Tasting Fear by Shannon McKenna Page A

that faint blush of pink, barely a hint of color in her pale cheeks. Her huge eyes were wide open and luminous. Greenish brown. Leaves in the water. Dilated pupils, deep and endless. A sprinkle of ruddy freckles on her nose, now that he was close enough to see. A frivolous detail that made her beauty more believable, more approachable. More kissable.
    He studied every drop of water beading her forehead. Followed the grain of her eyebrows, the jut of her cheekbone. Perfect. Radiant. He was dazzled. Lost. His wits gone. Like they’d never been.
    She extricated her hand, and touched his face from cheekbone to jaw. The trail of her finger was a path of light, moonlight on water, a beckoning shimmer. Rain dripped into his collar, soaking his shoulders. Rain defined the dimensions of this sensual liquid otherworld. Pearly gray, green, silvery, glittering cool. And beneath it, secret hidden heat. The blush in her cheeks, the warmth of her lips. Wet with rain, sweet with rain. Her scent, escaping him every time he tried to inhale it. Elusive, alluring. Driving him mad. He swayed. Their lips touched.
    The kiss pierced through him, broke something open. He started to shake and clutched the edge of the door to steady himself. Moved, by a shy, cautious, trembling kiss. Tears started into his eyes. Luckily, his face was already wet. He closed his eyes, tasted her, felt her. The delicate texture of the inside skin of her lips, the flick of her shy tongue. He drank it up. Like fine liquor. So sweet, for being given, and not taken.
    The cell phone could have been ringing for hours by the time he registered it. He never wanted to come back, but the sound was a grappling hook that dragged her away from him. He begged her, in his mind, to turn the goddamn thing off. Stay with him. Let this magic go on.
    She pulled away, groped for her purse. Avoiding his gaze. “Hello?”
    She listened to a loud burst of talking on the other side, and her eyes flicked up to him. “Just a sec, Eugene. Um, Liam? This is going to take a few minutes. You might as well get back into the truck.”
    Yes, it was definitely over. Fuck. He stood there, fists clenched.
    She was paying no attention. She was all business now.
    He got into the truck, feeling stupid and dismissed. Chump asshole. Winding himself up into thinking he was on the verge of something important.
    But not more important than a fucking phone call.
     
    “Thank God you picked up. We’ve got a disaster on our hands!”
    Eugene was the fiddler from Mandrake, her Afro-Celt fusion band. She avoided looking at Liam as he got back into the truck. “What’s the matter?”
    “It’s Dennis! He’s deserting! The stinking rat bastard!”
    “Calm down, and let’s take this step by step.”
    “He just got a gig with a touring show of Riverdance! He’s blowing us off, a week before the tour! The gigs in Boston and Albany and Atlanta all specified Uilleann pipes in the contract! We can’t show up without a piper!” Eugene’s voice cracked.
    “Calm down,” she said again. “This is bad, but we’ll fix it.”
    “How, Nance? Every piper we know is booked solid those weeks! I’ve already made seven phone calls! We’re completely screwed!”
    “We’ll fix it!” she insisted. “I’ll be back tonight. When I get home, I’ll call you and we’ll work something out. Don’t panic.”
    She listened with half an ear to Eugene’s carrying-on, her body still quivering. After all her resolutions to be tough. Making out madly with a stranger in his truck. Getting swept away, too, toward God alone knew what. His house, his couch, his rug, his bed. She hadn’t been swept away since…well, never. Swept away was not in her repertoire.
    She’d never known anyone that good. She’d never known that good existed. She was squirming, hot. Practically desperate for it, and after some gallant moves, a light kiss, one single collar button undone.
    He’d barely touched her. How had he done that?
    She jerked her