Read Lover Beware 03 - After Midnight for Free Online Page A

anchored the piece of paper on the doormat of the front door with a rock he found in the garden.
    It was hardly satisfactory, but it conveyed his message. He was finished with playing games. He'd waited seven years.
    As far as he was concerned that was seven years too long.
    JANE EDGED THE car into her garage. It was dark, the night moonless and overcast as she slung the strap of her hand-bag over her shoulder and hauled her bags of groceries out of the boot. Juggling the bags, she locked the car and the garage door, then trudged the short distance to the house and set the groceries down on the path while she went to let Jess off the leash.
    Jess strained at the collar, tail wagging, as Jane struggled to unclip the leash. A wet tongue swiped across her face, then the clip came free, and Jess bounded off into the night, doing her customary tour of the grounds as Jane collected the groceries and mounted the steps to the verandah. As she set the groceries down, the pale luminescence of a piece of white paper caught her eye. She retrieved the note, and set the rock that had anchored it to the doormat to one side, unlocked the door, and flicked on the hall and porch lights.
    The note was brief and to the point.
    "Call me, Michael."
    Raw heat flashed through her, making her belly clench and her knees turn to jelly. The moment Michael's gaze had locked on hers outside the police station replayed itself in her mind, and abruptly she was spun back almost seven years when she'd opened the door, and found him on her doorstep dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his hair damp as if he'd not long stepped from the shower. His wife had left just days before, and she had also been on her own because Patrick had been in hospital for an operation.
    He hadn't asked to come in, and she hadn't offered any hospitality. The lack of manners on her part had been unspeak-200
    FIONA BRAND
    ably rude for a small country community, but erecting some kind of barrier had been necessary, because the moment she looked into his dark gaze the reason he affected her so badly was suddenly clear, and the revelation shook her to the core.
    His dark gaze pinned her. "The reason Clare left is that she knows I'm in love with you."
    The words dropped into a pool of silence and for a moment she wondered if she'd misheard, or even worse, if her guilty mind had somehow supplied the words she wanted to hear.
    She'd felt dazed, at once present and peculiarly removed from the scene taking place, as if there were two Janes—one who dealt in the solid currency of reality, and one who floated in a fantasy world.
    He was in love with her.
    Her heart slammed in her chest, and not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to stretch out in bed with him, to have that sensual male mouth on hers: to have him naked on top of her.
    It should have shocked her that she was even considering what it might be like to make love with her next-door neighbour, but instead, all she could think of was that on top of everything else that was going wrong in her life, she shouldn't have to want Rider.
    Rider must have read something in her expression, because instead of backing off, he stepped into her, his hands curved around her waist—the contact electrifying. "Damn," he murmured. "I didn't mean to upset you, and I wasn't going to do this."
    His head dipped and his mouth captured hers. Jane's heart slammed in her chest and for a moment she was frozen, then, somewhere in the murky depths of her mind, sharp need welled out of the confusion that always gripped her whenever she thought about Michael Rider and the hazy notion of pushing free dissolved. If the kiss had been practiced or slick, maybe she could have resisted, but it was so hungry it made her toes curl.
    His tongue stroked along hers and a low moan welled up from deep in her belly, and she closed off the guilt, wound her arms around his neck, and kissed him back.
    His hands closed on her bottom and she found herself lifted,