exquisitely shaped.
“Anyway,” she said lightly, “in spite of my dubious character, I just wanted to make one thing clear. Maybe my questions offended you, I don’t know, but I was just making conversation, not-”
“I’m going to kiss you, Kay.” She looked as alarmed as if he’d suggested robbing Fort Knox. He took advantage of her parted lips. It was her fault, he told himself. He certainly wasn’t to blame for the fact that she’d been born with an alluring mouth and an irresistible scent. And he wasn’t responsible for all those years of frustration that just then clamored for release.
He bent down, adjusting the umbrella, using his other hand to tilt up her chin. The mechanics of a kiss were always so annoying to maneuver. He’d learned that at thirteen. For an instant, he was afraid he’d forgotten how, that he’d be as awkward as a kid.
Some things, he reminded himself, a man never forgot. Relearning to ride a bike should be so easy.
Her lips were cool and still. At first. She didn’t fight the gentle pressure, but then she was obviously still suffering from shock. He almost smiled, but didn’t. He had forgotten some details. A woman’s lips had a certain crushable, sensitive texture; there was nothing as soft, nothing as pliant, nothing quite as delicious.
He savored the taste of her, his tongue teasing the corner of her mouth. A tiny sound escaped her lips, like the purr of a kitten. She really shouldn’t have done that, he thought fleetingly, because that faint murmur of pleasure was all it took to set off a trip-hammer in his blood. His lips homed in, with a rough pressure he couldn’t seem to help, not a bruising pressure but the soft crush of possession.
Her head tilted back responsively, offering another dangerous threat to the self-control he’d always taken for granted. Her hand reached tentatively for his shoulder. He felt the softness of her breasts beneath her jacket, the lift of her as she rose up on her toes to meet him…
He doubted that she knew she was setting off dynamite inside him. All he knew was that his whole body suddenly ached. His tongue slipped between her teeth; she suddenly stiffened a little, her fingers tightening on his shoulder. She murmured a protest, but her body language gave it the lie. She wasn’t moving away. She was so very
And he felt so damned
His palm gently traced the line of her back, ending up in the curtain of her hair, captured there. The damp silk curled around his fingers, scented with the softness of rain, more sensuous than a thousand fantasies of women he’d conjured up over the years. This wasn’t a schoolboy’s libido talking, but a man’s. Her lips were infinitely responsive, returning his pressure,
Kay broke off, staring up at him. Her eyes weren’t sherry-brown at all, but suddenly very dark. And her lips were red and trembling.
He still held the umbrella in one hand, but it had tilted. Rain was pelting down on both of them; neither seemed to have noticed.
“Now, you listen here…” Her voice was shaky. Her lashes lowered; she ran her hand through her hair. “Is this your car?”
“Yes. Kay…”
No one had ever kissed her like that. As if she were the first Christmas present opened, during one of those too-few years when one honestly believed in Santa Claus. As if she were brand-new and ever so special, and so desperately
The skies suddenly exploded, the rain hurtling down in a torrent. Kay glanced up, then took a step backward. Enough of that.
“Kay-”
She backed off another pace, refusing to meet his eyes. She’d never given herself to a man like that in her life. What on earth was there to say?
Nothing.
She turned and darted through the rain toward her own car.
Ten minutes later, Kay reached the outskirts of Moscow. Welcome, said the sign on Main Street, a soothing reminder that she was within minutes of home.
No one seemed to know why the town had been named Moscow; its residents certainly had no affinity for Russian politics. Paradise Valley had been its original name, and that, to Kay, captured the flavor of the place. Steep hills, ancient maples and oaks and ash, a delightful blend of rustic and cosmopolitan. Wheat farmers had been buying supplies at Ward’s for generations, and homemade ice cream was still sold on Main Street, yet the University of Idaho sponsored a wide range of cultural events. Muscovites enjoyed the symphony and ballet and even the Moscow sci-fi convention.
As Kay shoved her car into first gear for the steep climb to her home, she passed regal old houses half hidden in bushes and trees. All of the houses were familiar, and so were their inhabitants. The world had not abruptly changed, contrary to what the beat of her heart was telling her.
As she parked and stepped out of her car, the lingering smells of late fall wafted toward her like a soothing balm. The rain had stopped, but the wind had brought down the last of the leaves, and walking along the sidewalk was like wading through oceans of crimson and gold.
Pushing open her front door, Kay tossed her purse on the white couch. An indefinably enticing aroma was drifting out of the kitchen; her eyebrows cocked curiously. As she slipped off her damp shoes, her stocking feet immediately curled into the fluff of cherry-red carpet.
Kay’s best friend was into interior decorating. Susan had definite ideas about color schemes and furnishings for an old Spanish-style house with stucco walls and arched doorways. Susan had suggested heavy scrolled furniture and rich, dark colors.
Unfortunately, Kay was a big fan of red and white and wanted a hodgepodge of things she loved around her. A restored trunk was her coffee table; a collection of alabaster elephants stood on top of it. More collectibles cluttered the bookshelves; music boxes and porcelain owls jostled for space with dozens of books, most of them with dog-eared pages. The old Morris chair had been her father’s; it didn’t go with anything else, but it was familiar and comfortable. And besides, the antique love seat with its white velvet cushion didn’t go with anything else either.
Susan regularly despaired of her taste, but Kay felt delightfully relaxed whenever she came home. At least most days. But then, most days she didn’t go around kissing strangers in the pouring rain.
For the fourth time in ten minutes, she shoved the incident determinedly from her mind. Following her nose, she wandered toward the kitchen and paused in the doorway with a grin.
Two dozen fresh doughnuts lay in an open box on the kitchen table. Next to them was an astonishingly large pair of cowboy boots; above that was a pair of long, jeaned legs. The rest of the body was hidden behind an open newspaper, except for one long arm that extended around, groped for a doughnut and disappeared behind the newspaper again.
Five doughnuts had already disappeared from the two dozen.
“Good morning,” she said severely.
The paper folded down. “I was going to leave them on the kitchen table, but then-”
“You got greedy.”
“I didn’t eat breakfast.” Stix grinned at her beguilingly.
Stix had grinned at her just that beguilingly when she was sixteen. He’d been her first date. The traditional boy next door-give or take a few houses. He’d taught her a lot about kisses, most of which was hard earned. Since he was six foot six and she was five foot four,
Lots of people did that to her, actually. She’d never figured out if it was just that kind of neighborhood or if there was an invisible sign on her door that said Endless Open House. She would have missed her family a great deal more if it hadn’t been for her friends, and Stix, unquestionably, was a special friend.
