Miracle Times Two. Josie Metcalfe

such an energetic person with such a lively personality that it was all too easy to forget just how slender she was, especially when she was swathed in a shapeless uniform or several bulky layers of off-duty clothing—one of the down sides of spending her working days in a heated building.

      Now that he had her wrapped in his arms he realised that she was more than a head shorter than he was, easily able to burrow herself into the angle under his chin as she clung to him.

      The hand that started stroking her back traced the perfect curve of her spine from the silky hair at the base of her skull all the way down to the top of her jeans, and he was almost certain that, had he tried, he could have wrapped both hands completely around her waist, fingertip to fingertip.

      And as for her legs, those deceptively long legs, one of which he was bracketing with his own as she leaned against him, sparking his imagination to fill with images of how they would feel without the layers of fabric separating them, how it would feel if they were both naked with those endless legs wrapped around his waist as he.

      ‘Oh, Daniel, I’m sorry,’ she whimpered against his throat and he had to swallow a groan as the puffs of moist warmth on his bare skin ratcheted his pulse still higher even as he tried to remind himself that he was supposed to be supporting and comforting her, not wasting his time imagining impossible scenarios in which.

      ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for,’ he growled, hoping she couldn’t hear the way his voice betrayed the effect she was having on him.

      ‘I sh-shouldn’t be falling apart all over you,’ she hiccupped. ‘It’s not fair to you to have to m-mop me up.’

      ‘You let me worry about that,’ he reassured her, even as he tried to push to the back of his brain all the other things he’d be willing to do for her. To her. With her. ‘Everyone needs a friend they can let the barriers down with, otherwise we’d all go crazy in a high-stress job like ours.’

      He rested his cheek briefly on the crown of her head just long enough to draw in the fresh scent of the shampoo she’d used earlier mixed with the indefinable something that belonged to no one but his little Jennywren.

      ‘It never seems to get to you,’ she complained. ‘Even when you came back up to tell us about Sheelagh Griffin’s babies.’ The thought sent her off into renewed sobs and he realised that, as it didn’t look as if she was going to be fit to leave any time soon, it was time to make them both more comfortable.

      She was weeping so hard that she was probably almost unaware that he’d half-led, half-carried her back into his living room. In fact, she only reacted when he lowered himself into the corner of his oversized settee and tried to settle her on his lap.

      ‘Daniel, no,’ she objected, floundering in her attempts at getting her feet on the floor. ‘You don’t have to do this. It’s not. You can’t want. I shouldn’t …’

      ‘Calm down, sweetheart,’ he said, thwarting her halfhearted efforts by drawing her closer to his chest. ‘It’s not a problem.’ Well, that was a blatant lie for a start, because having her squirming on his lap was quickly becoming a big problem, and if she squirmed much more, she would discover just how big.

      ‘It’s difficult to calm d-down,’ she sobbed against his throat. ‘All I can think of is those poor people and everything they’ve l-lost and … and …’

      She turned her head to look up at him just as he angled his to press his face against hers and somehow, accidentally, fleetingly, their lips brushed.

      He froze, unable to breathe, convinced that even his heart had stopped beating for several timeless seconds as he savoured the softness of her mouth against his for the first time.

      ‘Daniel?’ she whispered huskily, and while he was utterly amazed that she hadn’t immediately broken the contact between them, he was intimately aware that he could taste the salt of her tears.

      The last thing he wanted was to draw back, afraid of what he would see in her eyes. Shock? Rejection? Or worse, disgust if she thought he was taking advantage of her emotional state?

      In the end it was Jenny who moved just the few inches that would allow them to see each other’s expressions, and the wide-eyed wonder on her face as her gaze flicked from his eyes to his mouth and back again jolted his heart into double time.

      ‘Jenny?’ It sounded more like a growl than a question and he wasn’t really sure what he was trying to ask her, but to his everlasting relief she seemed to take it as an invitation.

      ‘Please,’ she whispered as she angled her head and leant forwards just far enough to stroke her lips over his … once … twice. ‘Please, Daniel,’ she said again as she wreathed her arms around his neck, this time pressing not only her lips against his but the whole of her body, too. ‘Please, Daniel. I need you,’ she begged breathlessly before she plunged them both headlong into the kind of kiss he’d been dreaming of ever since he’d met the tantalising woman … only better.