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She watched as he slipped his hands around her waist and gently drew her closer. Nuzzling his face against her belly, Rourke drew a long, deep breath. When he looked up at her again, Annie could see that they weren’t going to stop at just one kiss.
Furrowing her fingers through his hair, she tipped his face up. Slowly, she sank down until their mouths were nearly touching. His breath was warm on her lips, but she waited, resisting the urge to surrender. But Rourke wasn’t nearly so determined. With a low moan, he yanked her into a kiss, pulling her into his lap at the same time.
The depth of his passion startled her at first. It felt as if they’d skipped a few steps along the way. But Annie wasn’t going to fight him. This was exactly what she was hoping would happen. They had the whole night ahead of them and this was a promising beginning to it all.
His kiss was determined, almost desperate, searching for the perfect melding of their mouths. His fingers twisted through the hair at her nape and when he finally drew back, his breath came in short gasps. He moved to kiss her again, but Kit suddenly jumped up from his spot next to the fire and began to bark at the door.
A few moments later, a knock sounded. Annie glanced down at him. “Are you expecting company?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. She ran her fingers through her hair as she walked to the door. When she pulled it open, a gust of wind nearly tore it from her hands. A tall, slender figure stepped inside and when he pushed his hood away from his face, she recognized Sam Decker. He was still dressed in his uniform from his job as a regional police officer and Annie wasn’t sure if the visit was personal or professional.
Sam quickly took his cap off and smiled at her. “Hey, it’s getting nasty out there.”
“Hi, Sam,” she murmured.
He started to shrug out of his jacket before he noticed Rourke sitting across the room. He frowned, then glanced back and forth between the two of them. “Quinn. I heard you were on your way off the island.” He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”
“I just stopped by to check on Annie,” Rourke said. “What about you?”
“Same. I just wanted to check...to make sure she had enough wood to get her through the storm.”
“You brought wood just last week,” Annie interrupted.
“We’re fine here,” Rourke said. “We have everything we need, right, Annie?”
“I didn’t realize you two were...friends,” Sam said.
Annie nodded. “We’ve known each other since we were kids,” she said.
Sam shrugged. “Is your cell phone charged?”
Annie nodded and took his arm, leading him back to the door. “If I need any help, I’ll be sure to call.”
Sam nodded reluctantly. “All right, then. I’m on duty tonight and my advice is to stay inside. If there’s trouble, dial 911.”
She opened the door and let him out, then closed it behind her, leaning against the scarred wood. Rourke slowly stood and crossed the room. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Are you sure you wanted him to leave?” he murmured, leaning close.
“Yes,” Annie replied, her pulse quickening. She’d done this before, but it had never felt quite so dangerous. There were feelings here, emotions that she couldn’t quite describe. She felt vulnerable and out of control, but Annie couldn’t seem to stop herself from wanting him.
“When was the last time you kissed him?” Rourke murmured.
“Who?”
“Sam Decker.”
“I’ve never kissed Sam,” she said.
“He wants to kiss you,” Rourke said. “It’s written all over his face.”
“He has too many expectations.”
“Expectations?”
“He thinks he wants to take care of me. He wants to marry me. But I’m not looking for anything like that.”
“You just like having sex with strangers?”
“Not strangers. I prefer...uncomplicated men.”
“Is that what I am, Annie?”
“You were on your way home. And I expect you will be again once the storm passes. That makes things between us very simple.”
“So you’re just using me for sex?”
Annie laughed. “That’s putting it rather bluntly.”
“I think we ought to be clear about our intentions, don’t you?”
It sounded as if the notion of no-strings sex was insulting to him. But then, maybe he was just teasing her. Or maybe he wanted to be sure of her motives. “No expectations,” she said.
“All right. But if you expect me to jump into bed with you, you could at least give me dinner first.”
Annie smiled. “All right. I do have a bottle of wine we could share.” She moved to a cabinet near the sink and pulled a bottle of Merlot out. When she found the corkscrew, she opened the wine and poured it into two mismatched jelly jars. “I don’t have proper wineglasses. These are recycled.”
He raised the jelly glass. “To the storm that brought us together,” he said.
Annie touched her glass to his. “The storm.”
As she sipped her wine and cut vegetables for the lentil stew, Annie listened to the wind howl outside and the shutters rattle. The anticipation was almost too much to bear. In her mind she was already undressing him and pulling his naked body onto the bed with her. She couldn’t remember ever wanting a man as much as she wanted him.
They’d have one night together. But would that be enough? Or would she be left wanting more?
* * *
BY THE TIME dinner was over, they’d gone through Annie’s bottle of wine. She’d offered him whiskey, but Rourke already felt the effects of the wine and he wanted to keep his wits about him.
It had taken every ounce of his willpower not to drag her off to the comfortable bed tucked into the corner near the hearth. They both knew what they wanted, but for some reason, Annie had chosen to prolong his agony.
After finishing the dishes, she’d grabbed a book and curled up in the overstuffed chair near the fire, an oil lamp providing scant light to read by. Rourke was left to pace the cabin, peering out the window of the kitchen door and wondering why she was delaying the inevitable.
Every twenty seconds, a beam from the lighthouse swept across the sky, illuminating the wind-driven rain and the bent trees. “The rain is turning to sleet,” he murmured.
She glanced up from her book. “Hmm. It’s gotten colder.”
“Are you cold? I can put more wood on the fire.”
“There comes a point when it doesn’t do any good. The fire can’t keep up with the dropping temperatures.”
“What do you do then?”
“Crawl beneath the covers and pull them up over my head.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Was she suggesting it was time to go to bed? And was she inviting him to crawl in beside her?
Annie seemed completely unconcerned about the weather. Rourke wanted to know the details of the storm, how long it would last, how much rain they’d get, whether the waves were breaking over the Canso Causeway yet. If he were at his uncle’s place, he’d turn on the Weather Network and all his questions would be answered. “You said you had a radio?”
She nodded.
“I think I’m going to see if I can find a weather report.”
Annie shook her head. “The batteries are dead,” she said. “I forgot to get some new ones.”
“I have batteries. I bought them at the hardware store earlier.”
She sighed. “I’m not sure where it is,” Annie said. “It’s just an old transistor.”
“Don’t you think it might be good to know what’s going on out there?”
“Listening to the radio isn’t going to make the storm go away,” she said. “When it’s done, it’s done. It will stop raining and the wind will stop blowing and everything will get back to normal. If you want to know what the storm is doing, then you should go outside and see for yourself.”
“You’re crazy,” he said.
Annie closed the book and got to her feet. “Come on. I’ll show you. I do it all the time.”
She slipped her bare feet into a pair of wellies, then pulled her slicker off the hook near the door. “It’s freezing out there. Put that cap on. And don’t forget your gloves.”
“We don’t need to go outside,” he insisted.
“I want to see how high the storm surge is.” Annie picked up a lantern from the table near the door, lit it, then stepped outside. Rourke frowned. There was absolutely no telling her what to do. For some odd reason, he found that one of her most endearing qualities.
Rourke quickly pulled on his jacket. He found her waiting for him on the porch. Annie held out her hand and they stepped into the midst of the storm.
The strong wind made it hard to stand upright, but they both leaned into it. Sleet stung his cheeks and he could barely see a few feet in front of him, even with the flickering lantern. But he knew, without a doubt, that he’d never forget this experience.
Kit danced around their feet, then ran off into the darkness, barking. He could smell the sea in the air and could hear the crash of the waves on the rocks. It seemed that every sense in his body had become sharply attuned.
They stopped near the shore and stared out at the horizon. With each pass of the light, they could see the angry water, the spray of the waves and the flood of water reaching farther onto the shore. The house was set at least thirty feet higher than the sea and safe from the worst surge.
“You’re right,” he shouted.
She looked over at him. He could see that she was mouthing a word, then realized it was impossible to hear each other in the roar of the storm. Instead, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. His lips came down on hers, cold and damp. But as she opened to his kiss, a wonderful warmth flooded through his bloodstream. The wind buffeted them, threatening to knock them off their feet, but he held tight to her as the kiss intensified.
When he finally drew back, he could barely see her face. He reached down and ran his thumb over her cold cheek, cupping her face in his hands. “I think we should go inside,” he shouted.
“Come with me,” she replied. Annie grabbed his hand and drew him deeper into the storm. They ran toward the lighthouse, the beam of light guiding the way. When they reached the door, she pulled a key from her jacket pocket and unlocked it. They stumbled inside, Kit scampering in, too, and shut the door behind them.
A moment later, Rourke heard a switch flip and the interior was flooded in light. He stared at the spacious room, a circular iron stair dominating the center. Like most of the lighthouses on Cape Breton, this was a pyramidal-shaped tower that narrowed as it got taller. Annie walked over to a small painted table and set the lantern down. She grabbed her cell phone, holding it up to him as she unplugged it. “Charged,” she said.
The room was quite cozy, with antique furniture scattered around the perimeter. “Bathroom is through that door,” she said. “If you want to take a hot shower, you have to turn on the water heater and wait about an hour.”
“I don’t need a shower,” he said. “At least not now.”
Rourke wandered over to the table and examined the old radio sitting on top of it. He flipped it on and found it turned to a station playing Celtic music. The strains of fiddle and mandolin echoed upward.
The wind howled outside and the old wooden structure creaked with each gust. “I’m going to go up and watch the storm,” she said. Rourke watched as she climbed the stairs. Her skin was flawless, pale, marked only by a light dusting of freckles across her nose. Her auburn hair curled gently around her face and shoulders. And that body. Had no one here ever noticed how beautiful she was?
Everything about her was made for a man’s touch. Most of the women in New York City worked out two hours a day to get a body like Annie’s. She was lithe and fit, not from spending time in a gym, but because she lived a simple life.
She needed so little to be happy—a roof over her head, a warm fire, a good book. And she needed him, at least for the night. He closed his eyes and wondered at the fates that brought him here.
Had he followed his original plan, he’d be back on the mainland by now, headed toward the border and Bangor, Maine. He’d intended to stop there for the night, but now, he’d be spending the night in Annie’s bed.
It felt right. Though they didn’t really know each other in the traditional sense, there was a connection. He felt it every time he touched her...and kissed her. Maybe this had all been part of some cosmic plan—their encounter at the hardware store, the coming storm and the memories that flooded his mind upon seeing her.
He opened his eyes, then crossed the room to the circular stairs. He crawled upward to the top, into the darkness, and when he reached the platform, he found her standing near the window, her hands pressed against the thick glass.
The light was so blinding that he had to squint every time it made a rotation. He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Annie leaned into his body.
“My mother died on a night just like this,” she murmured. “They found her body the next morning, on the rocks.”
“What happened?”
Annie shrugged. “She was sad. Depressed. Suicidal. She’d always been troubled, but my father thought he could fix her. That’s why he brought her here to live. Away from the city. Away from temptation. But she was so miserable here.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“He blamed himself. He used to row out into the cove in the middle of the night. He said he could hear her, he could talk to her. They found his boat right over there,” she said, pointing. “They never found him. We buried an empty coffin next to her in the cemetery.”
Rourke slowly turned her toward him. “You’ve had a lot of loss in your life.”
Annie nodded, reaching up to touch his face. “Make love to me.”
“Here?”
“Anywhere,” she said. “I don’t care. I need to get these thoughts out of my head.”
He took her hand and led her to the top of the stairs. “Let’s go back to the house.”
* * *
THEY RAN BACK through the storm, Annie breathless with anticipation and a bit of trepidation. If she were listening to her instincts, this would not be happening. She’d always maintained a careful distance in her physical encounters with men. But the only thing she could think about with Rourke was getting as close to him as possible.
The moment they stepped inside the house, Annie reached for the zipper on her slicker. But he grabbed her hands and warmed them between his, slowly drawing her toward the fire.
She could hear her heart beating, could feel the pulse in her veins. Every physical sensation seemed more acute, and when Rourke slowly began to remove her clothes, she grasped his shoulder, afraid that her knees might buckle beneath her. First her gloves, then her slicker, Rourke tossing both on the floor.
