He booted the door closed.
'Will,' she murmured. 'Don't let me go.'
He hadn't forgotten, even for a millisecond, how those sexy orders from her did him in. 'I won't.'
'I mean it. Don't let me go. Even for a second. Or you're in big trouble.'
More orders. Could it get any better than this?
But of course it could. Pulling the sweater over her head. Drawing the bra straps down her arms. Getting to bare skin, soft skin, real skin. Not a lot of swell over the bra cups, but more than enough to incite him to madness. It was his favorite part of her. that soft swell.
Or maybe her throat was his favorite part.
Or her navel. Once he had her pants shucked down-at least as far as her ankles, where she could shake the rest off-he remembered all those other body parts. Upper thighs. The thatch of springy hair-on the red side. redder than her head hair, anyway, which made him remember that that was a favorite part of her, too.
Aw, hell. He was in love with all of it. All of her.
Laughing, she bounced on the bed. encouraging him to dive in after her. Her low, throaty chuckle enticed him to more acrobatic feats. She practically forced him to kiss her deeper, harder, longer. Her long, slim legs scissored around his waist, her thigh muscles stronger than he would have believed, but hey. when she was in the mood, she wanted him inside her now. Now and deep.
The way he was raised, a gentleman took care of a lady. He did his best.
In fact, he did his zealously devoted, conscientious, meticulous. Boy Scout best to give her all the trouble she was asking for and more.
Aeons later, when he finally peeled off of her-dragging her on top of him. because he hadn't forgotten his orders to not allow any separation between them-he seemed to be panting like a worn-out hound…and smiling so hard he couldn't even wipe it off.
She felt…impossibly good.
He never wanted to let her go.
CHAPTER NINE
Will figured this moment had to register as the most perfect of all time. Kel felt like treasure in his arms. His stomach had started rumbling a while back. So had hers. He was hungry and jet-lagged and had a mountain of things he had to do yet today, but he still didn't want to move. Not while he had her right where he wanted her. cheek and arms and boobs and legs sprawled or snugged so she fit just right against him.
Of course, eventually the obvious came out of her mouth. 'Will, this was wrong.'
He didn't open his eyes. 'Talk about deja vu. I could have sworn we had this same conversation in Paris.'
'No, we didn't. Well. I guess we did. but it wasn't exactly the same. In Paris. I already knew I wasn't going to marry Jason, that I couldn't. So it was wrong that I hadn't severed that relationship before sleeping with you. But it wasn't wrong to fall for you.'
Thankfully he'd learned a lot since meeting her. He didn't try suggesting that was convoluted reasoning, for example. He simply said. 'Damn right, it wasn't.' and then peeked under the sheet, because… well, because looking at her naked body was stress reducing.
When it came down to it, he could think of forty reasons why looking at her naked body was a good thing. And that was without even applying his mind to the task.
Kelly seemed on a slightly different mental street. 'Generally, I really believe that a couple can solve problems together. That they should solve problems together.'
'Damn right.' he agreed.
'But right now I have problems you can't possibly solve. And you have problems that I can't solve. They're not
'Hey, that doesn't mean we can't still help each other.'
'And I'm for that,' she agreed. 'But I'm not for adding more complications to the mix.'
'Which means what?' Will already knew this conversation was going in the wrong direction. He just didn't know how bad it was going to be. And she was stroking her fingertips on his chest, making it impossible to concentrate.
'Which means,' she said gently, 'that if my family realizes I'm sleeping with you, they're going to think I broke up with Jason because of you. I don't want them prejudiced against you, especially because you'd be blamed for something that wasn't your fault. I need to face my own music there. I also have to figure out this housing thing, because I'll never survive living like a college kid for long. So I have to get this whole broken-engagement business off my table completely. And as for you…'
'Me? What?'
'You're in a parallel situation. I can listen to you, about your dad and your family. I can be with you, whenever you want me to. But you have to decide what you want to do about the situation. I don't even want to try to influence you. I want you to do whatever your heart tells you is right.'
He heard all that. But he still hadn't heard the bottom line. 'All of which means what? Somehow I sense this has to do with sex.'
She leaned back so she could face him eye to eye. 'That's just because you associate everything with sex. You're male.'
'Yeah, so?'
'So, in this rare, rare case…you're right. About the nature of the problem. I think we should, um, refrain from sleeping together. Until we get our lives a little more under control.'
'I think that's a lousy idea,' he stated firmly.
'You want to get even more involved with me- if you end up deciding not to stay in the U.S.?'
He opened his mouth, closed it.
'See? We're just not in a good place to put hopes or plans on the table. At least not yet. All sex could do is make our situations messier.'
'Sex is good in all circumstances,' he began.
She slugged him. 'Look. I'm not for abstinence-'
'Neither am I. Ever.' He wanted his vote on that to be crystal clear.
'-but I think a little stretch of it is necessary. Look, how long could it take for you to work through the problems with your family? For me to get my family to accept that my engagement to Jason is undeniably over? I mean…one way or another, these things are going to happen. They 're just not problems that are fixable in a blink. But this couldn't take more than a few weeks to get straightened out, right?'
He frowned at her. 'I don't know when you started doing all this thinking, but I want you to quit it, right now.'
'Will, we can do things together. Talk together. Even go to things involving our families together. But I think we should be able to say, to anyone who asks, that the decisions we're making right now are not connected to each other. Otherwise you're going to get blamed for my mess with Jason.'
'You think I'd care if anyone blamed me?'
'I'd care.'
He wanted to offer an argument but couldn't. Because reality was exactly what she'd said. 'I don't want to make anything worse for you,' he said honestly.
'I made it what it is. You didn't. But the fact is, we've only known each other for a very short amount of time.'
'Three weeks.' Even when he said it, he couldn't believe it. How could he only have known her for three weeks?
'Exactly. Three weeks. Hardly a lifetime. Yet we fell right back in bed together as if we were…well, as if we were a couple. When there are still dozens and dozens of unsettled things between us. My life is here. Yours has been in Europe. I'm a practicing Catholic. You've got an allergy to religion. You come from money and you have money. I'm beyond broke. I'm into guilt, and that's not a small thing. I could wear you down over the long run. You
