Reilly's Return Read Online Free

that she’d never wanted to be attracted to him. Seeing him now sent her heart into overdrive.
    “Bloody hell, I knew you’d be surprised to see me, Calamity Jayne, but I didn’t think you’d faint dead away,” he said. There was an utterly irresistible smile turning the corners of his mouth, but the bottomless depths of his blue eyes were shadowed with concern as he kneeled down beside her and tucked a finger beneath her chin. “You all right?”
    What kind of darn fool question was that? Jayne frowned. Of course she wasn’t all right. Her heart was hammering like a washing machine with an unbalanced load. She was alternatelyhot and cold all over, and her stomach was spinning like a pinwheel in a hurricane.
    She pushed herself up on her elbows, sliding back and away from Reilly’s touch. “I’m fine.”
    She was still denying the attraction that pulled between them, Reilly thought. He gave a sharp sigh. She’d always been damn good at that. After her initial unguarded response to him Jayne had more or less pretended he didn’t exist except on the silver screen. She had avoided and ignored him to the point that he had begun to wonder if he was the only one who had experienced that searing flame of desire when they’d met.
    Just as well, he’d told himself at the time, and he had sought to follow her lead—to ignore his feelings, to direct them elsewhere. He’d even gone so far as to try to cultivate a dislike for Jayne Jordan, dubbing her Calamity Jayne for the havoc her reviews wreaked on movies she didn’t like. He’d sent her a pet tarantula as a token of his esteem when she’d panned
Deadly Weapon
. The movie had been a box office smash despite her less than glowing opinion, but still her review had irritated him. And the fact that it had irritated him had irritated him even more. Jayne had been the only movie critic whose opinion had mattered to him.
    The attraction had never died. The artificialdislike had never taken root. And he’d discovered after Mac’s death that the desire was still alive inside Jayne as well. She’d merely done a bang-up job of hiding it. She really should have been an actress.
    “You could warn a person, you know,” Jayne said defensively. She pushed herself to her feet and dusted off her clothes, avoiding a look at Reilly. “You could warn a person instead of just showing up out of the blue, disguised in some kind of weird get up.”
    Reilly raised an eyebrow as his gaze swept over her from head to toe, lingering on the white socks that bagged around her ankles at the top of her low boots. “There’s the pot callin’ the kettle black. Anyhow, I did warn you.”
    Jayne squared her shoulders and stuck her little chin out. “You never did.”
    He stepped closer, his head bent, rooting Jayne to the spot with his beautiful, powerful eyes. She could not look away from him. Electricity charged the air as his aura invaded hers. It was a moment and a half, Jayne thought. If they’d been filming, this would have been a close up, an instant of silence so full of unspoken emotion, the viewers would have been on the edges of their seats.
    “I warned you a year ago, Jaynie,” he said, hisvoice a low rumble. “I said I’d be back and I’m a man of my word.”
    “A year is long time,” she murmured. “Things change.”
    “Nothin’s changed,” he whispered, leaning closer and closer still.
    This wasn’t quite what he’d planned to do, Reilly thought briefly as he tangled a hand in the wild silk of Jayne’s hair. But then he seldom planned anything. He’d always acted on impulse and had never considered changing. He didn’t try to resist the force that drew his head down toward Jayne’s. And while he could see resistance in her eyes, Jayne succumbed to the force as well.
    Her chin tilted upward in a combination of invitation and defiance. If she meant to voice a protest, she never had the chance. Reilly settled his mouth against hers, and Jayne found herself whirled