He pulled her between the stands and shelves toward the back of the long, narrow store, glancing left and right.
“Ah!” He dropped her hand and strode over to a wall of long coats. Rifling through them, he reached between hangers to check the size tag, then looked around for a sales assistant.
A perfectly groomed and well-dressed middle-aged woman was hurrying toward them. She had a tiny gold metal name tag on her shirt.
“I would like my friend to try this coat on, please,” he told her as soon as she was close enough.
“Yes, sir.” The assistant pulled a bunch of keys out of her pocket and unlocked the long chain that wove through all the garments and hangers.
Jenna stood back, letting the man take charge for she understood his purpose. He wanted to disguise her and change her appearance. By changing her coat and putting on a hat, she could adjust her appearance enough to fool most observers.
Instead, Jenna watched him, hoping to see his face at last. When he had the coat in his hands and turned to face her she finally got her first look.
He had black eyes that matched the black hair. He was tall—taller by a good six inches than anyone else around him. Clear pale skin and a square jaw. His gaze was steady.
So
steady.
He was staring at her.
She knew that gaze in some far distant way.
It came out of memories.
She recognized the source of that steadiness. It touched on dreams and jumbled impressions from her past. It invoked a memory she could not bring into focus.
Time hiccupped and jumped out of its deep groove of consistency, then paused to let her catch up. In that endless moment, her senses turned around and inside out. Everything she knew, all her hard-earned experience and wisdom, her knowledge of how the world worked and her place in it, shattered in reaction.
For the balance of that timeless moment, she struggled to find a way to deal with it. Her knees had weakened and wouldn’t lock. She trembled. Her insides turned watery.
But that was just the superficial stuff. What slammed into her and took most of her attention was a ravening, compulsive
need
.
Lust. Hunger like she had never felt before.
Her wanting for him raced through her body like hot acid, creating the trembling, and the shuddering heart. Her clitoris swelled and throbbed, demanding attention. She grew wet, slippery and ready.
He was still staring at her. He was standing closer to her than she normally accepted, but not nearly close enough to suit her now. She had to tilt her head back to look at him, aware of how it exposed her throat. She was abruptly aware of the thrust of her now sensitive breasts against her sweater. Would he notice her erect nipples pushing against the material? Would it be enough of a signal for him to touch her? She wanted him to try. She ached for him to try and would not stop him if he dared.
With that reckless thought, the moment she had thought to be endless came crashing to a close and time bumped back into its usual channel.
Cold fright touched her again, shadowed by amazement. This man was a stranger. She had never met him before. Yet…. “You.” She took a laboured breath. She had to work to draw it in for her chest was tight, constricting her lungs. Her head was singing with a high, keening tension. “I know you, but….”
“I know.” He glanced at the assistant. “Later,” he said, his tone a low command.
“Take off your coat.”
She stripped off her cheap coat, her gloves and scarf, as she fought to bring to full consciousness the recalcitrant memory nudging at her. It seemed terribly important to remember.
Down to sweater and jeans, she turned and allowed him to slide the coat onto her shoulders and suppressed a sigh of delight as the incredibly soft, supple material touched her flesh. The dark green shearling felt like silk. The lining
was
silk and gorgeous. She indulged in a purely feminine moment.
I am never taking this off
.
He tested the fit at her shoulders, then tugged the fronts together to make sure the buttons closed without pulling and nodded. “We’ll take it,” he declared to the assistant and began snapping off the unbreakable plastic leads on the tags as if they were old cotton thread. “Leave it on. Find a hat,” he told her, confirming her earlier guess about his intention to disguise her. For the benefit of the assistant he added, “One of those ones you can tuck your hair up inside. You look beautiful that way.”
Jenna nodded, understanding his silent message:
Hide your hair. It’s too recognizable.
She walked back to the shelves of hats at the rear of the store, in clear sight of the cash register. It took a few moments, but she finally found a knitted hat that felt like fur, but couldn’t be—not knitted.
She leaned over and whipped her red-gold hair into a long twisted cable, then coiled it on her head and slid the cap over the top. The delicate touch of the material delighted her. Unable to resist preening, she glanced in the conveniently-placed mirror and found it didn’t look too bad on her at all. She had never bothered with hats before. Kevin hadn’t liked them much.
She made sure all wisps of red were out of sight and went back to the cash register, where the man stood handing over a credit card to the smiling assistant.
He wore a flat-brimmed western hat now and when she reached him, he pushed a pair of women’s leather gloves at her. Dark green. She slipped them on, while he removed the tags on her hat. He handed the tags to the assistant, who gushed over them and her amazing sale.
A second assistant folded Jenna’s old coat, gloves and scarf and put them into a big shopping bag. The man picked up the bag and handed it to Jenna. “Merry Christmas.”
He kissed her.
It was a chaste kiss, as kisses go, but it shocked her twice over: once because she hadn’t anticipated it and the second time because her heart leapt at the contact. Firm lips against her own. Hot, full ones. How long had it been since she had last been kissed? She stared at him, her lips tingling and her breath coming a little faster.
Then she pulled herself together, remembering their audience. “I just didn’t expect this. Honey, you’re so good to me.” She plastered on a big smile.
“As you said, you know me, but you don’t.” He glanced at the women behind the counter. “She always makes it sound like a complaint.” And he smiled, showing even white teeth.
They melted.
Gripping her arm, he led her toward the back corner of the store once more. There was an arch there that led through to the other three shops that shared the common wall. In a town like Banff, tucked away in the depths of the Canadian Rockies, being able to move from shop to shop without stepping outside too often was an advantage.
He chose the store directly behind the coat shop and they found themselves in an antique bookstore. They had been off the street for nearly ten minutes and in that time they had completely changed their outer appearances.
He paused to stare hard through the plate glass at the front of the store, while she played her role and wandered the nearest stack of books.
She couldn’t read titles. Her heart still skittered and her hand shook as she lifted volumes from the shelves. She had absorbed a lot in fifteen minutes and a million questions were still lined up to be asked. Despite that, all she could focus on was his kiss.
She noticed his sudden stillness as he stared at the window and her heart gave another small sharp leap.
He moved a pace sideways so the book stack partially hid him and kept watch for a minute more, his jaw taut.
His dark gaze was steady upon the window, the heavy brows over his black eyes pulled slightly together. It was a very long minute.
Finally, his shoulders relaxed and he walked back to where she stood at the closed-off end of the stack.
She replaced the book. “They were here?”
“They have moved on.” He stopped next to her, making her heart skitter even more. He was studying her face again.
“What?” Why did he examine her so carefully? He stood very close. The corridor between the stacks was blocked from her view by his shoulders. She had noticed his height almost immediately but his mass, the solidness of him, had not registered until now when he stood before her.
His hand lifted to cup her cheek and he gave a slow smile.
His smile was astonishing. It made all the dark brooding qualities in his face and eyes disappear.
It was like watching the sun come out on a blustery day, after the clouds passed by.
His eyes grew warm and rich with cheer and promise.
The change in him stole her breath once more.
“I am pleased…very pleased to find you are also beautiful,” he told her.
“Excuse me?”
Then he kissed her again. This time it was not a simple kiss to calm fluttering observers. This kiss was his alone.
For a moment she struggled with surprise that he should kiss her at all, but the mental protest died unspoken. She responded to the kiss anyway and that was its own novelty. This was no featherweight touch of his lips to hers.
He was kissing her like…
…
a lover
, her mind whispered.
His lips played against hers, teasing and tasting.
He stroked her face and throat before slipping his hands inside the coat to explore the shape of her shoulders, her chest, then down to her waist.
His long fingers tried to circle her body, the thumbs smoothing a warm, tingling path over her skin above the band of her jeans.
Coherent thought faded under the assault of his hands and mouth.
His lips crushed hard against hers, demanding. As her lips parted, his tongue slid inside her mouth and explored, stroking.
Hot need spread through her, frightening her with the strength of it. She had not felt something this strongly since…she had not felt it, ever. Not like this, not with this utter certainty of rightness, of symmetry.
“I know you,” she murmured against his lips.
“Yes.” His voice rumbled through her senses.
“Who are you?”
“Yours.” His big hot hands inside her coat drew her up hard against him. The strength of his arms around her felt possessive. His lips moved over her face, her throat, his movements hurried.
His urgency affected her, made her need surge with a rushing demand of its own. She thrust her hands inside his coat. Her fingers felt the softness of cotton, warmed to body temperature. Behind it lay the yielding firmness of flesh. Each breath he took lifted his chest. Her spread fingers moved restlessly against his back, feeling the width there, the play of muscles under the skin and the heat.
His scent washed over her, wholly masculine and delicious, a goad of its own.
Her need became sharp, ravening. Her need to have him…no, to have him
take her
overwhelmed her. Even though a small corner of her mind marvelled at this uninhibited abandonment of good sense and reason, a more primitive part of her revelled in the freedom to express herself. She gripped his ass beneath the denim, hard under her fingers and urged him to press himself against her. The delightful answering pressure against her mons and the deep groan that reverberated through him sent pleasure spearing through her, straight to her throbbing clitoris. The small nub of flesh swelled and beat with life in response.
Her nipples ached for his touch.
His hand held her face steady but the other smoothed its way up her torso, bringing her tee-shirt up with it and she held her breath, waiting for the first touch of his hand on her breast.
The first delicious stroke of her nipple. She swayed backwards, instinctively giving him room. Access.
But the touch did not come. His hand halted on her midriff. He lifted his mouth from her lips and studied her, the brows coming together.