His hands slid up her back and then down, molding the contours of her behind. Then he lifted one hand, pressed it to the small of her back before raising the other to tangle in her hair. His fingers twisted, wrapping the strands around his knuckles as he deepened the kiss, swallowing her whole.
She had no idea of the passage of time. They could have stood there kissing for an hour or one minute. It was as if time had stopped and the only thing that existed were the two of them, in this room, their lips fused in a hot rush.
She gasped into his mouth, starved for air, but more starved for his touch. She wanted more. Needed more. She needed . . . him.
“Donovan?”
He loosened his hold on her hair, letting his hand fall away. He tugged her away, but only the barest of inches so he could look down into her eyes. Their bodies were still pressed tightly together and she could feel the evidence of his arousal, rigid and straining against her belly.
She shivered again, chill bumps racing across her skin, every tiny hair standing on its end in the wake of the intense sensations he evoked.
He stroked a hand lovingly over her cheek, pushing back her tousled hair. “What is it, honey?”
“What are we doing here?” she whispered. “What’s happening?”
He smiled tenderly at her, his eyes warm and flush with . . . arousal. “What I’m doing is kissing you and what’s happening is that I’m enjoying it a hell of a lot and I hope you are too.”
She flushed, her cheeks growing warm at the blunt statement. “This is insane,” she protested. “We can’t be doing . . . this. The very last thing I should even be contemplating is a . . . relationship.”
She nearly choked as she said the word because it was presumptuous of her to assume he wanted anything more than sex. But he didn’t act like someone who wanted a quick lay. As she’d already noted, he acted like he cared. And if he was so anxious for sex, wouldn’t he have put the moves on her already? Before the tornado, because of course it would have made him an ass to come on to her when she had a head injury and was scared out of her mind.
Her head was spinning, much like she had suffered a serious head injury. There wasn’t even anything overtly sexual or . . . desperate . . . to his kiss. It had been . . . romantic. Tender. Exquisite even. Could a kiss be considered exquisite? Obviously so, because his definitely qualified.
“I mean, I’m a job to you, right? Shouldn’t you remain objective? Surely you don’t go around kissing all your female clients.”
And worse was the jealousy that gripped her over the thought of him kissing another woman in distress. Did he have a white knight complex? Was his Kryptonite a woman in need?
He chuckled at that, his eyes growing even warmer as he gazed down at her. “Honey, if it weren’t for mixing business with pleasure, none of my brothers would be married.”
She cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean by that?”
“It means that every one of my brothers met their wives while on a mission. Bullets flying, explosions, car chases, wrecks, bad guys. You name it, they experienced it. I’d say our situation is tame in comparison.”
There was laughter in his voice, and she found herself smiling despite the utter seriousness of the situation he spoke lightly of.
“None of my brothers met a nice small-town girl, dated, became engaged and got married. Well, except Ethan, and he and Rachel more than made up for their somewhat boring courtship with plenty of drama after the fact,” he said in a grim voice.
Her brow furrowed at his sudden change in demeanor. “What happened?”