Forgotten Father by Carol Rose

that
wove its way into her senses like a thief with a key to her
padlocked desires.
    “Dinner was lovely,” she said, striving to anchor
the moment to the mundane.
    “Yes,” he said, glancing at her briefly. “They do a
good meal there.”
    “Yes.” Delanie stared ahead, the sensation of his
gaze on her leaving a scorching heat in her lungs. She was adult
enough to understand the existence of chemical attraction. How many
women had cast aside their principles for a man who drew them
simply on an elemental level?
    Scores.
    But she wasn’t one of them. Wasn’t planning on
waking up naked tomorrow with Mitchell and having trite
conversation before they slipped back into their ordinary roles, as
if nothing had happened and the battle between them waged on. She
couldn’t trivialize herself and her body that way. The possible
consequences were too huge. No matter how hot the night, she
couldn’t do it.
    Not without love.
    Within a few minutes, he’d pulled to a stop in front
of her small rented cottage.
    “Nice place,” he said, putting the car into park and
turning off the engine.
    “I like it,” she responded, searching for her small
bag and scooping it up.
    He got out of the car and walked around as if to
open her door, but she’d already lifted the handle. Still, when she
stepped out of the vehicle, he cupped her elbow like a prom date
from the fifties and walked her to the door.
    Her senses quivering, her mind in gear enough to
still wonder at the supposed turnaround in his attitude, she let
him escort her to the door.
    “Thank you for the lovely evening,” she said,
turning to face him in the yellow light cast by the porch
fixture.
    “My pleasure,” he said.
    “We don’t have to battle over The Cedars, you now.
We can settle this peaceably. I’m glad you called,” she said,
impulsively placing her hand on his arm.
    “Are you?” The light overhead cast harsh shadows
across his features.
    “Yes,” she affirmed, conscious of the latent
strength in the arm beneath her fingers. “We’re both sensible
people. We don’t need to have a war over this inheritance.”
    “Sensible people,” he echoed, his face hard to
read.
    “Yes.” She looked up at him as they stood on the
island of her tiny wooden porch, the sounds of the night swelling
around them.
    “So we’re putting the past behind us?” he asked, his
voice odd.
    “Of course,” Delanie confirmed brightly, still
trying to decipher the shadows in his eyes.
    “But not the good part,” he said. “We’re not putting
that behind us?”
    Did he mean tonight’s dinner? “I…suppose not.”
    “Good,” he said, reaching out to draw her
closer.
    Despite the fact that as an attractive single woman,
she’d been kissed a few times before, she never saw it coming.
    In the whisper of a second, he brought her up
against his body and lowered his mouth to hers. His lips parted
over hers, his arms banded around her. Hot and wet, he kissed her,
like a man who’d been at sea for a year, like a starved creature
demanding sustenance.
    No tentative salute this, but a warrior-like taking
of her mouth.
    Stepping forward so that her back pressed against
the house, Mitchell kissed her with a sliding of lips, a tangling
of tongues. Kissed her like he knew no halfway, nothing but lust
and passion. Kissed her as if he had a right. Leap-frogging over
dating etiquette--he claimed her.
    Delanie registered a surge of disorientation, as if
the world turned upside down. His hands were broad against her back
as he held her pinned between the wall of his chest and the
house.
    She felt lightheaded, dizzy for a flash of a second,
his nibbling, wooing, demanding mouth blotting out all thought, all
reason.
    The low burn in her body leaped into forest fire
strength and she clung to him with the joining of their mouths, the
tangle of breath and hunger vibrating inside her.
    He tore his lips from hers, pressing a trail of damp
kisses along her chin, to the curve of her