She probably shouldn’t have been so pleased by the admission. Rather than commenting, she lifted her face to his.
They sank to the bed together. Molly had her hands beneath Kyle’s shirt again, stroking his warm back. Her fingertips lingered on the ridges of scars along his left side. They broke her heart, but they didn’t make her want him any less.
His hands slid beneath the hem of her pullover, tracing her rib cage, resting his palm against her stomach. Moving slowly higher. Looming over her, he hesitated with his lips only a breath away from hers, his hand hovering just below her aching right breast. “Be sure, Molly.”
She nestled closer. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
He bit off a groan and crushed her mouth beneath his again, his hand closing over her.
She needed this, she thought with a last moment
of coherence. And even more importantly, she believed with all her heart that Kyle needed her—at least for now.
There seemed to be no anger left in him now. No resistance. Only a tenderness she hadn’t seen from him before. A hunger he had been trying to hide from her.
With a patience she wouldn’t have expected, he removed her clothing and his own. He wouldn’t let her take off the brace, which made her feel uncomfortable and clumsy at first, but it wasn’t long before she forgot she was even wearing it. Any soreness she might have felt before swiftly evaporated in the heat of his caresses.
Amazingly enough, considering her lack of experience at this sort of thing, there was no awkwardness, no embarrassment. Nothing had ever felt more natural to her, no one more right for her than Kyle.
Somehow, at some time during the past few days, she had fallen in love with him, as surely as she had fallen through his porch. It had nothing to do with their shared past, which had been such a long time ago and at such different stages of their lives. She had fallen for the man she’d found brooding in a mountain cabin.
Whether it had been fate or coincidence or just a series of circumstances that had kept them together for several days after she’d tried to leave him, the result had been that she’d had enough time to get to know him. To tumble head over heels for him.
Yes, it had happened quickly, but she had always known it would be that way for her. Judging by family history, it was in her genetic makeup to fall hard and fast. It had been that way for her parents, who’d been happily married for twenty-five years.
Molly wasn’t expecting a happy ending for her and Kyle. Not really. But if pain was inevitable, then pleasure should be savored while it lasted, she decided, arching into his searching hands.
Kyle lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, but he wasn’t seeing the white acoustic tiles. Molly snuggled into his shoulder, soft and warm and nude against him, her long, thick hair tumbled around them. Her breathing was still a bit ragged, as was his own, but her heart was slowing to a steady thumping against his, rather than the frantic hammering of only a few minutes earlier.
That, he thought dazedly, had been an amazing experience. And it wasn’t because it was the first time he’d been with any woman in more than a year. It was entirely because of Molly.
It should have come as no surprise that she made love with the same spirit and enthusiasm with which she did everything else. She was obviously inexperienced in many ways, but touchingly eager to learn. No games, no artifice—just honest, undisguised desire and appreciation.
That sort of thing could all too easily become addictive.
“Kyle?”
He hoped she wasn’t going to get all introspective now, wanting to talk about their feelings and the ramifications of what they had done—or expressing doubts and regrets now that it was too late to do anything about them. “Yeah?”
“Did you get anything for dessert?”
It took him a couple of beats to change mental gears.
Glancing at the remains of their chicken lunch, he shook his head against the pillow. “I didn’t think of it. Are you still hungry?”
“I could go for something sweet.”
Okay, he was lying there reflecting about how his whole life had been turned upside down, and she was thinking about food? Maybe the experience hadn’t been as spectacular for her as it had been for him.
Because he refused to get into one of those painful, was-it-good-for-you conversations, he reached for his pants. “I’ll see what I can find in the vending machine.”
“Anything chocolate would be good.”
“Chocolate. Right.” Grabbing the rest of his clothes, he limped self-consciously into the bathroom and closed the door.
He felt like a fool now for worrying about Molly’s tender sensibilities. Obviously, she wasn’t nearly as enamored with him as he had feared.
He had apparently fallen victim to an uncharacteristic attack of swollen male ego.