Deadly Beginnings by Jaycee Clark

gaze down her, then slowly back up. Her stomach clenched at the heated look in his eyes. He started to say something, then reconsidered and shook his head. “I’ve got it.”
    As he got even with her, she said, “But my hands are empty.”
    He transferred everything to his left hand and reached out, grabbing her left hand with his right. He brought it up to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “Not anymore.”
    They walked to the house and she opened the door with the keys he gave her. Her bags were left on the stairs. Kaitlyn followed him to the kitchen.
    Thunder rumbled in the distance. She rubbed her arms.

Chapter 4
     
     
    “Don’t like storms?” he asked her.
    She shook her head. “Not really. No. My parents died because they were driving home in a storm. Thunder always reminds me. Stupid, I know, but there it is.” She shrugged.
    Jock put the milk and eggs away, watching as she busied herself, unpacking the apples and washing them.
    “Do you have a bowl to put them in?” she asked him.
    Jock just leveled a look at her.
    Kaitlyn went to exploring the cupboards until she found a bright blue bowl and carefully placed the apples in it.
    Jock poured them both a glass of wine. “Come on, let’s go into the den.”
    She followed him with her glass, sitting on the floor as he started a fire. The heater was going fine, but he wanted a fire.
    Jock wanted her, no doubt about it. Had since the first moment he’d seen her at that stupid gala. Only wanted her more since she’d invaded his dreams, his thoughts.
    After today you’d think he was a boy with his first—
    First.
    He was her first.
    Or was he? She’d only said she and Dr. Dick hadn’t done it. He couldn’t hold back the grin. It didn’t matter if she’d been with anyone else, not as far as he was concerned. The last few years had taught him many things about women. All he cared about was that the doctor was done in her life. And that the bastard had never touched Kaitie that way. It shouldn’t matter to him, but it did. Not that he wouldn’t still want her if they had, but they hadn’t and there was more satisfaction in that than there should be.
    Jock shook off the thoughts and set the poker back into its slot. He sat on the floor leaning back against the couch with Kaitie.
    They listened to the fire grow, the wood popping and crackling. He noticed she drank very little of her wine.
    “Don’t like red?”
    “What?” she asked.
    He motioned to her wine with his own glass. “The wine. I’ve got other things. Water, tea probably. Some pop—Coke, I believe, is in the fridge.”
    She smiled. “Wine’s fine. I was just thinking.”
    He watched the firelight play on her face, all but glow in her hair.
    “Kaitie, we really don’t have to . . .” He thought about what to say.
    Her eyes rose to his. “Changing your mind, Kinncaid?” She blew out a sigh. “You sure know how to get a girl’s hopes up and then dash ’em down.”
    He ran his tongue around his teeth. “I never said I didn’t want to. With you. Hell, truth is, it’s what I’d love to do, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to, that I’m pressuring you, or making you or—”
    She set her wine aside on the coffee table and scrabbled to her knees. She took a deep breath and then climbed on him, her knees on either side of his hips.
    Jock could only hold his wine and stare at her. Completely at a loss for words.
    “You are you. I know what it feels like when a man is making me do something. Or pressuring me to do things I might not otherwise. Or how my stomach twists when he does those things, how it feels like I have to do things or act a certain way or say things I wouldn’t. I know what it feels like to be someone else, and not be me because I’m afraid of disappointment or worse.” She leaned in and kissed his lips, hers trailing over his cheek to his ear. “I don’t feel any of those things with you. I’m just me. I want to do this with you. You.” Her