"Thank you." Jeannie smiled at Ollie, then turned her attention to the silver tray that the housekeeper had placed on the Battenburg-lace-covered round table.
Ollie excused herself, leaving Jeannie and Sam alone. Lifting the cloth covering the tray, Sam surveyed the contents of their meal. Chicken salad, croissants, fresh fruit and cheese.
"Sit down, please." Jeannie lifted her eyes and glanced directly at Sam.
"Ladies first." He pulled out her chair and seated her, his hand brushing her shoulder. He sat across from her, watching while she poured hot tea into the delicate Lenox cups. Her hands quivered ever so slightly. Sam glanced down at the china plate containing a mound of freshly prepared chicken salad lying on a bed of crisp lettuce.
He made her nervous. Sam found that realization strangely reassuring. Obviously he wasn't the only one experiencing an unnerving, unwanted attraction. Since arriving in Biloxi yesterday, Sam had felt unbalanced, as if his equilibrium were a bit off center. Jeannie Alverson had that effect on him.
With emotions he usually had no trouble keeping under control gone haywire, Sam had no point of reference in how to deal with what he felt. He was torn between his desire to protect Jeannie at all costs and to repay the debt he owed her for saving his life, and another, equally strong desire. The desire to claim her, body and soul … his primeval masculine need to possess. Heaven help him if he ever acted on his desires—heaven help them both.
"You aren't eating." Jeannie's smile trembled, her brown eyes questioning his silent absorption in his dinner plate.
Picking up his fork, he lifted a small portion of salad to his mouth and ate. He nodded, then glanced at Jeannie. "It's delicious."
But not as delicious as her mouth last night, when he'd taken one tender kiss. Being with her, wanting her so desperately and knowing he was totally wrong for her, only added to Sam's confusion. He had never known a woman like Jeannie, and he'd have bet his last dime that she'd never known a man like him. They were poles apart, opposite ends of a spectrum—a physical man and a spiritual woman.
He had once run away from his past, from the painful memories and the woman who had saved his life. Now he was trapped by a promise he'd made, captured by his own deepest, most primitive needs. Needs that could destroy him if he didn't keep them under control.
They ate in silence, each sneaking occasional glances at the other. The room was utterly, devastatingly quiet, the steady tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the clink of silver against china the only sounds.
If the silence continued much longer, Jeannie thought she might scream. How had this happened, this long stretch of tense stillness? They were aware of each other to such a heightened degree that Jeannie began to sense Sam's thoughts. The moment she realized he was fighting the desire to kiss her, she immediately withdrew, ending the connection.
Jeannie's telepathic abilities had always been extremely limited. She and Manton could converse, and in the last days of Miriam's life, they had been able to connect. But Sam was the only other person with whom she had shared this rare joining, and he would not admit it, even to himself.
Scooting back his chair, Sam stood, then tossed his linen napkin down on the table and glared at Jeannie. "You were doing it again, weren't you? Trying to get inside my head."
Tilting her chin defiantly, she looked up at him. "I couldn't have made the connection without your cooperation. You were connecting with me, too. That's why I was able to sense what you were feeling."
He rounded the table so quickly that when he hauled Jeannie to her feet, she cried out in alarm. She clung to his arms, feeling the bulging muscles beneath his jacket and shirt.
"Don't do it again! I don't want any connection, any 'spiritual joining.' Got it?"
"You want to kiss me," she said. "That's why you're so angry. You don't like my knowing how much you'd like to kiss me."
"What?"
"I'd like to kiss you, too."
"Lady, are you out of your mind?"
"Maybe I am, but I've never been truly kissed by a man, and the thought of your kissing me intrigues me."
"You're paying me to be your bodyguard," Sam said. "Not your lover."
She covered his lips with her fingertips. "Shhh. I'm not asking you to make love to me, just to kiss me. What's wrong, Mr. Dundee, are you afraid to kiss me?"
With one hand, he tightened his hold around her waist, and with the other he grasped her chin. "All right, if you're sure it's what you want. Just remember that it doesn't mean anything. I've kissed a hundred women before you, and will probably kiss a hundred more before I die."
"Then I expect you're very good at this, at kissing, aren't you?"
Her eyelids fluttered. She clutched his arms. Drawing her up against him, Sam slipped his hand under the wavy fall of her hair and gripped her neck. His heartbeat roared in his ears like the hum of his Cessna's twin engines.
A steady, throbbing ache spread through him, threatening to overpower his restraint. When he lowered his head, his lips just making contact with hers, she seemed to melt into him, to become a part of him. He felt her surrender, her eager compliance, in every cell of his body.
Of all the women he'd known, all the pretty faces, all the luscious bodies, not one had ever sent him into a panic. But then, he had never wanted anyone the way he wanted Jeannie. And it was that need, that raging, all-consuming need, that frightened the intrepid Sam Dundee.
"I'm no good for you," he warned her. Or was he warning himself? "So don't let this kiss give you any ideas."
Slipping her arms around his neck, she closed her eyes and welcomed his kiss. Her soft, sweet, giving lips met his. Innocent and untutored, she gave herself over completely to his mastery, absorbing the undeniable pleasure he was experiencing, realizing that she felt their shared enjoyment in the kiss.
Opening her mouth on a sigh, Jeannie accepted the tender thrust of his tongue, the sensual probing. Her body tingled with excitement. A slow, steady throb of desire began to build inside her.
Sam deepened the kiss. He cupped her buttocks, shifting her body, lifting her up and into him, so that his arousal pulsated against her femininity. She moaned loudly, then slid her tongue inside his mouth, exploring him the way he had her. He ached. She ached even more. He groaned deep in his throat, the power of Jeannie's nearness rendering him helpless against his own masculine needs.
Jeannie cried out from the hot, pounding hunger and demanding desire raging inside her. Sam's hunger. Her desire. She felt them both, and felt them simultaneously.
She scratched his back, her short, rounded nails clawing fiercely at his cashmere jacket. Her body undulated against his, feeding his hunger, fanning the flames of her desire. She was on fire with their combined passion, and was no longer in control of her actions. Sam's needs dictated hers. The greater his desire was for her, the more she desired him.
She overpowered him with the fervor of her response, momentarily stunning him. Slowly ending the kiss, he lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the sitting room and directly toward her bed, then lowered her on top of the quilted pink coverlet. Her arms still draped around his neck, she pulled him downward. With his lips almost touching hers, he braced his hands on each side of her.
He had never expected her to go wild in his arms, had never imagined that sweet, innocent Jeannie possessed the power to bring him to his knees with nothing more than a smoldering kiss.
He looked down at her face, flushed with arousal, her lips red, damp and slightly swollen. "Jeannie?" He wanted to take her and make her his. He wanted to remove her clothes and cover her naked body with his own. He wanted to bury himself deep inside her and find the ecstasy he knew awaited them. But he could not, would not, take advantage of her. He sensed that she had never before felt this way, that she was experiencing sexual desire for the first time in her life.