Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

between her legs, a throb of heat, a rush of fire through her veins. Her breasts ached. Small teasing sensations, feather light, like fingers drifting down her thighs.
    What the hell are you doing?
    She heard the voice clearly in her head. His voice, thick with desire, with the same need that coursed through her entire body.
    Gasping, she jerked her hands out from under the running water. She caught the echo of her gasp from the other room. For a moment her body pulsed with desire so acute she couldn’t think straight. Feeling was 64

    everything. Sensations of need, of lust, of desperate desire flooded her mind.
    She even caught an image of him licking his way up her thigh to her hip, his tongue tasting the droplets of water running down her leg. His desire? Hers?
    She couldn’t be certain. She only knew that she’d never experienced such need and it was all wrapped up with a complete stranger.
    She could still feel his muscles within his body, hard and defined—
    he’d felt like velvet over steel. Somehow the pads of her fingers had absorbed him into her, so that he lived and breathed in her. She looked wildly around her kitchen, and for the first time since she’d moved in, her home was no longer her refuge. She pressed her thumb hard into her palm and abruptly ran out onto the porch where she could breathe. She actually put her head between her knees, feeling a little faint.
    “Rikki?”
    She turned her head without lifting it, still bent over, and their eyes locked together. At once she felt as if she was falling into him—becoming part of him. He was wrapped in a blanket and stood swaying in the doorway.
    Beads of sweat dotted his forehead and his skin looked gray.
    He cleared his throat. “Are you all right?”
    He looked like hell, but he was asking her if she was all right. She straightened slowly, never breaking eye contact. She doubted she could have even had she tried. She was a prisoner now, connected to him, a part of him, and she didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
    “I don’t know. You?”
    He smiled unexpectedly, a brief flash of white teeth, although his blue eyes didn’t change expression at all. “My head hurts.” His eyes warmed then. “And so does my body. Whatever you were doing, it felt like you were touching me—intimately.”
    She pressed her thumb harder into the center of her palm. “You need to go back inside before you fall down.”
    “Come with me.”
    She sighed. “It’s difficult.”
    “Because you don’t let anyone in your home.”
    His blanket slipped and she caught a glimpse of the long sturdy column of his thigh before he righted it. He’d said home, not house. His description appealed to her.
    “Come on.” She stepped close to him and slipped her arm around his back, allowing him to lean on her. “Get back in bed. I’ll give you some aspirin. Can you eat anything?”
    “No. I still feel sick. I think I took a pretty ugly hit on the head.” He swung the door closed behind them and locked it.
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    “Good thing you’re hardheaded.” She glanced at the door and then up at him. “Are you worried about visitors? It’s not like I get many.”
    “Your family.”
    She nodded. “Yes, my sisters come by, but as a rule, they don’t come into the house. Blythe gets coffee sometimes in the morning and sits out on the porch with me. They just open the door and call to me.”
    “I wouldn’t want to accidently shoot anyone.”
    She scowled at him as she lowered him to the bed. “Keep up the threats and I’ll throw your weapons in the well.”
    “Did you think that was a threat?” His voice was mild. “I was giving you a warning. I don’t have a clue what the hell happened to me. Only a sense of danger and one very large instinct for self-preservation. I really wouldn’t want to hurt anyone you cared about.”
    She could see sincerity in his eyes, but she didn’t altogether trust his motives. More likely he was issuing a warning, so she would keep everyone away from him and he could hide without worrying. In her house . Her scowl deepened as she helped to prop him into a sitting position. She tucked blankets around him with the same meticulous attention to detail she did everything else.
    She waited until he took the aspirin and drank the water before she spoke again. “I put your extra ammo under the bed. You’ve got enough to start a small war.”
    Lev studied her face. She had a stubborn little chin. He decided to push her a little more.