But his feet weren’t moving. He wasn’t turning and heading for the door. Because he couldn’t. Because he had waited too long, wanted for too many years. Walking away now seemed impossible.

“So why aren’t you?” Her gaze flickered again.

She wasn’t nearly as cool as she wanted him to think. Emotions seethed inside Janey; he could see them, feel them. He wanted to taste the hunger he had glimpsed in her eyes; he wanted to feel it burning him.

“I want that kiss, Janey.”

Her green eyes seemed to darken, almost. Just a shade, maybe. And it wasn’t anger.

“What kiss?” Her breathing was heavier now, deeper. Her breasts lifted and fell, pressing against her white blouse with tempting promise. And her nipples were hard. The sight of those tight little peaks held him entranced.

“That kiss you teased me with the day I pulled you out of Nadine’s.” He moved toward her, stepped behind her.

Alex let the scent of her wash through his senses. An essential smell of feminine warmth, of sweet heat.

The smell of a woman, mixed with the peachy scent of soap and the delicate fragrance of shampoo. The scent of her shouldn’t have been as arousing as it was.

She had cut her hair. It was straight, tamed, framing her face like black silk ribbons, instead of long and filled with the riotous curls that tempted his hands. This hair was tempting, too, though. So damned tame and restrained that it made him wonder exactly what she was trying so damned hard to hide within herself.

The pulse was throbbing at the side of her neck, almost as hard as the pulse in his dick, and the urge to taste her sweet flesh was nearly overwhelming. He wanted to lick her from head to toes. He wanted to taste her, grow drunk and wild on her.

“You kissed me.” Her voice was weaker now. “I remember it.”

“Do you call that a kiss, Janey?” He lowered his head. He didn’t touch her any other way. Not with his hands, or his body, just his cheek against her hair. “That wasn’t a kiss, baby. That was a tease. You owe me a real kiss.”

She licked her lips, and he nearly groaned. Her expression wasn’t cool now; her profile was flushed, and yes, her eyes were darker.

“Why now?”

“Because the thought of it has me crazy wild, sweetheart. I want to taste you, while you’re conscious, while you know whose lips are on yours and whose tongue is in your mouth. I want that kiss, Janey.” He let his hands settle at her thighs, then smooth to her hips. “And by God, I want it now.”

TWO

Fuck Natches. Fuck dying. Alex had lived dangerously all his adult life; he didn’t see a reason to stop now.

Alex knew if Natches caught him fooling around with his baby sister, then death would be the least of Alex’s worries. But like an addict, like a man addicted to the scent, the taste of one woman, Alex found

himself enthralled. He found himself unable to walk away.

Fourteen years separated their ages, but nothing separated the desire he could feel burning between them except the clothes they were wearing.

She was as wary as a doe, standing before him, poised to run, quivering, uncertain about the next touch to come. She ached as much as he did. Something about that knowledge almost humbled him. That the same hunger that filled him could fill her as well. Just as strong. Just as deep, despite the distance in their ages.

If she hadn’t told him she was a virgin, he would have suspected it now. She didn’t know if she should stay or run, if she should allow him to touch or if she should fight it. Fear and need battled within her, and Alex had to force himself to rein in his lusts, the hard-core center of his hunger, to give her a chance to come to terms with what he sensed was unfamiliar ground to her.

“Natches will kill me for this.” He let his lips touch her ear, and she jerked, inhaling a harsh breath as she swallowed with a tight reflex of her throat. “He warned me, Janey. Six years ago. Not to touch you.”

Natches had threatened to cut Alex’s dick off if he ever touched Janey.

“I can tell you’re really scared of my brother,” she said, her voice breathless, her expression intent as she stared straight in front of her, obviously battling whatever emotions, or needs, were rising inside her.

“I stayed away,” he breathed against her ear. “Six years, almost seven, Janey. I stayed away.”

He moved in closer to her, his hands tightening on her hips as he pressed his hips against her, letting her feel the hardened state of his cock beneath his slacks.

She gave her head a little shake and shuddered.

“Why are you doing this?” Her hands moved to his wrists.

Small, graceful hands. Her nails dug into his flesh as she held on to him. She didn’t relax against him, but she wasn’t fighting him either. Like a creature unused to any touch that didn’t involve pain, she was debating what would come next. If the gentleness would dissolve.

Alex wasn’t surprised by the fury that rose inside him, but he was surprised by the fact that the hunger rising inside him was overriding it. Christ, he needed to touch her. If he didn’t, then the pressure building inside his balls was going to destroy him.

And if he did, the need was only going to get worse.

He could feel it. It was one of the reasons he’d left town immediately after her rescue. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t returned until he was forced to. Because staying away from Janey had been damned hard before. He had a feeling it was going to be impossible now.

“Janey, I’m not going to force you,” he told her, letting his lips drift over the shell of her ear.

Her breathing was harder, faster. Her lashes drifted over her eyes and he watched her face flush, slowly.

Need made her skin take on a rosy glow, made her lips look poutier, prettier. He almost groaned at the need to feel them under his.

Her hands tightened on his wrists. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what you want from me.”

He turned her slowly, slowly, in case she wanted to run, in case she needed to run. Tipping her chin up, he stared down at her with a sudden gentleness he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling.

“Whatever you want to do,” he told her softly. “We can do whatever you want to do, Janey. But we start right here.”

And his head lowered.

Janey’s breath caught in her throat. She stared up at him, eyes wide, caught, held, like a deer in headlights, as she watched his face lower. One hand threaded in her hair, pulling her head back for him.

His arm curved around her hips, lifting her to him.

She had never seen his expression like this. Tight with lust, his eyes flinty with it, brows lowered, brooding. When his lips touched hers, she felt something inside her explode. A radiant heat, a need, cascaded through her, filling her senses as her lips parted, her hands gripping his arms, trying to lift closer to him. Trying to draw herself into him. Trying to take as much of this feeling, this sensation racing through her, as she could consume.

Her lips parted as his slanted over them. His hand gripped the back of her head, one arm anchored her back, and she just wanted to crawl into him. She wanted to be closer, wanted more. She whimpered

with the need, feeling his lips grow harder, hungrier, in response.

Oh yes. This was what she needed. His lips opening over hers and his tongue pressing against hers.

Deep, hard kisses that burned her lips and filled her body with sensations she hadn’t expected.

There was no fear allowed here. This was her kiss, her first kiss, her first real kiss that swamped her with such blazing pleasure that she couldn’t fight it. She didn’t want to fight it.

She could feel years of need exploding inside her. Years of fantasies and dreams about this one man. The one man she had always known she could never have. It wasn’t their ages; it had been the danger Dayle represented to anyone she would care for.

And now that danger was gone. She could have; she could have this man. Her hands tightened on him, her need for his kiss growing more desperate. She could have so many things she couldn’t have had six months ago.

“God! Janey.” Alex lifted his head, only to lower it again.

His lips moved over her jaw, beneath it. Her arms tightened around his neck and she tried to get closer, tried to steal the kiss back.

Then he was bending closer, his hands gripping her rear and lifting her, pulling her against him.

“Put your legs around my waist,” he growled. “Hold on to me, baby. Hold on tight, and I’ll give you what you need.”

She obeyed instinctively, then cried out when her skirt bunched at her hips, and she felt hard, muscled abs between her thighs.

But his lips were on hers again. His hands kneaded her butt, his lips ground against hers, tongue curling over hers. Driving explosions of light erupted behind her closed eyelids. She could feel him in every cell of her skin and she wanted to feel him deeper.

Between her thighs, she could feel herself growing wet, swollen. Throbbing sensation pounded at her clit, inside her vagina. She was a mass of sudden internal explosions of need, and nothing mattered but this wild crescendo of pleasure now pounding through her.

The sensations were frightening, exhilarating. They burned over her flesh, seared her insides. She felt herself growing dazed, sensually weak and unable to sate the need for more and more sensation.

“Alex.” She moaned his name when his head jerked back, the strong column of his neck flexing with strength as she heard him inhale, hissing a breath from between his teeth as he gripped her rear and lowered her. Lowered her just enough to allow the thick wedge of his erection to press between her thighs.

He was huge.

Janey stiffened, her eyes widening, staring into his narrowed gaze as he moved her against him, stroking the soft silk of her panties against the distended knot of her clitoris.

Technically, she knew exactly what he was doing. Technically, she knew exactly where this was heading, where over the years, she had rarely gone past the fantasy of just this kiss.

“You know what I want.” His voice was hard, his gaze fierce.

No, she didn’t know what he wanted. Technically, yeah, she knew. Physically, emotionally, she was suddenly terrified of the need whipping through her. Burning her. Because it didn’t make sense. Because it went too deep, was too blinding. Because it made her feel weak, dazed. Unable to fight against the swirling flames building inside her.

“Let me go!” She was pushing at his shoulders when she didn’t mean to.

Suddenly, a sense of panic overwhelmed her. Not fear of Alex, but fear of herself. Fear of the sensations, the emotions she couldn’t quite grasp.

“Let me go, Alex!” She struggled out of his grip, stumbling as he set her back on her feet, his expression dark, forbidding, as she pushed away from him, almost falling before she steadied herself by the couch and jerked her skirt back down over her thighs.

“Leave. Please.” She kept her back to him.

She was shaking. Quivering from the inside out and she couldn’t make sense of it. She was hot and cold at the same time, spiked with energy and yet lethargic.

“It’s natural, Janey.” He spoke as though he knew.

Janey swung around, glaring at him. “You don’t know what I feel, Alex. Don’t pretend you do.”

His eyes were steely gray but calm as somber determination lined his face and his expression grew heavy.

“You’re twenty-three years old,” he said. “You lived in a vacuum of no touch, no affection for too many years. And then you had to suffer through the hell Nadine and Dayle put you through. A man’s touch will be scary at first. Frightening. But it will ease.”

Janey shook her head at his confidence, his sheer arrogance.

“And of course you’re the man to get me past that fear,” she said harshly. “Why didn’t I come up with that on my own?”

His lips quirked at her mockery. “Maybe your senses are a little off balance right now,” he suggested.