Flynn's Kiss (Disarmed & Dangerous) (3 page)

“I’m sorry.” She repeated, her smooth English voice a balm to his roiling senses. She gave a brief touch of the tip of her pink tongue to her bottom lip, and the balm her voice had administered was washed away in a flaming contrast of unexpected lust.

He still held her wrist in his own limp fingers, unable to maintain the grip, incapable of letting go. She only needed to give a small tug and she would be free, but she chose to leave her cool, soft skin encased in the raging inferno of his rough palm.

“I saw you last night.” She tilted her head, and a small smile played over her lips.

He allowed their hands to drop to his side as he listened to her soothing voice, kept his fingers looped around her wrist, and convinced himself it was in case she tried to touch him again. Her mouth stretched wider into an easy smile, a little shrug jolted her shoulders, and before he could stop, he found himself responding, his tight lips relaxed, smoothed out into a more natural-feeling smile.

“You left early.”

He gave a long, slow blink, surprised she’d remembered him, and the smile slid from his face. He thought she’d been drunk.

“You were singing.” He responded without having realized he was going to.

Her eyes twinkled as though she were pleased he remembered her.

“I was having fun.”

“You do know you can’t sing, don’t you?”

The delicate move of her shoulder drew his attention to her fine, slender neck.

“It’s not about the singing, it’s about the enjoyment.”

“You’d had too much to drink,” he shot back, his gaze bouncing back to hers before he allowed it drop any farther to the enticing curve of her bosom. Was it reproach he heard in his own voice? He could have kicked his own ass for making a comment like that. Not only was she going to think he’d paid more attention than he had, but he had no right to judge.

Warm, unrepentant laughter flowed around him.

“No, I hadn’t. I don’t need alcohol to enjoy myself.”

He studied her full smiling mouth, and something inside of him shifted. Lust was one thing, he knew he could handle it, but the woman had actually made him curious for the first time in three years. Apart from the fire in his loins, she seemed to have invoked a smooth warmth emanating from the pit of his stomach to spread like liquid honey up through his chest gentling the wild beast inside of him.

As the muscles in his cheeks almost spasmed into an involuntary smile, he took a step back, both in his mind and with his feet. He dropped her wrist, her flesh leaving his scorched, and took another step away while she stared at him in expectation of him continuing their conversation. He scrubbed his hands down the sides of his jeans to rub her touch from him.

A flicker of puzzlement touched her face at his retreat. She lifted her chin, narrowed her eyes, and waited. He found he couldn’t respond. She’d wiped his brain clean…he wasn’t even sure what they had just said, and he believed if he opened his mouth, a load of garbage was going to spew forth.

Panicked, he sucked in a deep breath, and fully aware of how rude he was about to be, turned abruptly and walked straight into the solid wall of his cousin Jack.

“Hey, Flynn. You’ve come for the picnic?” A bear of a man, Jack wrapped his arm around Flynn’s shoulders and made him prisoner. If there was one guy he tried not to mess with since they all grew up, it was Sheriff Jack Swann. He opened his mouth to reply, to make his excuses so he could run, but he still couldn’t persuade any sound to emerge.

Jack nodded and gave him a hard squeeze and a knowing look.

“Great, I need your help with the trestle tables.”

•●•

“Interesting.” Kate tilted her head to one side to watch her husband engulf his cousin in a masculine hug and walk him away across their front lawn to the trestle tables stacked under the trees.

“What do you mean?” Liberty smoothed back her hair with a hand she noticed had a slight tremble. Her system had just received the biggest shock she could ever remember.

She’d thought the cowboy gorgeous when she’d had a limited view of him the previous night, almost too pretty. But now, up close and personal, with the thin white scars crisscrossing the left side of his face, making him look a little sinister and a lot exciting, he was even better-looking than she’d thought. More masculine somehow and appealingly wicked with his long, wild smile and flashing teeth as he’d bared them at her, defensive and challenging. Interest had flashed in his laser eyes, but what had confused her was his apparent fear. There was nothing to fear from her, but she could have sworn he was about to run.

She dragged her attention back to Kate as her friend repeated what she had just said.

“Your reaction to each other. You and cowboy Flynn.”

Liberty slumped into a kitchen chair, knees weak, slapped a trembling hand to her chest, and puffed out a breath.

“Oh my God, I’ve never seen a man as beautiful. How freaking gorgeous is he?” She raised her eyes to stare at Kate, who leaned with casual ease against the kitchen counter.

“Well…”

“His eyes, they’re so compelling, so direct. His hair, so…” She fluttered her hand “floppy and…well, it just makes you want to scrunch your fingers in it and…I guess maybe not you, you’re newly married, but ah.” She patted her chest above her heart and raised her fingers to her face to indicate the left side. “Do you know what happened to him?”

Kate shrugged, turned to swipe up a mug of coffee, and took a sip.

“Apparently he was some kind of Special Forces guy, it happened in the line of duty a few years ago. He came back at first, and then disappeared not long after. Turned up working for Cormack Blunt.”

“The movie star?”

“Yeah, he’s one of Jack’s cousins, so…”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” Kate gave a serene smile. “He’s very handsome, much nicer in real life.”

“Yeah?”

“He just got married, you might not have heard.”

“I did. On the plane back I watched the TV gossip. He married his sweetheart from years ago, turned out she’d had his little boy and didn’t let him know.”

“That’s the one.”

“An English vet.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I don’t know Flynn, really, he’s very quiet. Seems very self-conscious of his scars. I don’t think they’re as bad as he believes they are. He contacted Jack a week ago and asked if there was somewhere he could stay while Mac was off on honeymoon.” Kate finished off her coffee, placed the mug in the dishwasher, and reached for a bottle of white wine out of the refrigerator, dipped it at Liberty in inquiry, and at her nod reached for two wine glasses.

“From what I understand, Flynn was Mac’s stunt coordinator and bodyguard.”

She poured them both a glass of wine and handed one to Liberty.

“A bodyguard. I’d let him guard my body any time.” Liberty wafted a hand in front of her flaming cheeks. “And as for stunts, I’d be willing to try a few with him.”

Kate rolled her eyes and then cast a quick glance over to the baby monitor, which had started emitting loud gurgling noises.

“I’d better see to Gemma.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Not in here, it’s all in hand. Lydia and Bill are bringing food over. The boys could probably do with some direction with the tables. There’s a pile of tablecloths there to put on, and the cutlery needs setting out.” Kate cast a quick eye around the food-laden kitchen surfaces and gave a satisfied nod and a wicked grin. “Maybe Flynn could do with a helping hand.” She twitched her eyebrows and stepped out the room.

With a broad grin, Liberty took a small sip of her wine, seized a quiet moment to enjoy the cool slide of aromatic liquid down her throat, set the glass on the table, grabbed two bottles of beer, and made her way outside.

“Beer anyone?”

Flynn paused a moment before he straightened from leaning over one of the trestle tables to spare her a long, cool perusal. A small, pleasurable thrill jingled through her as she noted his vivid blue eyes had met hers before tracing the contours of her face. Most men’s eyes automatically dropped to her ample cleavage and made her feel like a sex object before they acknowledged her as a human. She gave him her biggest grin and noted the flicker of interest in his eyes, while the rest of his face remained impassive.

She proffered the beer, giving the bottle a little inviting waggle. He took his time as though trying to decide whether to trust her offer or not, and just as he reached out, Jack walked boldly over and snaffled it out of her hand, giving her a swift kiss on the top of her head.

“Life saver, Liberty.”

Flynn immediately dropped his hand and turned away. She couldn’t believe he could be shy, not when his eyes met hers so brazenly. She took a swift breath, stepped forward, and tried again.

“I brought one for you too.”

He took a moment before he glanced over his shoulder to nod at the bottle.

“What about you?”

“I don’t drink beer.”

He turned and crossed his arms over his wide chest. His eyebrows twitched into a dark frown. A small jolt hit her dead center and spread liquid down her thighs, and when it reached her knees, it almost buckled them. Good Lord, he was wicked, and she wanted to devour him.

“You were drinking it last night.” Considering how little time he’d been in the room, the man hadn’t missed much. In an attempt to keep her cool, she shot her hip forward, lifted her free hand, and tucked an errant curl behind her ear, noting the quick flick of his eyes as he took every move in.

“No, I was holding a bottle someone bought me, I wasn’t drinking from it.”

“Why didn’t you tell them you didn’t drink beer?”

“Because I didn’t want to insult him.”

Her attention was drawn to his left eyebrow as it shot up. The deep scar slashed across his face to intersect his eyebrow about half an inch from the outer edge. The hair swept upward in a rakish arch, giving him a devilish look as he raised it. Fascinated, she stepped in to take a closer look and heard his panicked intake of breath as he swiped the bottle out of her hand and lifted it to his mouth in one easy move to put an immediate barrier between them.

Her tentative smile froze in place while she thought about how delightful it would be to take a good nip of his bottom lip. The man was gorgeously edible, and his strange combination of shy and downright bold drew her in.

He lowered the bottle.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“What?”

“Staring at me like you’re just about to take a bite out of me.”

An unfamiliar flare of daring wickedness seized her and she turned to walk away, gurgling laughter erupting from her throat. The man wasn’t so very dim, after all.

“Maybe I am.” She flung him a flirtatious look over her shoulder, hoping to garner a teasing response back. A flat wave of disappointment lapped over her when he shrugged and turned away to wrestle with another table instead of running after her like she’d expected him to.

If he wasn’t interested, she decided, it was probably best she stopped flinging herself at him. His eyes gave every indication he wasn’t averse to her, in contrast to the rest of his body language, but an uncomfortable bubble of embarrassment had started to grow, making her believe she needed to stop listening to what his eyes were telling her. Self-conscious, she glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed how she kept throwing herself at the hunk, but no one appeared to be paying any attention. If she curbed her enthusiasm, maybe she wouldn’t end up making a fool out of herself.

She flicked open the first cloth and smoothed it over the trestle table. Using the clips Kate had supplied with her usual efficiency, she leaned over to tether it down at each corner. She moved onto the next, then the next, desperate not to glance over her shoulder again to see what handsome boy was doing.

He’d made it pretty darned obvious he wasn’t interested, so why she was compelled to make a nuisance of herself she had no idea, except her heart had shot into overdrive and her breath came in short pants. Her neck was about to stiffen with the effort of not turning it to look at the man.

Annoyed with herself, she grasped her wrist, felt for her pulse, and counted her bpm. She had to stop looking at him—or visualizing him because it was doing her health no good whatsoever. Bpm 89. Her chest expanded as she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Again. She reached for another cloth and continued to regulate her breaths, determined to bring her pulse rate under control.

With the final cloth laid, she stretched forward, leaned over the table, and smoothed her hands over the material to ensure any wrinkles were ironed out. As she straightened, the solid warmth of Flynn’s chest touched her back. A small gasp sneaked from her lips as his silent approach took her by surprise.

“I’ve thought about it…” His lips grazed the top of her ear, and his breath fluttered a butterfly’s wing to raise the hairs on the back of her neck and send goose bumps to chase each other to her nipples, leaving them taut and hard.

He passed his empty beer bottle over her shoulder and placed it in her limp hand, trailed his fingers up the inside of her wrist to her elbow, and then farther up, sending sparks of lust streaming through her veins.

“…and I’m okay with you taking a bite out of me. In fact…” His hand came to rest on her shoulder, gave a gentle squeeze, and then slipped up her neck where his thumb massaged the base of her skull and almost sent her to the floor in a pool of melted wax. “…you can place those lips anywhere you like on my body.” His cheek grazed the tender skin at the back of her neck, lending purpose to his low seductive voice, but before she could draw a shaky breath, he’d gone. The man was a ghost. A hot, living, breathing, sexy ghost.

Desperate to place a hand against her palpitating heart, blood rushed to her face and consumed it in a burning fire, but all she could do was lean, weak and breathless, against the table and hope no one noticed she was about to faint dead away. The handsome hunk was interested after all, and she didn’t need to take her pulse this time to know it leaped all over the place.

Weak, she made a slow turn, leaned against the table, pushed her wayward hair away from her hot cheeks, and met his analyzing gaze as he erected another table on the other side of the yard. Her breasts throbbed, the heat between her legs pulsed, and she barely had the strength to pull a smile together.