Muriel Jensen - Man With A Message

“You thought I was kissing you?” he prompted, apparently having no such compunction.

He didn’t really appear self-satisfied, but there was an artlessness to him she didn’t trust at all.

“Yes,” she admitted, making herself look into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She tried to leave again, but he still had her arm. She felt a sudden and desperate need to get out of there.

“What?” she demanded impatiently.

“I haven’t accepted your apology,” he reminded her.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Well, how I react to this,” he explained in an amiable tone, “will be determined by why you hit me.”

“I just told you! I was dreaming and I…”

“I know, but if you were angry at me because you were disappointed that I wasn’t kissing you, that requires a different response altogether.”

She knew where this was going and she didn’t want any part of it. Well, she did, but only for purely selfish reasons. She missed the intimacy of marriage. Not the sex, necessarily, but the touches, the pats, the…the kisses. And though she’d sworn there would never be another man in her life, she was still allowed to miss what a man brought to a relationship. Wasn’t she?

“I thought you were…” She even hated to say his name aloud. It brought back memories of those last awful few months of her marriage when she’d shouted it pleadingly, begging Ben to understand how she felt.

Cam waited.

“My…husband,” she said finally.

His eyes closed a moment. “You have a husband?”

That was her out. She had simply to say yes, and he’d lose interest in this unsettling morning exercise. Freedom was one small word away.

She opened her mouth to speak it but heard herself say, instead, “My ex-husband.”

He looked cautious. “You want him back?” he asked gently.

For the first time in a year she faced that question directly. Did she want him back?

“No,” she whispered. “But I miss…” It was hard to say.

“You can tell me,” he encouraged her softly.

The words clogged her throat. What had begun in amusement and sexual challenge was all of a sudden filled with real emotion.

“I miss trust,” she finally admitted, her voice barely audible, even to herself. He tipped her face up as if to help himself hear. “I miss holding hands, telling stories, and I miss…” She had to say it. “Kisses.”

And that seemed to be all he had to know. This was no longer about what she’d felt last night when she slapped him, but what was suddenly between them now as she admitted need and he responded.

His mouth came down on hers with tender authority. The sureness in the hands that framed her face told her to leave it to him; he knew what he was doing. And he did.

The touch of his lips was familiar from last night, and she experienced none of the awkward newness of first kisses. He was confident, she was willing, and the chemistry was its own catalyst.

His mouth was dry and warm and clever, his hands sure as they moved over her back, down her spine, stopping at the hollow just below her waist, then moving up again.

She met his lips avidly, basking in the almost-forgotten comfort of the shelter of a man’s arms.

HER RESPONSE WAS FAR MORE enthusiastic than Cam had expected. He wasn’t entirely sure what was happening here, except that it wasn’t what he’d originally intended. He’d been teasing her, playing with their previous connection, trying to taunt the stiffness out of her because…he wasn’t sure why. Stiff, tight women weren’t his type. And neither were small ones. They made him feel huge and inept and afraid to move.

But she wrapped her arms around him gamely, dipped the tip of her tongue into his mouth with tantalizing eagerness, combed her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and somehow touched something inside him that seemed to rip in two everything he thought he’d decided about women since his first wife, Allison.

Then without warning she sagged against him, dropping her forehead to his chest and remaining absolutely still for several seconds. When she raised her head, her eyes were stormy with something he couldn’t quite define.

She punched his shoulder as if to release some pent-up emotion. But it didn’t seem to be anger.

“Now you’re going to have to come back tomorrow,” he said, trying to lighten the abrupt sadness in the room, “and apologize for hitting me again.”

“So this is what’s taking so long,” a female voice said from the doorway.

Cam looked up and Mariah started guiltily out of his arms.

“Parker!” she said, her voice sounding strangled. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I thought the dog was devouring him and came in to…”

Parker glanced at Cam, still partially wrapped in a blanket, then listened interestedly as Mariah tried to explain, then gave up. It did sound ridiculous.

“Oh, never mind.” Mariah looked up at Cam, opened her mouth to speak, then apparently decided against it. “Goodbye,” she said, instead. She walked past Parker and out the door. Fred whined.

“Good morning, Parker,” Cam said politely, feigning a normalcy the situation denied.

Parker, who’d always been warm and kind to him the few times they’d met in city hall, now studied him with a measure of doubt. “Mariah’s my sister,” she said.

He nodded. “Hank told me.” He explained briefly about Fred and his growling game. “It was 4:00 a.m. when I got home. I pulled my shoes and socks off on the porch because I was drenched, came in with an armload of stuff and kicked the door closed—or thought I had. When Mariah heard Fred playing, she assumed I was in trouble and came in to rescue me.”

“That kiss was a thank-you?” she queried.

“No,” he replied. “You should probably ask her what it was.”

She nodded and prepared to leave. He walked her to the door, where she stopped and smiled. “She’s a very nice girl who’s had a very bad time recently.”

He leaned a shoulder in the doorway. “The ex-husband?”

Parker looked surprised. “She told you?”

“Only that she had one.”

“He was a good guy,” Parker explained, “who turned out to be a bastard. I’d hate to have that happen to her again.”

“Don’t worry, she’s learned to defend herself,” he said with a wry smile. “She keeps hitting me.”

Parker frowned. “She came to apologize for that.”

He laughed lightly. “She did. Then she hit me again.” He straightened and assured her seriously, “I’m not a bastard. My background isn’t pretty and I wouldn’t claim to be a good guy, but I’m not a threat to anybody’s safety, either.”

She studied him, as if deciding whether or not to believe him. Then she finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll take your word on that. Otherwise, I know how to massage your shoulder into your eye socket.”

“Rough women in your family,” he noted with a grin.

She smiled pleasantly and hurried down the stairs.

Cam closed and locked the door, fed Fred, then decided against cereal in favor of stopping at Perk Avenue coffee shop on his way to work. He deserved a little sugar after what he’d been through this morning.

In the bedroom, he yanked off the blanket, delved into the closet for fresh jeans and a sweatshirt and started toward the bathroom, but something sparkling in the middle of the bed caught his attention. He reached for it and found that it was a little gold hoop with three tiny beads—an earring. Mariah’s earring.

He tossed it in his hand, remembering her leaping to his rescue, sprawled in the middle of his bed, leaning into him as he kissed her.

He had to draw a breath to clear the images. He didn’t need this. If he did intend to get involved with a woman, he wanted some buxom, uncomplicated ray of sunshine who’d want to make a home, raise children and help him forget all he’d lost or never had.