Page 35 of Rescued By the Mountain Man Cowboy
"Luke?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"All of it." Her voice is quiet against my shirt. "The lessons. The ride. This. The fire. The…everything. I haven't said it right yet."
"You don't have to say it."
"I do."
She tips her face up.
She's right there. Maybe four inches between us. Hair still dripping. Eyes dark. Lips slightly parted because she's trying to figure out how to say a thing.
I look at her mouth. I don’t mean to. I do.
She sees me do it.
The trembling slows down till it stops. Something shifts in her face. Not fear. Not the careful, polite thing she does when she's pulling herself together. Something else. Quieter. Bolder.
"Luke."
"Anna."
"I'm not very good at this."
"At what."
"At being the kind of woman who says what she wants."
My pulse is doing something I'm going to have to confront later.
"Try."
Her hand comes up. Slow. Like she's giving me a chance to stop her. She presses her palm flat to my chest, right over my heart, where she has to know exactly what kind of state I'm in. She lifts her chin.
She kisses me.
Soft. Tentative. The kind of kiss a woman gives when she's been arguing herself out of it and lost.
I hold still for half a second.
Then I am not holding still anymore.
I bring my hand up to the side of her jaw. Tilt her face. Kiss her back like I have wanted to since the second she walked into Gabe's office and looked at me like I might be the thing she was running from. Slow. Deep. Open. She makes a small sound against my mouth, surprised, and her fingers fist the front of my shirt.
She tastes like rain, and the cinnamon gum she chews, and something underneath that is just her, and I lose about three minutes of my life to it. Maybe four. The fire snaps in front of us. The rain pounds the roof. My hand slides up into her wet hair, and her free hand moves up to my jaw, and the kiss goes from a question to an answer, and the answer is yes.
I pull back enough to look at her. Her lips are flushed. Eyes half-closed. Breathing fast and not from the cold this time.
"Anna."
"Don't say we shouldn't."
"I wasn't gonna."
