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Her whole body screamed in protest that he’d stopped and she looked at him in dazed confusion.

‘Jack?’

She saw him tense and then he turned to face her, his handsome face totally blank of expression. ‘Now do you see?’

She swallowed, finding it terribly hard to concentrate, still suffering from the aftershocks of his kiss. ‘Now do I see what?’

‘That kisses can get out of control.’ His eyes dropped to her parted lips, still swollen and damp from the ruthless demands of his mouth and then dropped further still to the outline of her breasts which pushed boldly against her dress. He dragged his gaze away and stared into the darkness. ‘That’s what would have happened if you’d invited David Armstrong back for coffee.’

Bryony stared at him in silence.

She felt as though the world had changed shape. As if everything should look different. It certainly felt different.

For her, their entire relationship had changed in an instant. The moment his mouth had touched hers, everything had become different.

But evidently he didn’t feel the same way.

Chewing her lip, she reminded herself that this was Jack. Jack, whose parents had divorced when he was eight and who had vowed never to get married himself when he grew up. And then he’d grown up and had shown no intention of changing his mind about that one fact. Jack didn’t do relationships. Judging from the few conversations she’d overheard between her brothers, Jack did sex and not much else.

But even knowing that, her whole body flooded with disappointment as she realised that obviously the kiss hadn’t meant anything at all to him. He’d actually been proving a point and in doing so he’d proved something to her, too.

That she’d been right all along about Jack.

He was an amazing kisser.

And she knew that the same thing would never have happened had she invited David Armstrong back for coffee. David might have kissed her, that was true, but she knew that there wasn’t another man on the planet who would make her feel what Jack had just made her feel.

But it was totally hopeless.

And the raw, sexual attraction she felt for Jack shouldn’t interfere with her determination to find a father for Lizzie, she told herself firmly.

That was just lust and lust always faded anyway. She needed a man who would be kind, good company and a caring father to Lizzie. She didn’t need raw sexual attraction. In fact, raw sexual attraction was starting to turn her into a nervous wreck.

So she lifted her chin and smiled at Jack, proud of how natural it seemed. ‘Well, thanks for the practice,’ she said lightly, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek, resisting the almost overwhelming temptation to trace a route to his mouth with the tip of her tongue. ‘I’d forgotten how to do it, but you reminded me. Now I know I’ll get it right next time I go out with David.’

And with that she opened the door, climbed out of the car and walked to her cottage without looking back.

CHAPTER SIX

DAMN. Damn. Damn.

What the hell had he done?

He’d kissed his best friend.

Jack stared after Bryony, trying to decide what shocked him most. The fact that he’d kissed her, or the fact that he hadn’t wanted to stop.

He sat in the car with the engine switched off, staring into the frozen darkness feeling as though something fundamental to his existence had changed.

Where had it come from? That sudden impulse to kiss her…

Blondie was family.

As much a baby sister to him as she was to Tom and Oliver.

And until tonight he’d never thought of her in any other way.

Or had he?