That First Special Kiss

The relief in his eyes told her just how badly he had needed to hear those words.

The stem intensity left his expression, to be replaced by a broad grin that was pure Shane. He swung her around, completely off her feet, lifting her high against his chest. She was forced to throw her arms around his neck for balance—and then she left them there because she wanted to.

“You’re going to throw out your back,” she warned him, her feet dangling over his arm, her red dress tangled around her thighs.

“No way,” he assured her, nuzzling her neck. “You’re as light as a feather.”

“Big, strong cowboy,” she teased, ruffling his uncharacteristically neat hair. “Even if you do look like a city boy in this tux.”

“I could get out of this penguin suit in less than three minutes.”

She swallowed, her fingers tightening reflexively on his shoulders as her mind filled with startling pictures. “Er...could you?”

“With the proper incentive, of course.”

“And that would be?”

He nipped at her bare right shoulder, nudging her spaghetti straps out of the way. “You.”

For a moment, her voice was frozen in her throat. When she had agreed to explore a deeper relationship with Shane, she hadn’t been able to think beyond a first date. A few kisses. She’d known that kisses wouldn’t be enough for long. But now that the moment of decision was actually here, her first impulse was to run. Her second was to stay and take what she wanted.

Making her choice, she pressed her lips to his.

Chapter Eleven

She must have taken Shane by surprise, because he froze for a moment, his mouth going still beneath hers. He recovered quickly, his arms tightening around her. And suddenly he was the one taking the initiative as his tongue plunged into her mouth to claim her. He was still kissing her when he carried her across the room and into her bedroom, where he lowered her to the bed and proved that he could, indeed, shed the tuxedo in less than three minutes.

He got rid of her simple little red dress in even less time. He smiled when he saw what she’d worn beneath it.

“For me?” he murmured, touching an almost-reverent fingertip to the frivolous red lace bustier.

Had she known when she’d dressed that Shane would be seeing the seductive undergarments? “Yes,” she answered.

His smile deepened. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Why was she lying there smiling back at him? Why wasn’t she more nervous? Why wasn’t she trying to talk herself out of this? Why wasn’t she reminding herself of all the possible repercussions, all the things that would probably go wrong?

Instead, she opened her arms to him. “Come here, cowboy.”

He chuckled. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

He did much more than kiss her. He savored her. He mesmerized her. He transported her. He kissed her lips, her eyelids, her earlobes. He tasted her throat, her breasts, the soft skin below her navel. He touched the scars on her legs and then kissed them, too, to prove that they didn’t bother him.

Kelly insisted on having her turn. She knew Shane so very well. Knew the way his coffee-brown hair fell over his forehead. The way his blue eyes crinkled when he smiled. The way his dimples appeared and then vanished with a capriciousness that had always fascinated her.

But now she learned even more about him. How his work-honed muscles felt as they rippled beneath her palms. The way his flat stomach contracted when she trailed her fingertips across it. She learned how it felt to rest her cheek against his chest, to have her nose tickled by the light dusting of hair there. She learned how to make him smile. How to make him gasp. And how to make him moan.

Lying on her back beneath him, she gazed up at him in wonder. He was the Shane she knew—but he was different somehow. His face was so achingly familiar to her, and yet he wore an expression that was so excitingly new.

She loved everything about him—everything she had come to know during the past year and a half, and everything she had discovered in the past half hour. She was deeply, desperately in love with Shane Walker, and while she wasn’t yet ready to tell him, she was more than ready to show him.

She wrapped herself around him when he lowered himself to her.

Kelly learned then that she hadn’t been the only one to predict this outcome to the evening. Shane was fully prepared to protect her from any unplanned consequences to their lovemaking. She appreciated his foresight, and the brisk, matter-of-fact way he took care of it