It did sound pretty good, and she took a slow sip, remembering at the last moment not to gulp it down. She took another sip, then another, and finally she let out a long breath. She started to tell him thanks, but then she looked down into his eyes, a wide pale gray flecked with brown.
Like river pebbles washed smooth,she thought, enthralled, but that wasn’t right. There was nothing still and lifeless about this man’s eyes. Instead he was all warmth and sweetness and something at the bottom that put a hand around her heart and squeezed in the most delicious way.
Well, it’s about time you showed up!
For a single mad moment, she thought she'd spoken out loud. She had no idea what the thought meant, or why she should have it except that things were so wild right now she might as well be thinking complete and utter nonsense, because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? She didn’t know this man, no matter how familiar he seemed, or how he was looking at her as if she’d hung the moon.
Oh God, I’m like three weeks out of a relationship, and my hormones have risen up against me.
She dropped her head in despair, because that was the sort of thing you did when you realized you'd gone entirely around the bend. The handsome stranger must have thought that meant she was on the verge of falling over because he reached up to catch her shoulders, and all right, as flimsy as she was feeling, that was probably fair, but then somehow they met halfway in the middle.
Her lips touched his, and everything else faded away. Nothing mattered but him and her and the two of them together in this moment, because she was kissing him, and her hands slid along either side of his neck as if she would die if he pulled back.
Of course she had been kissed before. She liked kissing, she even liked to think she was pretty good at it, but nothing she had ever done in her life was anything like this. Nothing compared to this kiss, with its sparks of heat that spread out over her skin, with the pleasure that threatened to consume her, with the delicious dip in her belly as if she had reached the top of the world’s tallest roller coaster and they were just now starting the ride.
“Oh my God,” she whispered against his lips, and when she did, he slid the tip of his tongue just inside her mouth teasingly, grazing the sharp edge of her teeth, and oh wow, she had never wanted to bite anyone more than she did this man.
That was the thought that shocked her out of her daze and pulled her back, making her scoot back against the chair in dismay. She would have been irked if the guy had been looking up at her with a smug smile, but instead, he looked as shocked and stunned as she felt. The worst part was that his mouth was red now, and she had never thought anyone looked more delicious.
“Oh, um.” she said. “That was... That was certainly a thing, wasn’t it?”
A slight frown flickered across his face, and then, a little cautiously, he nodded.
“It was. Are you all right? Did I... That is... Did I frighten you?”
She uttered a sharp bark of laughter, because she didn’t think she had ever been less scared in her life.
“Pal, I know you’re big enough to give Bigfoot a run for his money, but we almost got our butts kicked by murderbirds. I’m not afraid of you.”
The moment she said it, she knew it was true. She had grown up in the city, she had ridden the bus for most of her teen years. She knew to be wary of men who got as suddenly close to her as this man had, but no. There was nothing in her that could ever be afraid of him.
“Um. Yeah,” she said when she realized she’d been staring. “Anyway, my name’s Ros.”
“Ros,” he said, as if she'd given him a gift, and if she was going to pay attention to it – which she wasn’t – something in her shivered about her name in his mouth, that lovely sensual mouth with a slight quirk at the corner as if there was always something funny going on.
That’s a mouth meant for kissing,she thought, and she pushed it aside, because dammit, murderbirds or not, one of them had to be normal.
“Yes, Ros is my name, short for Roscommon. What’s yours?”
The man blinked in surprise, and then he looked frankly chagrined, shaking his head.
“Teagan Howell,” he said. “Dag Willett sent me over to take care of your, er, murderbird problem.”
“Well, I owe Dag Willet a soda and a thank you,” she said automatically, and then Teagan smiled, and God, it was justunfair.
“For what?”
Ros’s hand rose without her seeming to will it, and she touched Teagan’s shoulder over his flannel shirt. The fabric was soft and worn, and underneath it, she could feel hard muscle. She had a moment to think about how strange it was, wanting to touch a man she had barely exchanged a hundred words with, but he didn’t shake her off. Instead he tilted his head to one side to give her better access, and she held her breath as she trailed his fingers up the side of his bare neck, ruffling her fingers through his thick blond hair. There were, she noted absently, a few strands of gray, especially at his temples, silver in the gold, and without thinking, she tightened her fingers slightly, making him sigh.
“For you,” she found herself saying. “I should thank him for you.”
He met her eyes, and oh, but something seized her heart and would not give it up. She was falling or maybe she was flying, because she had never felt this weightless or this free, and he leaned up, his arms coming around her, pulling her close in an embrace that she thought she had been waiting for her whole life.
He’s going to kiss me again,she thought, andyes,that would be it, it would be over or just beginning, andyes,she could not wait and–
A loud thump hit the deck outside, and startled, they both turned to look.
Just beyond the glass, the murderbirds were gathering again, this time around something that looked as if it had once been a turkey. Feathers flew, and Ros?