Lover Beware

his command—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 contact fleeting and unexpected, and totally unfair. Her eyes closed, and her palms flattened on his chest. She could feel the hard points of his nipples, the rapid slam of his heart, and the faint panicked urge to push him away dissolved as every bone in her body turned to jelly. He felt hot and muscular and wet, and God help her, she wanted him. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes.”
    She caught the flash of his grin. “Just that you’re wearing too many.”
    His lips brushed hers again, unexpectedly soft and gentle, when everything else about him seemed hard as nails—tough and uncompromising. She drew in a shivering breath, tasted Rider, then his tongue filled her mouth, hot and unutterably male and every nerve ending in her body melted.
    After the emptiness of the past years, the antiseptic smells of medication and hospitals—the curious stillness of waiting for death—he tasted like fire and heat and rain, as earthy and powerful as the rugged hill country that enfolded Tayler’s Creek.
    His hand settled in the small of her back, urging her closer, until her breasts were pressed against his chest, the contact hot, electrifying. He was wet, his T-shirt soaked, his skin burning through the dampness.
    He broke off the kiss as he peeled off his soaked shirt, then his hands clasped her waist and shifted upward, sliding her shirt and the cotton singlet up in one smooth, slick sweep. When he didn’t find a bra, his hands curved around and gripped her breasts, holding them firmly, his thumbs stroking over her erect nipples, making her shudder as he leaned forward and captured her mouth again.
    Heat rolled through Jane as she wound her fingers in his wet hair and held on, drinking in his taste and scent, the heady feel of his skin against hers. Her breasts were swollen and tight, her lower belly throbbing, and rain and moisture filled the air, making even the simple act of breathing difficult.
    He bent and took one breast in his mouth. One hand cupped and gripped her bottom, his fingers digging into the soft flesh, and abruptly liquid heat spasmed through her so that she shuddered and arched, her mind blanked out by the exquisite rill of pleasure.
    Vaguely, she logged the short, sharp word he said, but her mind was still swimming, caught up in a curious stasis where light and sound faded. She had the dizzying sense of movement, felt the cool sharp shock of wet grass against her back. She registered the rough slide of her shorts and panties being drawn down her legs, the abrasion of denim as he slid down his jeans and between her thighs, and vulnerability assailed her even as she tilted her hips in automatic reflex, the slight movement opening her fully to him.
    She felt the stroke of his fingers, the bolt of pleasure