Lover Beware 03 - After Midnight

at the memory of just how far they'd gone, fully clothed, and despite the fury that burned like a hot coal in her chest, her breasts rose, tight and aroused against the wet drag of her shirt.
    Rider's gaze slitted. "So, who have the local gossips put me in bed with this time? Macie Hume? Or are they having another stab at firing up a scandal with the Irwin twins?"
    The Irwin twins? Jane stared at Rider in disbelief, ignoring the moisture trickling down her face and running in small riv-After Midnight
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    ulets down her spine and between her breasts. Rider in bed with twins?
    Her jaw clamped. She was getting crazier by the minute.
    She had no idea there were so many single women in Tayler's Creek—let alone twins—and no idea what she was doing outside in the dead of night, in the middle of a cyclone, having this conversation with Rider. "If you don't mind," she said stiffly, "I'm going inside. Thanks for coming over, but as you can see, I'm fine. I don't need your help."
    His hand curled around her arm, jerking her to a halt. "I thought you understood how I felt."
    His voice was rough, his palm hot, burning through the wet cotton of her shirt.
    She resisted the urge to pull free. Damned if she'd fight with him. "What do you mean?"
    His gaze burned into hers. "I don't cheat."
    Her cheeks warmed at the memory of her own guilt. He had kissed her, but she had been the one who had climaxed—
    and she'd wanted to do a lot more. She didn't know what their little interlude could be classified as; but whether it was labeled an affair or not, it had felt like one. "You could have fooled me."
    "You're angry." There was a wealth of satisfaction in his voice. "Well, hallelujah for that. It beats the hell out of indifference."
    He released her. "I don't cheat, and I'm here. Figure it out."
    She blinked, feeling abruptly unsteady, as if the ground beneath her feet had just shifted. She'd felt like this once before, and she didn't trust the feeling. The last time, Rider had kissed her and almost wrecked her life.
    "You're finally getting it," he muttered, turning away, "but don't expect me to go down on my knees begging—"
    "Wait!" She touched his back, then snatched her fingers back as he spun, his gaze as cold as obsidian. "Look, I'm sorry—" She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "Um—
    don't go."
    His expression was wary. "What do you mean, 'Don't go'?"
    Her stomach clenched at the risk she had to take. She would rather walk over hot coals than admit to Rider that she'd been 218
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    obsessed with him for years. "If you don't cheat, and you're here," she said carefully, "that must mean ..."
    "Christ," he snapped, "I can't stand it. Just come here."
    Jane's heart slammed in her chest. The invitation, couched as an order—as if she was one of the soldiers under his com-mand—the way his gaze zeroed in on her mouth, was about as subtle as a hammer blow. "Anyone ever tell you you've got a problem with anger?"
    He stepped toward Jane, crowding her space. "I've been pissed for seven years. Most people know I've got a problem with anger. Some of them were even interested enough to find out why."
    It was Jane's turn to be wary, although the wariness was almost instantly overridden by a heady dose of excitement as his hands fastened on her arms. In the nerve-racking, swampy sea of her relationship with Rider, she finally knew what came next, because they'd played this part before.
    His hands slid up her arms, making her shiver, glided over her shoulders, slipped under her hair, and cupped her face, and she had to resist the urge to give in without any fight at all and melt into his arms.
    "I know you, O'Reilly," he murmured. "I've had a lot of time to think, to analyse. While you pretended I didn't exist, I researched you. Before you buried yourself in Tayler's Creek and started dressing like Huckleberry Finn you used to buy and sell stocks and consult on mergers. You're gorgeous and you've got a brain. Well, figure out this merger."
    She swallowed, unnerved as his head lowered. She wanted him to kiss her so much that her mouth was actually watering, but her mind couldn't shake loose of one compelling fact.
    She'd agonized over Michael Rider for seven years, and now she was finally free, and so was he. But, forbidden or not, Rider was still high-octane danger. She knew how to play the percentages, and whichever way she added this "relationship,"
    she was going to get burned.
    His mouth grazed her forehead, the