“Pleasure to help?”
Delight lit her eyes. “Honestly, it was. This was perfect in every way.” She rested her chin on her stacked hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“Explains some of today.” I traced the line of one of her wavy locks of hair. “I don’t know how you could be. Besides the fact that you’re drop dead gorgeous, you’re confident and smart. There’s no way you’ve been single all this time.”
She shrugged. “No. I’ve dated, even had a few boyfriends.” She glanced down at my chin before reaching out to brush the pad of her finger along my beard. “You saw how I tensed up. Who wants to deal with that?”
“Someone had to start that. Even fumbling in the dark as a teenager, you can get a girl off—even if it’s by accident.”
She still wouldn’t look at me. She ran her nail along my lower lip. I bit it to get her attention. She finally looked up at me. “Yeah, well, they didn’t and then I thought something had to be wrong with me. Add in a few names like frigid and prude and why even bother, right?”
I hooked my hands under her arms and hauled her up to my mouth. I kissed her hard and deep. There was nothing frigid about this woman. Nothing that could even be mildly chilly.
From her personality, to the way she took care of her people, there was nothing but a giving nature to be had. The fact that I’d wanted to obliterate that for even a second was ridiculous.
She wasn’t Sheridan. Not even close.
She cupped my face and the kiss slowed.
“You couldn’t be frigid if you tried, Miss Kane.”
Her eyes heated. “You say Miss Kane and I just…”
I nipped at her lower lip. “You get wet?”
“You know I do.”
“Why do you think I keep saying it?” I asked and rolled her over onto her back again and stroked my hand down her body. “Let me see just how wet.”
13
Kay
I reached up onto my toes, stretching out every muscle I could while I was in the shower. Everything was sore in the best way. I didn’t know there were muscles in the places that hurt on me right now.
Thank God Linc bought his condoms in the super-sized pack with the way we were going through them. I tipped my head under the spray to rinse out the shampoo I’d found in the shower. Definitely not my brand, but it would do the job.
I don’t think I’d sweat as much running for the Breast Cancer run in October. I wasn’t exactly a workout freak, but I could do the bare minimum for a few charity runs through the year. Mostly to make myself feel less like a slug. Even if I complained about it for a week after because I really wasn’t in good enough shape to do them no matter how much I lied to myself.
But a walk-slash-run for charity had nothing on the insatiable Lincoln Murdock.
He’d remembered to feed me sometime in the middle of the night. Meatball sandwiches on crusty rolls and a potent bottle of red wine had been the cure. He had a very nice rug in front of the fireplace, and a huge u-shaped couch which we’d taken full advantage of.
I’d stolen one of his shirts while we played a very unfair game of strip checkers. What guy didn’t have a deck of cards in his cabin in the middle of nowhere?
I’d lost my shirt three times and he finally dragged me upstairs to warm me up in his amazing bed. Sometime near dawn he’d gone outside to shovel us out and I’d taken advantage of a bit more sleep and a shower. I turned off the taps and reached out for the towel on the warmer and found a hand instead.
I squeaked, but knew those hands by heart. I peeked around the frosted door. “Hi.”
“I came back in earlier and you were sleeping.” He glanced down at my chest, his center of a flame-colored eyes lighting with interest.
I looked down. My nipples were already hardening, for God’s sake, the damn traitors. “You have to be kidding me.” How could he still find my breasts interesting? He had to have memorized every inch of them at this point.
He hauled me out of the shower.
“Linc! I’m wet and you’re—” I shrieked. “Cold.”
“Well, then warm me up.” His mouth found mine.