Josie wiped off her hands. They were finally finished cleaning up the kitchen and putting almost everything away.
It had taken longer than she had expected.
“Well, that’s the last of it—unless you’re hiding another pot or pan somewhere,” she said, placing the last pan on the counter.
Josie decided to leave putting the rest of the cleaned pots and pans away up to Declan. She didn’t want to take a chance on messing up his system by putting the items where they didn’t belong.
“As far as I know, none of the pots and pans have learned how to walk so, yes, that is the last of them,” he confirmed.
Draining the sink, he proceeded to rinse it out and then dried his hands. “I appreciate you staying and helping with the cleanup,” he told her.
It only seemed fair to her. “And I appreciate you letting me use your kitchen and all your pots and pans to prepare those dishes for the soiree,” she told him, a smile highlighting her eyes. “I guess that makes us card-carrying members of a mutual admiration society.”
Declan didn’t comment on that. Instead, he broached another subject. “Would you like to stay a while and have a glass of wine to help you unwind?” he asked. “You put in a really long, hard day. Actually,” he amended, “you put in two really long, hard days.”
Josie debated the wisdom of accepting his unexpected invitation, then decided that there was nothing wrong with her saying yes. After all, his niece and his mother were upstairs in their rooms. How out of hand could things possibly get?
Smiling at Declan, she said, “A glass of wine sounds lovely.”
Leaving the dish towel he had used to dry his hands draped over the side of the sink, Declan led the way into the living room.
“I don’t know how lovely you might find the wine, but it’s actually a pretty decent label. One of my sister’s men friends gave it to her to celebrate her finishing her last stint in rehab.” He laughed dryly. “The guy wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the box. In one of her more lucid moments, Peggy gave the bottle to me so she wouldn’t be tempted to relapse.” Opening up the cabinet in the living room, he took out an unopened bottle of wine. “Sadly, giving the wine away didn’t manage to keep her safe,” Declan said.
“How many times has she been to rehab?” Josie asked as she accepted the glass from him.
“Unfortunately, too many times to count.” The words weighed heavily. “I used to think that Peggy would clean up her act for Shannon’s sake or even for our mother’s sake after Dad died. But it turns out that her addiction was stronger,” he concluded sadly.
“Well, at least you were there to step up for Shannon,” Josie said, focusing on the positive side. “The two of you seem to be getting along really well lately.”
He laughed shortly. “Don’t make me out to be a saint,” Declan warned. “A large part of the reason Shannon and I are managing to get along these days is because of you,” he told her. “You’re the one who broke through her barriers. I just followed your lead and slipped in through the crack.”
She didn’t see it that way. “You’re being too modest,” Josie told him.
“One thing I’m not is modest,” Declan said with conviction. “But I do give a person their due and, if any sort of peace has been restored in that girl’s life, it’s all your doing.”
Taking a breath, he set his wineglass down on the coffee table.
Declan was extremely aware of her presence. Working beside her for the better part of the day, that awareness had only managed to grow more and more pronounced. Sitting so close to her now intensified things further.
“You know,” he told her, “for a woman who really didn’t know her way around a horse when she first came to me, you turned out to be really smart in all the ways that count.”
She wasn’t sure what he was getting at. Sitting so close to him was scrambling her thoughts, rendering her mind almost useless.
“You kind of lost me,” Josie confessed then asked almost shyly, “Was that supposed to be a compliment?”
“It was,” Declan confirmed, a smile playing on his generous mouth. “Most people I know already have horse sense.”
She nodded, trying to follow what he was telling her. “At least I had enough sense to get riding lessons.”
“Which was a step in the right direction,” he acknowledged.
She didn’t know quite how, but they seemed to be sitting even closer now than they were just moments ago. Had he moved closer, or had she?
Whatever it was, the proximity between them was weakening her resolve to keep her hands to herself.
Josie could feel her heartbeat increasing. She told herself it was just because of the wine. But if she was being totally honest, wine had never affected her quite in this manner.
Declan glanced at her glass and saw that its contents were almost gone. “Would you like a refill?” he asked Josie, beginning to rise to his feet.
Without thinking, she caught hold of his forearm to stop him. He sank back down beside her, waiting for her to explain herself.
“No, that’s all right,” Josie told him. “One’s my limit if I’m going to be driving. Actually, it’s more than my limit,” she freely admitted.
“It’s a really light wine,” Declan assured her.
She nearly laughed. “Well, I’m a really light drinker.”
He didn’t want her to feel as if he were trying to convince her to get intoxicated.
“I wouldn’t want you doing anything you didn’t want to,” Declan told her with total sincerity.
Josie felt another wave of heat washing over her. She struggled to maintain her barriers in place. Still, because she wasn’t all that sure, she had to ask, “Are we still talking about the wine?”
His smile was warm and completely unsettling as he looked at her. “I don’t know. You tell me, are we?” he asked, turning the question back around to her.
One moment his face was so close to hers, she could almost taste his words.
And then it wasn’t close any longer. What it was, was just a breath away from hers.
The very next moment, she could feel the velvety, stimulating impression of his lips brushing against hers. Moreover, she could feel herself surrendering, making her heart pound wildly in response to his kiss.
She knew this was where she should be putting on the brakes. This was where she stood up, made some sort of excuse or other, and then just walked out the door.
But she didn’t.
For some reason she couldn’t begin to understand, Josie just couldn’t get her legs to work properly. She couldn’t get herself to leave, not the sofa or the man. Instead, she moved toward him even closer.
Closer to Declan and to the warm kiss they were sharing.
The kiss deepened even more, causing her head to spin and her very pulse seem as if it were beating out a message in Morse code.
She had never been any good at understanding Morse code.
When Declan drew back, giving them both a chance to catch their breaths, Josie pointed out a very real concern she had.
“How do we explain this if your mother or Shannon comes down and catches us?”
“There is a very simple way we can avoid that happening,” he told her. “We could go upstairs to make sure they don’t catch us.” But, because Declan had always believed in playing fairly, he forced himself to give her a choice. “Unless you’d rather not.”
He really hoped that she wouldn’t take him up on that.
In Josie’s mind, she was already upstairs, in Declan’s room, making love with him.
It took her a long second to rouse herself and ask, “What?”
“Unless you’d rather not,” Declan repeated. He knew this had to be said, even though he really didn’t want to say it. “If you want to go home, then you should go.”
And that one sentence was what ultimately managed to win her over. Rather than pressuring her, he was allowing her to make up her mind.
“But I would rather stay,” she told him hoarsely, feeling as if she were literally melting.
With her pulse going into double-time, Josie threaded her fingers through his and rose to her feet. She drew him up with her.
From that point on, because she had given her permission, Declan took the lead.
Still holding Josie’s hand in his, Declan led them up the stairs to his room.
There were a hundred reasons why she shouldn’t be allowing this to happen, Josie thought, following behind him.
And only one reason why she should.
Because she really wanted to.
She hadn’t been with a man since before her husband had left her for his nurse. At the time, relations between them had deteriorated and any sort of communication had completely broken down. They’d kept out of one another’s way and that, in turn, had greatly contributed to her feelings of undesirability.
Josie saw every single one of the defects of the woman who looked back at her in the mirror every morning.
And with her confidence totally destroyed, her interaction with men became distant and formalized, never passionate or warm.
But despite her resistance to seeing Declan as anything other than her riding instructor, right now she was definitely reacting to Declan on a very tense sexual level.
That had been building up for a while now, she silently admitted.
Josie had never been above the first floor of his house, had never seen anything beyond his kitchen and the living room.
But now everything looked different to her. Different because she wasn’t here to pick up Shannon or to prepare dishes for her catering gig. This time, she was here because Declan was here and she wanted to be in his arms and in his bed.
Crossing his bedroom threshold, she could feel her breath catch in her throat.
The sound of his bedroom door closing behind her echoed in Josie’s chest. She could feel it reverberate along her arms and down to her very fingertips.
The latter went from icy to hot as, breathing even more heavily, she threaded her fingers through his hair. She could feel him moving closer to her.
Declan didn’t hesitate. He pressed his lips against hers, creating all sorts of delicious havoc within her.
Any chance of putting the skids on this feeling—any possibility that she might resist Declan—died a very swift, fiery death.
The very feel of his strong, gentle fingertips moving along her back, delving just under her blouse and touching the bare skin beneath it swiftly burned away the very last of her resistance.
Tomorrow, she told herself, she would probably wind up regretting this move. But tonight...tonight she wanted this man desperately, beyond a single shadow of a doubt.
Wanted him now.
Because of this overwhelming passion he was experiencing, Josie felt almost impossibly precious in his arms. Just shortly after he had given her her first riding lesson, Declan could see this happening between them.
He could tell, even before he touched her, how soft her body would feel beneath his hands. Desire drummed throughout every part of him as he ran his hands eagerly against her warm, tempting body.
In very short order, as Declan, in his ardor, kissed her all over, again and again, her clothes began to fall away. They landed in a heap that mingled with his own clothes as he undressed Josie quickly, eager to experience more of her.
Naked, they melted onto the bed, kissing one another over and over again.
Rather than quelling the mounting fire she felt, it only grew steadily more intense. She could literally feel it undulate throughout her entire body, growing stronger by each minute.
He wanted to take her this instant, desperately wanted to experience the ultimate release.
But at the same time, Declan wanted what he was feeling to be mutual, not just something that turned out to be one-sided. That meant he had to bring her up to the same threshold of frenzy that was vibrating through him.
So with careful strokes and fervent, hot kisses, he worked to evoke the response from the woman in his arms that he was desperately looking for.
Breathing was growing more and more difficult because her heart was pounding so intensely she thought it would explode out of her chest.
Josie twisted beneath him, trying very hard not to make any of the noises that were so desperately attempting to be released. She did her best to restrain herself. Josie was afraid that she might be overheard by either Ruth or Shannon.
If either one did manage to overhear her, she knew that it would be a complete disaster.
Trying very hard to be silent, Josie channeled what she was feeling through her body, twisting and turning with vigor as she absorbed the wondrous impression his lips made all over her skin.
Her movement grew more and more pronounced in response to what she was experiencing. She loved the feel, the excitement, that contact with his questing mouth created within her.
Breathing more heavily by the moment, Josie kissed him as hard as she could. Then, moving along his body, she branded him with her lips.
She was kissing him over and over again until he felt as if his very body was on fire.
Unable to hold himself back for much longer, Declan moved the woman’s nude, tempting body beneath him. Then, with careful, measured kisses, Declan blazed a trail all along her damp torso until he had worked his way down to her very core. Josie’s breathing grew heavier and heavier as his tongue flicked over her, creating one heated, soul-stunning climax after another.
Josie pressed her fisted hand against her mouth, desperately doing what she could to keep her cries of fulfillment and joy from emerging.
Her heart hammering wildly, Josie put her hands against his shoulders. She managed to draw him up to her body until her eyes were delving into his.
Josie raised her head up, capturing his mouth.
Declan couldn’t hold himself back a single second longer. Moving her legs gently apart with his knee, he entered her. Then, with precise, deliberate movements of his hips, the dance between them began. At first slowly, then with increased fervor.
She could feel the ultimate eruption building within her until, at the last moment, it finally exploded, taking them each to a place they wanted to inhabit exclusively with the other.
She bit her lower lip, determined to keep the cry that rose within her chest from emerging and echoing through the bedroom. But there was no denying how much she wanted to release that cry until it all but surrounded both of them.
Instead, she allowed that sound to be released via her very heavy breathing.
Josie held on to Declan’s body tightly for all she was worth.
The eruption vibrated through her, taking her prisoner until finally, an eternity later, it wound up fading away.
She was amazed that once this wonderful, intimate dance was over, Declan didn’t just roll over and fall asleep within moments after the lovemaking had taken place, the way her ex-husband always had.
Instead, Declan held her in his arms, hanging on to the sensation they had created until it ceased echoing through his body, leaving a very warm feeling in its wake.
Still holding her, Declan pressed a kiss to her temple. Josie had the impression that this was unusual for him. It wasn’t anything that he said to her, it was just a feeling she had.
Feeling incredibly happy, Josie snuggled against him, the feel of his body warming her to the point that she felt extremely content. She drew even closer to him.
“That was certainly a surprise,” Declan murmured against her hair.
His warm breath made her shiver in response. “What was?” she asked, wondering if he was focusing on something specific.
“All of it,” he told her, pressing another kiss to her forehead.
Feeling sated, Josie had every intention of getting up.
Any minute now.
Instead, she drifted off to sleep within moments.
There was an extremely satisfied smile on her lips that remained there, even as she slept.