Shiver

know.”
    “You could have fooled me.” She squirmed discreetly, just to see if there was any possible way she could get out from under him. There wasn’t. But she needed to. The warmth of his body, the feel of so much nearly naked masculinity wrapped around her, was doing funny things to her insides. “Do you want to try to get up now?”
    Their faces were only inches apart, so close that she could smell the faint minty aroma of the toothpaste he had apparently just used. He needed a shave: probably two days’ worth of stubble darkened his jaw. Glancing up in an effort to avoid looking at his mouth, which was actually really very nicely shaped, she met his eyes instead. He was regarding her almost meditatively.
    “Yeah,” he said, without making the slightest move to do so. “Did I hurt you?”
    “No.” She looked at him more closely. His eyes were more black than brown now, and she realized that it was because his pupils were dilated. Of course, there was a reason that he had stumbled, a reason he had knocked them both down, and a reason he wasn’t moving faster to get up. As that reason became crystal clear to her, she gave him a disgusted look. “You’re really flying now, aren’t you?”
    “Flying?” He frowned, then as comprehension dawned gave a negative shake of his head. “Nope. Not flying. Thing is, you’re not high if you really need the pain meds you’re on. And right now, I need them.” He inhaled, seemingly more deeply than before, and his lids lowered a little. From beneath a fringe of stubby black lashes his eyes held hers. There was something in the look he was giving her . . . “You know what? You smell like strawberries.”
    Before she could even begin to formulate a reply to that, he lifted his head, shifted a little, and kissed her.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     

     
    I t had been way too long since a man had kissed her. That was the problem, Sam told herself fiercely as his mouth molded to hers like the two were separate parts of the same whole, like they were meant to fit together. That explained why she didn’t jerk away at the first touch of his lips on hers, why she wasn’t trying to shove him off her, why she wasn’t saying no. That explained why her body clenched and her heart speeded up and her pulse went haywire.
    Why she wasn’t even thinking no.
    Why she was letting him kiss her.
    Why she was lying there with her hands splayed flat against his bare chest and her head nestled on his robe-cushioned arm and her lips parting to let him in.
    Why her eyes were closing.
    Why she was kissing him back.
    It explained everything. The intensity of her response. The electricity that arced between them.
    The heat. Oh, God, the heat.
    He was kissing her with a raw hunger that made her burn deep inside. That made her go all soft with pleasure, and arch up against him and slide her hands up over the hard warm muscles of his chest until her arms were wrapping around his neck.
    His lips were firm and dry, and he knew what to do with them—and what he was doing dazzled her. His tongue was hot and wet and tasted faintly of mint. He was bigger than she was, stronger than she was, all muscles and sinews and hair-roughened flesh, unmistakably, overwhelmingly male—and she loved that he was. His arms were hard around her, pulling her closer. Only the thin cotton of the shirt she was wearing separated her breasts from the unyielding wall of his chest. The silky nylon of her granny panties slid against the smooth cotton of his boxers.
    He was aroused.
    So. Was. She.
    She couldn’t believe it, but it was true. So aroused she was burning with it. Melting with it.
    Just from a kiss. It was because it had been too long, because she had been caught off guard, because he was a really, really good kisser, she told herself feverishly. But none of those things explained the intensity of her reaction entirely. The only thing to do was put it down to chemistry.
    He slanted his mouth across hers, licking into it and sending ripples of fire shooting through her. Her heart pounded. Her pulse raced. Her body pressed against his. The hot sweet throbbing that he was awakening in her was the most erotic thing she had ever felt in her life.
    Never in her wildest dreams would she have thought that he, of all the men in all the world, could excite her like this.
    She made a small, involuntary sound deep in her throat. He raised his head briefly, and she thought he looked down at her. She could have stopped it