Okay, she kept telling herself. Okay. This is some kind of aberration. Ghosts aren’t real. Hallucinations aren’t real. He was terribly stressed, she figured. That was all this was really about. He’d always been a workaholic beyond all sanity, so then he’d come home and been terribly worried about his sister-and he’d never been a guy who tolerated frustration well.

Yeah. That was it. He was just letting off steam with these kisses.

Only she wasn’t. She didn’t have steam to let off. This…clinging to him. This wildly, fiercely kissing him back. This teasing him, rubbing against him…none of this made sense. It wasn’t her.

This wasn’t sex. This was heart-altering. This wasn’t passion. It was touching at some other level. Down, down, down at the deep, sad loneliness level. Damn it, she hadn’t been lonely in all this time. She hadn’t.

Yet he made her feel that way.

As if she’d been alone since they’d last kissed as teenagers. As if she’d needed no one until this moment. As if she’d been coping fine-which she had, she had-until Garrett came home and took her mouth this way and made it all come crumbling down.

She felt his hands soothing down her back, seducing with every rub, every caress. His mouth still took more kisses, took ownership of her senses. He spun her around, pressed her against a honey-pine wall. The rough pine felt good against her spine, a relief after that dangerous silk mouth of his. His hands roamed her arms now, then whispered between them, reaching for her blouse buttons.

Her eyes shot open.

He hadn’t felt her bare breasts yet. They hadn’t removed any clothes. But a couple minutes more of this, and Emma would have peeled down without his asking. Without any talk. Without her thinking even once of her fiancé.