“Neither am I.” She rubbed her nose against his, as amused as she was aroused. Even when he was teasing with her, he seemed so delightfully serious.
He caught her chin in his hand, pressing another kiss on her smiling lips. “I always get the feeling you’re laughing at me,” he murmured, displaying that unnerving mind-reading talent again.
“Only in the nicest way,” she assured him, and kissed him again.
“What is it about me that amuses you so much?” he asked some time later.
Sliding a hand down his cheek, she laughed softly. “The way you’re so serious all the time. The way you look at me sometimes as if you think I must come from another planet. The way your forehead creases when I say something that perplexes you. Shall I go on?”
“I think that’s enough.” His tone was dry.
“You’re very seriously cute, Trevor McBride,” she said, running her fingertips through his thick, dark blond hair. “You always have been.”
“Cute?” His forehead wrinkled—exactly the way she’d just described. The way she found so endearing. “It’s been a long time since anyone has called me cute.”
She smiled. “Maybe you just haven’t been listening.”
Cupping his hand behind her head, he pulled her face toward him and traced her smile with the tip of his tongue. “I’m listening now.”
She’d been waiting for so many years to get Trevor McBride’s attention. Now that she had it, she intended to make the most of it—before he drifted away again. She covered his mouth with hers and kissed him exactly the way she had wanted to kiss him for so very long.
He moved with a speed that took her by surprise, shifting his weight until she was lying beneath him, pressed into the deep cushions of her jewel-tone couch. His mouth ravaged hers, tongues seeking, meeting, mating. Taking his cues from her, his hands raced over her with a boldness he hadn’t shown before.
Jamie felt the fine tremors in his fingers, and she realized he was still holding back. He’d made it clear enough that he’d been living a monk’s life for the past year. She didn’t want to think he was with her now because she was convenient; she preferred to think of herself as the woman who had drawn him out of his self-imposed exile.
He shifted restlessly, and she felt the hardness pressing against her thigh. Whatever the barriers that had come between them in the past, they were together now and he wanted her. She couldn’t guess how long it would last, or even if they would ever be together again after tonight. But she had no intention of missing this one chance to fulfill a fifteen-year-old fantasy.
She slid her hands down his back, relishing the ripple of muscle beneath his clothing. He was still exploring her mouth so thoroughly she was sure he had memorized every centimeter. She knew she would never forget the taste or the texture of his.
She felt his right hand sliding upward from her hip to her rib cage—suddenly tentative, as if he wasn’t quite sure of her reaction. She arched into his touch, mutely letting him know her reaction was decidedly positive. She almost felt the surge of heat rush through him when his hand closed finally over her left breast.
He wanted her, she thought again, every nerve ending vibrating with reciprocal excitement.
Trevor slid his mouth from her lips to her jaw, moved to the shallow indention in her chin, then buried his face in her throat to measure the pulse beating so rapidly in the hollow there. She shifted to accommodate him, sliding her fingers into his hair, lifting herself more firmly into his embrace.
A sudden shrill buzzing pierced the intimate silence between them, causing Jamie to gasp in surprise and Trevor to lift his head with a start. She was so disoriented that it took her a moment to identify the sound as a cellular telephone. By that time, Trevor had already pulled a flip-phone the size of a deck of playing cards out of his pocket. Giving her a look of apology, he straightened, opened the phone and lifted it to his ear. His voice was admirably composed when he said, “Hello?”
Resigned to the inevitable, Jamie wriggled into an upright position, straightened her clothes and smoothed her hair. “I hope it wasn’t a crisis,” she said when Trevor completed the brief call and slid the phone back into his pocket.
“Not a crisis, but I have to go,” he said, regret in his voice. “Abbie’s running a fever and she keeps crying for me. Mother tried to handle it, but she doesn’t think Abbie’s going to settle down unless I’m there.”
“Then you should go. Are you going to take her to the emergency room?” The word fever had already made Jamie nervous; she wondered how Trevor could sound so calm about it.
With just a hint of a smile, he shook his head. “It’s just a cold. She’s been coming down with it for a couple of days. She seemed to be feeling better this morning, so I thought we’d be okay, but apparently she’s feeling worse again.”
“Poor baby. I hate to think of her crying for you.”
He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry our evening is ending so abruptly.”
“So am I,” she said, but she smiled to show that she understood. “I had a great time, Trev.”
“So did I.” He stood, and she rose to follow him to the door. He paused with one hand on the doorknob, his gaze searching her face. “Jamie—it isn’t easy for a single father to find time for a personal life.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.”
“I work long hours and I don’t want to spend a lot of time away from the kids when I’m not at the office.”
“They need you,” Jamie agreed simply, admiring his dedication to his children.