His hands shifted to her shoulders, and to her surprise he pulled back, stared into her eyes with ones that appeared as dazed as she felt.
Which was saying a lot. Her legs had all the strength of melted butter. Which was a pretty accurate description of how the rest of her felt, too.
“That was some goodnight kiss, Doc.”
She wasn’t sure how to take his comment. Was he making fun of how she’d kissed him after claiming he wasn’t her type?
“Um, y-yeah, it w-was,” she stammered. “Nothing like any I’ve encountered, for sure.”
“Really?”
He seemed intrigued by her comment and Sarah regretted her wine-induced confession. At least, she was blaming her blurting out that she’d never been kissed like that before on the wine.
Honestly, she could just as easily blame it on his kiss because the man’s mouth had outright intoxicated her.
Squaring up her shoulders and trying to achieve a look of nonchalance, she nodded. “Don’t act like it’s a big deal because I’m sure you get that a lot.”
“Get what a lot?”
Oh, the things she could respond with, but, even though she should be blaring a reminder over and over in her head, the last thing she wanted to do at the moment was think about him with other women.
“The reaction that you are a way above average kisser.”
Looking more than a little pleased at her answer, he chuckled. “Way above average?”
His pleasure in her response, that he was looking at her with affection rather than mockery, freed Sarah of her embarrassment at her confession.
Or maybe it was the wine freeing her of her inhibitions. Yep, she was going to keep blaming the wine. Nasty inhibition-lowering stuff.
“Okay,” she admitted with a little roll of her eyes and a smile of her own. “You’re phenomenal and make my previous kissing experiences seem like they were conducted by preschoolers.”
He stroked his thumb across her cheek. “Preschoolers?”
“They weren’t,” she assured him, thinking she should quit talking any moment now. “I have been kissed since preschool.”
His thumb made a circular caress over her cheekbone and her brain went a little fuzzy for a moment. For a moment? Ha, her brain had been fuzzy all evening. Looking at him made her brain fuzzy. Kissing him had completely fuzzed her.
“I wasn’t actually kissed in preschool,” she clarified. “Not even once, although this little boy named Johnny chased me around saying he was going to kiss me when he caught me, but I never let him catch me.” She should shut up, because why was she telling him
about Johnny from preschool? “I have been kissed. By grown men. Good, decent men who were my type.”
At least, she’d thought they were her type. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“But they didn’t kiss like you.” Yeah, she really should quit talking.
The color of Jude’s eyes deepened, darkening with an emotion Sarah couldn’t label. Instinctively, she liked his warm expression, though. She liked it a lot.
“How did I kiss, Sarah?”
He cupped her face now, stared into her eyes, and his voice had a husky tone to it that made her want to listen to him say her name over and over.
All night long.
Wine, stop it.
“Like you could set my body on fire and make me happy to go up in flames.”
Oops. That had slipped out. Maybe she needed to zip her lips.