beach sent a shiver running through him. How long had she been there? Was there no one who’d missed her? Wouldn’t her absence cause at least one person to wonder where she was sleeping for the night?
The cottage was dark and quiet when he stepped inside. The peat fire on the hearth had cooled and Kellan set the bag of food and box of paper on the table and slipped out of his jacket. When he saw Gelsey on the sofa, sound asleep, he kicked off his shoes and crossed to the hearth.
He silently tossed another brick of peat on the fire, then turned and looked at her. The light from the flame played across her beautiful face and he studied her for a long moment. Was she the girl he remembered from so long ago? If it was her, where had she been all this time? Why hadn’t he seen her in the last fifteen years?
A sudden thought occurred to him and he walked into the bedroom and bent down at a spot beneath the window. The floorboard was still loose. He took his keys out of his pocket and pried the end up, peering into the dark space between the joists.
There it was. Where he’d hidden it all those years ago. Kellan reached down and pulled out the old biscuit tin, wiping the dust away with his palm. Did it belong to her? Is that why she’d come back to him? Or was he just fooling himself that there was something special about her?
Kellan sat down on the bed and pried off the lid, silently inventorying the contents and looking for a clue about the previous owner. When he found nothing, he tucked the tin into the bottom drawer of the bedside table, then walked to the kitchen and grabbed a cold beer.
Stretching out in the overstuffed chair across from the sofa, he watched her, thinking about what it would be like to have her in his bed. The heat from the hearth relaxed him and he sensed that whatever happened between them would be incredibly pleasurable.
This wasn’t a woman who hid her passions. Whatever had sent her to that beach last night, dressed in almost nothing, and vulnerable to the wind and cold, had overwhelmed all common sense. Who or what had driven her to nearly kill herself?
He silently catalogued what he knew about her. She was familiar enough with the area to know how to get down to the cove. He’d already ruled out the possibility that she’d washed ashore from the water. She wasn’t wearing any underwear with her dress, so she probably hadn’t been out in public before visiting the beach. She wasn’t a local. Her accent was an odd mix of British and American and something else. Something more exotic.
She seemed well educated, maybe even coming from a posh background, though he wasn’t sure what brought him to that conclusion. Maybe it was in the way she moved, with such self-assured grace and perfect posture. And in the way she ate, quietly sipping her soup from the spoon as if dining in some fancy restaurant.
Kellan sat in front of the fire for a long time, thinking about the women who’d populated his past. He’d always carefully chosen those he invited into his bed. Vulnerability wasn’t a quality he sought. But looking at Gelsey, he felt a strange urge to protect her, to keep her from harm.
When he finished his beer, he got up and took the empty to the kitchen, then wandered back to the bedroom. He thought about waking her, but she seemed quite comfortable on the sofa.
He stripped off his clothes in the dark, then flopped down on the bed, dressed only in his boxers. He closed his eyes, but images of Gelsey plagued his thoughts. His fingers twitched as he remembered the feel of her naked body beneath his palms, recalled the soft swell of her breasts, the sweet curve of her backside. Just the thought of touching her brought an unwelcome reaction and Kellan groaned and rolled over on his stomach.
Unless he wanted to put up with this kind of torment for the rest of his stay in Ballykirk, he’d have to return Gelsey to where she belonged. He pulled the pillow over his head and quietly sang a familiar pub song that went on and on.
Like counting sheep, the song gradually relaxed him and he found himself drifting closer and closer to sleep. The image in his head slowly morphed into a dream as sleep overcame him.
THE WIND RATTLED the windows and Gelsey sat up and ran her hands through her tangled hair. Where was she? She squinted to see in the low light from the hearth. This wasn’t her room at Winterhill. Or her room at her mother’s apartment on Park Avenue. She didn’t recognize anything.
She swung her feet off the sofa and stood, fighting a wave of dizziness. Running her hands over her clothes, she remembered that she was in Kellan Quinn’s house. What time was it? How long had she slept? And where was Kellan?
The room was chilly and she rubbed her arms, then grabbed up the quilt and wrapped it around her body. She was normally a restless sleeper, preferring to nap during the day and stay awake during the darkest hours. Rain hissed at the windows and she crossed the room to the fireplace.
There was no more peat to feed the fire and the room would only get colder. She raked her hands through her hair again, then wandered over to the bedroom, her bare feet silent on the rough wooden floor.
She found Kellan asleep in the bed, his form faintly visible in the dark. His long legs were twisted around the bedclothes and his arm was thrown over his head, his naked chest bare to the chilly room. Gelsey stood over him, deciding whether she ought to wake him, or just crawl into bed beside him.
She tossed the quilt over the bed, then stretched out along the length of his body. As she slipped under the covers, he jerked, then pushed up on his elbow, squinting into the dark.
“The fire went out,” she whispered. “It’s cold out there.”
He cleared his throat. “I-I can fetch more peat,” he said. “And there’s a portable heater in the kitchen.”
“This is all right,” she said. “You’re warm.” She snuggled into that warmth. He had a beautiful body, slender but muscular, perfectly masculine in every way.
He grabbed her hand, pressing it to his heart and Gelsey felt his pulse beneath her palm, quick and sure. She held her breath, wondering what was going through his mind. “Maybe I should go find that heater,” she murmured.
“No.” Kellan held tight to her hand. “It’s all right. You can stay.”
She relaxed again and stretched out beside him. “I love nights like this,” Gelsey whispered, “listening to the rain and the wind outside. It makes me feel safe, all warm and cozy and out of the weather.”
“You weren’t out of the weather last night,” he said.
“I wasn’t out there all night,” Gelsey explained. “I walked out there after the sun came up.”
“You were drunk at seven in the morning?”
“Not so much drunk as just…drained. Emotionally exhausted.”
“Would you like to tell me why?”
Gelsey shook her head. That was the last thing she wanted to talk about. There was nothing about her past that she wanted to remember. “It’s not important.” She pushed up on an elbow and tried to make out his features in the dark. “Thank you for coming to my rescue. I don’t know if I said that before, but I do appreciate what you did.”
“Not a problem,” Kellan said.
She leaned closer to kiss him on the cheek, but at the last moment, he turned and her lips came down on the corner of his mouth. Gelsey froze. She’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to rush headlong into a sexual relationship again. She was going to think before she acted.
But Kellan made the next move and she was powerless to stop. He slipped his palms around her waist and pulled her beneath him. A sigh escaped from her throat as his mouth covered hers in a long and mind-numbing kiss.
Gelsey moaned softly as he stretched her arms out above her head. He was nearly naked and she was bundled up in a fleece sweatshirt and a pair of his cotton boxers. But she was glad for the barrier between them, at least for the moment. It was just a kiss and nothing more. Just a kiss, she reminded herself.
“Are you sure about this?” he whispered.
Then again, maybe it was something more. She arched against him, her movement instinctive. “I don’t know,” she said, the answer coming with a gasp.
Her hands skimmed over his back, her fingers exploring the rippled muscle that shifted with every movement of his body. Though she was ready to tear her clothes off, Kellan seemed more intent on seducing her slowly.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmured.
But as his hands slipped beneath her clothes, Gelsey knew the battle was already lost. Desperate to feel that connection with another human being, she couldn’t bring herself to say it. It was always this way with her, craving
