Dead.
Don’t think about that right now, Mack.
Her thoughts went in hysterical loops, and Teddy realized right then and there that she much preferred writing about dangerous, scary, suspenseful scenes than living them.
The door eased open, and the figure—tall, dripping, wearing something shiny and dark that covered him from head to knee—stepped in.
She nearly fainted when she saw him look directly at the laptop screen.
“Teddy?” the figure called. “Are you here?”
She nearly shrieked with relief. And shock. In fact, she dropped the damned frying pan from shaking fingers. It landed on her toe.
“Ow!Oscar?”
“Teddy! What are you doing in the dar— Oh, the power line.” He pushed back his hood, then stripped off the dripping rain slicker.
She dropped the knife on the kitchen counter—no need for him to know about that; she was cool as a cucumber—and stepped over the frying pan.
“What in thehelldo you think you’re doing?” she cried, with all the vehemence of pent-up nerves mingled with wild relief.
“I…” He seemed ill at ease, but it was difficult in the dim light, cast only by her computer screen, to read his expression. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have any way to reach you. I—I forgot to leave my key.” He held up the offending item, the little metal object that had nearly given her a heart attack when he’d slipped it into the lock.
She managed to find her voice. “You came back because you forgot to leave your key?”
Okay, that wasn’t what she was hoping for—in the twenty seconds she’d had to assimilate that Oscar hadreturned—but at least she wasn’t here alone anymore. Even if he was a jerk.
“No, I came back— I came back because—well, I realized I left in a hurry, and we were sort of…in the middle—or, at least, the beginning of something.” He toed off his boots and stood uncertainly in the center of the shadowy room. “I came back because I wanted to know what that something was. If anything.”
Oh thank God.
Teddy thought that, but she didn’t act upon it. Not right away.
Until her legs carried her across the room and she slid into his embrace.
“I’m glad you came back,” she said as his arms came around her. “For a number of reasons—not the least of which being it’sreally effingnerve-racking being here by myself during this damned storm. With no power. And ghosts around. And people breaking in.”
“Oh, Teddy,” he murmured with a quiet chuckle. He folded her tightly against his cold, rain-scented body. “I was so bloody stupid.”
The next thing she knew, he was kissing her. Really kissing her—as if he was dying, or as if he never needed to breathe again.
Her thoughts dissolved and she was only aware of Oscar: his strong, sure hands, his mouth, the solidness of his body, the taste and scent of him. Her eyes closed and she tipped her head back as he slid his mouth along the edge of her jaw, nibbling and nuzzling that sensitive spot beneath her ear. His mouth was doing insanely delicious things to her, sending hot shivers through her body, making her hair rise gently along the back of her neck.
At last, a particularly violent crack of thunder brought her back to her senses—and the realization that she did, in fact, need to breathe—and Teddy eased back.
“We should—uh—catch up on a few things,” she said, reaching up to brush that stubborn lock of hair back from his forehead.
“Probably a good idea. Um…do I smell pizza? I was in a hurry to get back, so I didn’t stop to eat.”
He’d been in a hurry to get back? Teddy smiled to herself as she replied, “It was frozen, but tasted pretty good—and fortunately, I finished heating it before the power went out.”
“Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure I saw the lightning hit the tree that took down the power line,” Oscar said. He went on to explain how his Jeep had nearly been fried, and why he’d been walking to the cottage and not driving.
“I’m not ashamed to say it freaked the hell out of me when I saw you running up to the house, all shadowy and dark,” she said, pulling down a plate and glass for him with help from the light he was shining from the flashlight.
“Yes, I can imagine. I saw candles in the drawer over here,” Oscar said, and took the flashlight over to search. “And tomorrow I can get the generator running.”
“There’s a generator? How did you know that?”
