She started to pant, wanted to beg him for his lips, his mouth, his tongue, but stil his mouth didn’t descend. With a low growl she flicked her tongue across his thumb. He stiffened as if electrified. She drew his thumb into her mouth, circled it with her tongue, suckled it until his eyes darkened to obsidian.
And then final y, slowly, inexorably, his head lowered and her blood started to sing. His body blocked out the sun and, as he moved closer and closer, al she could see was the light reflected in his eyes. His lips touched hers, moved over hers—
surely, reverently, thoroughly—her eyes fluttered closed and, as the kiss deepened, light burst behind her eyelids. Every wonderful Christmas, every sun-drenched summer and visiting dolphin, every bright and beautiful thing that had ever existed in her life gained a new vitality in that kiss.
The need and the energy, it took her and Alex and merged them into a sparkling, flaming oneness until, body and soul, she didn’t know where she ended and Alex began. It was the kind of kiss to shape and Alex began. It was the kind of kiss to shape worlds and change lives. It shifted the foundations of her world and al she believed about herself.
For the first time where Alex was concerned, her hope was greater than her fear.
Alex eased away from Kit. He didn’t know for how long they’d kissed. He barely knew which way was up. Very slowly he drew his hands away—one from her face, one from her stomach. He tried to stop his legs from jerking in reaction.
‘Are you okay?’
Her voice came out soft and husky, as if he’d kissed al her breath away. Served her right for kissing his breath clean away too.
He nodded and cleared his throat. ‘And you?’
‘Oh, yes.’
She had stars in her eyes! No woman should look at him like that.
An imaginary noose pul ed tight around his neck, and yet for a moment al he could see was the shine on her lips and he ached to sample them again.
‘I’m…’ He cleared his throat again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m not.’
‘It can’t happen again.’
‘I’l be holding my breath til it does.’
He closed his eyes. He was in way over his head.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE phone rang. Alex stared at it and then down the hal way towards the bathroom, where he doubted anything could be heard over the blast of Kit’s hairdryer.
The phone rang again.
He opened his mouth to hol er for Kit. He snapped it closed again. She wouldn’t hear him. Or if she did she’d ask him to answer it for her.
He snatched it up, barked, ‘Hel o?’ into the receiver.
He hated answering her phone. There would always be a strategic pause, like now, as the person on the other end of the line—one of the very many of Kit’s community of friends—tried to weigh him up by the sound of his voice.
‘Hel o, I’m hoping to speak with Kit Mercer.’
Female. It wasn’t a voice he recognized, but something about it made his shoulders loosen a fraction. ‘I’l just get her for you. May I ask who’s cal ing?’
‘Candace Woodbury. I’m her mother.’
Kit’s mother! His shoulders immediately clenched up twice as tight. ‘Uh…right.’ He headed down the hal way and knocked on the bathroom door. And then he gulped. He hoped Kit was decent.
‘I’m sorry—’ that pleasant voice purred down the line ‘—but I didn’t catch your name.’
His teeth ground together for a moment. He unclenched them to mutter, ‘Alex Hal am.’
‘Ah…you’re Alex.’
He grimaced and rol ed his shoulders, knocked on the bathroom door again. Louder.
Muffled muttering came from behind it, then it was flung open and Kit stood there in a white terry-towel ing robe that stopped short of her knees, her hair fluffed around her face. She literal y glowed with that golden light he found almost irresistible. He wanted to reach out and cup her cheek, slip the robe from her shoulders and explore her new lush curves.
He wanted to kiss her like he had on the breakwater the other day.
He wanted to please her. Pleasure her.
His jaw clenched. He had to remember al the reasons why that was such a bad idea.
‘Is that for me?’ she said, al sass and fire as if she was aware of the effect she had on him.
She raised an eyebrow and pointed downwards.
Did he have an erection? He’d done his best to quash—
The air left his lungs in a rush. She was pointing at the phone. He shoved it into her hands. ‘It’s your mother.’ And then he fled.
It didn’t prevent him from hearing the start of her conversation. ‘Mum, I see you’ve met Alex. I think you
