He looked as wary as a cornered animal. “What?”
“Kiss me again.”
Maybe Kyle was getting to know her a bit too well. He didn’t seem as surprised by her request as he probably should have been. Instead, he looked searchingly at her and asked, “Why?”
“Because then maybe I can stop thinking about it.” “How’s that?” he asked suspiciously.
“Well, it probably won’t be as big a deal this time.
You know, without the element of surprise and the whole first-time aspect. It’ll probably just be a regular, ordinary kiss—and then we can go back to being friends again.”
He lifted a hand to the back of his neck and squeezed. His voice sounded rather strained when he repeated, “Just friends, huh?”
She nodded forcefully. “Just friends.”
The way she was just friends with all her other former foster brothers, she told herself. The ones who had been drifting in and out of her life for almost twenty-four years. The way she was still friends with those few would-be lovers who’d quickly ended up seeing her as another great pal.
“So, let me get this straight. We’re going to have a ’regular, ordinary kiss,’ after which we’ll be just friends with no sticky issues left between us.”
Hearing him say it like that made her rethink the whole idea. Maybe just this one time she should have curbed her impulse rather than giving into it. “Um…”
A sudden look of resolve on his face, he moved toward her, his silent grace making his limp hardly noticeable at all. Second thoughts turning to third, Molly took a clumsy step backward. “Okay. I think…”
“Just a regular, ordinary kiss.” He reached for her, his amber eyes glinting dangerously. “I suppose we should get it over with.”
His mouth covered hers before she could tell him that she had changed her mind.
If this kiss was “ordinary,” Molly thought a few moments later, then her previous experiences had been sadly lacking. Kyle’s lips moved against hers with a clever skill that spoke of experience, despite his earlier claim that his friend had been the one to whom women had been attracted. She hadn’t bought it then, and she didn’t now.
She couldn’t imagine many women who wouldn’t be drawn to Kyle’s air of deep, quiet, competent strength. Or his beautiful golden-brown eyes that spoke of the years of pain and disappointment that had left him brooding and reclusive—yet still so innately good-hearted that he had given a grieving couple someone new to love and fuss over. And then he had taken the responsibility to see Molly safely home after she had fallen on his porch, which she had pretty much invaded without an invitation.
What woman wouldn’t be attracted to him? she asked herself as her arms seemed to wind themselves around his neck. Or maybe she was just particularly susceptible to Kyle’s unique charms.
Taking his signals from her, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her more tightly against him. She reveled in his warmth. In the very masculine muscles roping his arms and legs. The solid width of his chest and the taut flatness of his abdomen.
Letting her attention wander even lower, she couldn’t help but be aware that Kyle was also strongly affected by the kiss. And even as she shivered in purely instinctive reaction, she realized in despair that her naive plan had failed. Not only was this kiss more spectacular than she’d imagined, she didn’t even try to convince herself that she and Kyle could be “just friends” now.
He ended the embrace very slowly, with a reluctance that might have indicated his belief that it would be their last kiss. Or maybe she was reading her own fears into his hesitancy.
She didn’t want it to be the last kiss, she realized abruptly. Even though he was probably going to break her heart, she wanted to find out what it was like to be with a man who saw her as a desirable woman. A man who made her willing to place her own long-guarded heart at risk.
Kyle would be leaving again—she didn’t pretend otherwise—but perhaps the memories she stored away would make the inevitable pain somewhat easier to bear.
“That,” he said, his voice gravelly, “was a mistake.”
Which she interpreted to mean that she wasn’t the only one who had been shaken by their kisses. “Maybe. But now that it’s already happened once…”
Leaning into him, she pressed her mouth to his again.
Kyle made a low, rough sound that was half laugh, half groan—and then he cupped her face in his hands and thrust his tongue between her lips. If he was trying to startle her, even to shock her into backing away, he did not succeed. She simply closed her eyes and opened to him, inviting him to take as many liberties as he liked.
Time became meaningless as they delved more deeply into the kiss. She couldn’t have said how long they stood there, tasting, touching, exploring. They drew an occasional ragged breath, but her head still swam. She wasn’t sure if it was caused by too little oxygen or too much sensation, but she was one kiss away from a complete meltdown. Judging from the way Kyle’s hands trembled as they swept over her, he was on the verge, himself.
She wasn’t sure what brought him to his senses. Maybe it was the way she moved against him when she shifted to take some of the weight off her injured leg. Whatever the reason, he tore his mouth from hers with a gasp and set her forcefully aside, leaving his hands on her shoulders only long enough to make sure she was steady on her feet.
“Enough,” he said.
“Not nearly,” she murmured, reaching for him again.