Take My Breath Away

But then he’d caught her staring at his hands and she’d leaped from the cushions like she’d been scalded and headed back to the kitchen. Though he told himself that he didn’t need to eat another thing, and then he told himself that at least oatmeal cookies were a healthy option, once again he’d eaten too many with the end result being the same—he’d been left still dissatisfied.

As he watched her set out more ingredients, he sighed. “Poppy,” he said, his voice gentle. “Poppy.”

When she didn’t respond, he came up behind her and cupped her shoulders with his hands. Her body trembled beneath his touch, and she clutched the open bag of flour. “You need to stop,” he said.

“You like my cookies,” she replied, not looking at him.

He rolled his eyes. “I think we both know I like everything sweet about you.”

“Well, then...”

Such an innocent. “Poppy,” he bent his head toward hers so his mouth was against her temple. “You do understand, right? Nothing that you bake can assuage this particular appetite.” He punctuated the sentence with an almost-chaste kiss to her ear.

Still, she jolted at the touch of his lips. Her fingers must have spasmed, too, because a little cloud of white powder poofed upward from the bag she held. At her choked sound he turned her, taking in the dusted features, the flour barely obscuring the blush that he found so damn appealing. He smiled at the sight—smiled! in March!—as she raised now-white eyebrows in a rueful grimace.

His dark, withered heart shifted in his chest, inching higher. Lifting his hands from her shoulders, he brushed her face with his thumbs, tracing the arch of those brows, the straight line of her nose, the softness of her cheeks. She stood still under his ministrations, once more in her wild-bunny, don’t-hurt-me pose.

Quivering, quivering while hoping, hoping, the predator wouldn’t dive for the kill.

Taking the bag of flour from her unresisting hold, he placed it on the counter behind her. Then he ducked his head to catch her gaze. “I’m not going to bite.”

She was silent a long moment. Then she heaved in a breath. “What if I wished you would?”

* * *

ONE LAST NIGHT, Poppy thought.

One last opportunity to surrender to this overwhelming...thing that Ryan brought out in her. He called it an “appetite” and maybe he was right because she’d never felt so greedy, even when she’d been in the thick of whatever she’d had with Mason’s father.

Mason.

Her boy would be back with her, back in her arms again the next day. She’d be “Mommy” once more, with all its attendant joys and obligations. She loved her little boy and couldn’t wait to see him, but there was still tonight to get through...as Poppy.

Poppy Walker, who hadn’t been touched like a woman in five-plus years.

Ryan was staring at her, the light from his blue eyes burning, mesmerizing her, making her not responsible for what she did—but that wasn’t true. In this moment in time she didn’t want to be responsible. Just for a while she wanted to leave behind all that she’d have to tackle tomorrow: where she was going to live, how she was going to fix the damaged cabins, what she was going to do about her car. How any of that might be paid for.

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