.
    His tongue stroked along hers and a low moan welled up from deep in her belly, and she closed off the guilt, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him back.
    His hands closed on her bottom and she found herself lifted, until the hard ridge of his sex settled against the sensitive flesh After Midnight
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    between her legs. He pressed more firmly against her, and the tension coiled almost unbearably tight.
    She broke the kiss. "If you keep doing that—"
    "You'll come." His gaze locked with hers, dark and fierce.
    "God, don't say it—"
    One hand closed on her hair, pulling her head back, the movement fierce as his mouth sank on hers. His tongue was hot and wet and salty in her mouth, and her whole being tensed as he walked her back a half step until she was pinned against the doorjamb, his muscled body tight against hers. Her breasts felt swollen and constricted, her skin so sensitive that every touch made her shiver and jerk, the hot ache between her legs so acute it bordered on pain.
    She felt the hard, male shape of him straining for entrance despite the constricted layers of clothing, felt the shudder that swept him as he moved against her, and the gloomy afternoon dissolved in a raw flash of heat.
    The buzz of the phone, the click of her answering machine engaging, registered, and abruptly, she recoiled.
    Patrick. She'd forgotten about Patrick.
    She'd forgotten she was married.
    All Rider had had to do was kiss her and she'd practically forgotten her own name.
    She shook her head, her throat tight. She still felt drawn, magnetized. She wanted to bury her face against the warm skin of his throat, breathe in his scent, open her mouth against his skin and taste him, and for a moment she teetered on the brink, shoved off balance by needs that were so alien and powerful she could barely breathe, let alone think.
    She wanted Rider. It wasn't rational, and it wasn't right.
    His dark gaze caught hers. His mouth dipped again, barely touching hers, and her body reacted, her hips sliding against his, and for a split second, she didn't care, she just wanted.
    He lifted his head and pressed her face into his shoulder, and for endless seconds she clung to him, memorizing his scent, soaking in his warmth.
    His breath stirred in her hair. "I've got to go."
    "I know."
    He eased back. "It's okay. Like I said, I didn't mean to"—
    his thumb swept across her lips—"do this, but I'm glad I did, because I'm going away and I don't know when I'll be back."

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    FIONA BRAND
    "Or- if I’ll be back" hung in the air, and as it turned out, that time he almost hadn't come back.
    Jane didn't see him for more than eighteen months. Eventually, she'd heard secondhand in town that he'd been wounded on some overseas operation. The next time she'd been in Winslow, she'd gone to the library and searched back in the newspaper files, and finally found a small mention of the incident, where "a soldier" had been knifed and evacuated to a military hospital in Germany, his condition serious.
    Worry had eaten at her, and her weight had plummeted, until she'd taken herself in hand and forced herself to eat. One day, months later, she'd turned around in the supermarket and seen him, larger than life and drop-dead gorgeous,