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.”She sighed, looking exhausted.“I’m in no mood to be reasonable.”He smiled.“That’s a mood I know well.”With another sigh, she ran a hand through her hair, muttered about needing air and suddenly shot outside.Straker could hear her race down the steps, and by the time he’d put another log on the fire and followed her out, she was charging toward the water.The wind had picked up, howling in steady gusts.He walked at a deliberate pace, debating whether it would be best to climb into his boat and head on back to the island.Riley stormed off to the end of the dock, her arms crossed against the cold, her jaw set.“You want to be alone?” he asked, coming up behind her.She turned slightly.“I want…” She stopped, swallowed, caught her breath.“I want this all to go away.I want to toast marshmallows on the fire, I want Sig’s babies to have a chance at a happy life, I want Emile…” She couldn’t go on.She shifted back toward the water, dark and churning in the wind.Straker said nothing.He knew what it was to have the world close in on him.His answer had been Labreque Island, six months of solitude, of a simple, if hard, life.If he didn’t do it, it didn’t get done.If he was socked in with fog for days on end, there was no running down to the store for milk and videos.There had been days—weeks—when he’d thought he wouldn’t come out of his exile sane or whole, able ever again to connect with another human being.Riley suddenly leaned against him, her arms still tightly crossed on her chest, her gaze still on the bay.Her body was warm, and her hair smelled of ocean and a citrusy shampoo.The months of isolation welled up in him, seized him with an urgency so ferocious it took his breath away.He wanted her.He ached with it, burned with it.She turned into him, draped her hands around his neck, and he knew she couldn’t possibly know what he was feeling, thinking, fighting back.She whispered, “Straker, I swear, I don’t know what I’m doing,” even as she let her mouth find his, tentatively, as if she were testing her own resolve, or sanity.The taste of her seared through him, but he knew he was dangerous, knew he had to exert his considerable willpower over the rest of him.One slender hand drifted over his shoulder.It might as well have been on fire.His pulse raced; need surged through him.He wanted to make love to her there, then, on the old wooden dock.His head, his soul, ached with the taste of her, the possibilities.But he controlled the urge to push and push hard, sensed that what she wanted from him was tenderness, softness, a kiss that restored and gave, when all he wanted was to take and demand, end this pounding need.She opened her mouth to his, took herself onto very dangerous ground.Restraint was impossible.Her fingers intertwined with his, and she placed his hand on her breast, a soft swell covered in layers of fabric he imagined tearing away.In another two seconds, he would.The sand had run out of the hourglass.Instinctively, she must have known.She pulled back.She was breathing hard, her dark eyes shining.He was thinking about the fire in Emile’s woodstove, the long, comfortable couch, the blankets and cushions, the braided rug on the floor.Plenty of places to make love.They could go on all night, into the morning, until whenever Sig staggered down from the loft.Riley smiled, touched a finger to the scar she’d given him above his eye.“I was a pretty good shot, wasn’t I?”“I let you hit me.”Finally a spark of humor lit her eyes.But it faded quickly, and she kissed him lightly, softly.“I’ll take care of Sig.You find Emile, find my brother-in-law.” Her eyes were black now, deadly serious.“Stop them.”She turned abruptly and ran off the dock, up the dark road.She didn’t glance back, didn’t hesitate.Straker kicked a loose board in the dock.He could have ripped out every board and nail and post, flung the whole damned mess into the ocean.Honor and restraint, he thought bitterly, had got him exactly nothing.A perfectly good fire, a perfectly good woman, and here he was, standing alone in the cold and the dark
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