Authors: Marilyn
Her only response was to turn her head and looked away.
Shit! He admitted she’s gotten under his skin and she looked away in silence? His ass was in trouble. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
She sighed. “Like what?”
“Hell, I don’t know…You could say something like… The feeling is mutual.”
She shook her head. “Oh no. No. I have no desire to go there again.”
What the hell was she talking about? “You have no desire to go where again?”
She slowly turned back to face him. “I finally got over a relationship that battered the hell out of me and really shook my confidence. I have no desire to end up hurt like that again anytime soon.”
So he was supposed to pay for something some other man had done to her? He compressed his lips before he spoke. “I don’t understand you. “
She frowned. “What do you mean you don’t understand me?”
“I don’t understand what you want from me, Kira.”
“Excuse me?”
The response annoyed him.” Do you want a promise that I’ll always feel as I do now? Is that what you expect? Because if you do that’s something I can’t give you.”
She stared at him as if she thought he’d lost his mind. “I think you’re confused, Carter.”
Annoyed? Hell yes. Confused? Hell no. “Come again?”
“You’re telling me that you can’t promise me anything in a tone and a manner that suggests that I’ve made unreasonable demands on you when in fact I haven’t made any demands on you – unreasonable or otherwise. You brought up the subject of how you felt. Not me. You’re also the one who asked if I expected you to promise me anything. Not me.
“The only thing I’ve suggested to you is that I don’t want to be treated like an easy lay. Everything else you introduced. So, yes. I think you’re a little confused, Carter.”
He stared at her in silence for several moments before he shook his head. Then he laughed. “You’re absolutely right. I admit meeting you has thrown me off balance. I stand corrected. My apologies.”
She smiled. “What a sweet thing to say.”
He grinned at her. “What can I tell you? I’m a sweet guy.”
She nodded. “Yes, Carter, I think you are very sweet.”
He arched a brow. “It’s one thing for me to say I’m sweet but coming from you that’s not much of a compliment. No man wants to be told he’s sweet by the woman who’s turned his world upside down as thoroughly as you’ve done with mine.”
She caught her breath, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. “But you are sweet… and sexy as hell.”
He smiled. “Sexy as hell is better than sweet any day of the week.”
“And I feel privileged to have captured your interest for however long I manage to hold it.”
The way he felt, he didn’t foresee her losing his attention or interest in the near future. “The feeling is mutual, Kira.” He caressed her cheek. “And just so you know, I have no intentions of treating you like an easy lay.”
Smiling, she moved his hand away from her cheek and kissed his fingers.
Hot damn! He found the gesture sweet but also arousing. It was going to be a long day and an even longer night as he struggled to be a gentleman.
“Considering where we met, that promise means a lot to me, Carter. I know it can’t be easy to think well of me when I allowed you to fuck me within an hour of our meeting.”
Her use of the term fucking pissed him off. Since it shouldn’t have, he knew he was in trouble. He was clearly far more emotionally invested in getting to know her than she was in getting to know him. Perhaps it had only been fucking for her. “You should know that I was raised by a single, progressive mom who taught me that women have as much right to enjoy sex as a man without being called names. As my mom would say, you weren’t fucking alone that night. I was there too and since I don’t want you to think badly of me I can hardly think badly of you.”
“I hope you mean that, Carter.”
Maybe he didn’t mean it 100%, but he really didn’t think badly of her. “Just so you know, my ex-wife and I slept together the same night we met
.” What the hell is wrong with you, Dean? You’ll have no one but yourself to blame if she starts to think you want to marry her.
Tilting her head, she gave him a long look. “I appreciate the sentiment, Carter, but you’re going to want to choose your words more carefully or you’re going to find yourself involved in an involuntary but exclusive relationship.”
He laughed. However, he sobered quickly. “I’m going to need you to make some allowances for me, Kira.”
“And why would I do that instead of taking you at your word?”
“I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t take me at my word. I’m only saying that I seem prone to say things I probably shouldn’t around you. So I’m going to need you to take that into consideration.”
“I’ll think about it.” She laughed, filling the immediate area with the sounds of her warm rich amusement.
Enchanted, he stared at her.
After her laughter subsided, she stared back.
He transferred his gaze to her mouth. Recalling the taste and feel of her lips aroused him. Unable to resist the temptation, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth against hers. Damn her lips were everything they should be: soft, warm, and enticingly sweet.
She sighed as she parted her lips.
Slipping his arms around her, he drew her tongue into his mouth. He kissed her slowly, savoring the taste, feel and texture of her tongue. When she leaned closer, he felt her large breasts pressing against his chest. Oh damn. He wanted her as he’d rarely wanted any other woman.
You are not going to touch her tonight.
With a last greedy suck at her tongue, he lifted his mouth from hers.
After a moment her lids lifted and she looked at him.
He could see confusion in her gaze. Clearly she wasn’t sure why he’d stopped. Hell. Neither was he since she’d given no indication she’d wanted him to stop. He inhaled slowly, raking his hand through his hair before he stretched out on his back staring up at the sky. “What happened between you and your husband?”
She sighed and slowly lay on her back beside him. “He fell in love with someone else.”
“That must’ve hurt.”
“It did but it wasn’t a complete surprise. By the time he told me he was in love with someone else, our marriage was pretty much over. We hadn’t been sleeping together for several months and I was fairly certain he had a lover on the side. While part of me was sad for the end of our marriage, another part knew that I deserved better than to be with a man who didn’t want me anymore. So after a few months I dusted myself off and moved on with my life.
“Your turn. What happened with your marriage, Carter?”
“We married very young; right after college graduation. I don’t think we were ready for marriage but she was an old-fashioned girl. Like you, she didn’t believe in living together and I couldn’t see living without her at that point. We had planned to wait until we were in our late twenties or early thirties before we had kids but despite our precautions, our oldest son was born much sooner than we planned.”
“Did that create problems between you?”
He shook his head. “While we still had college kids’ mentality, we were in love and ready to take on the world together. We were young and very horny so our second son was also born sooner than we’d planned. Once we grew up a little, we started to drift apart and see life differently.
“Even then we were still friends and still sexually attracted to each other. However, we continued to drift apart until we realized we had very little remaining in common and we both wanted the freedom to see other people. Still, we stayed together a little longer for the sake of our sons. But finally, we’d had it and we divorced about five years ago. We both love our sons. Since neither of us strayed while we were married, we remained friends and raised our sons together in an atmosphere that insured they knew we both still loved them.”
He turned his head to look at her. “I think we did a good job because we have great sons.”
She smiled. “Sounds like your divorce was much more civilized than mine. My ex and I can’t stand each other.”
“Well, Callie and I both love our sons dearly and we’re actually still fond of each other, so being civil isn’t hard. What about the boyfriend?”
“We can’t stand each other either.” She grimaced. “Hmm. I think I’m starting to detect a not so nice pattern.” She bit her lip and then laughed. “Maybe it’s me.”
“Or maybe they were both just too idiotic to realize what they were throwing away,” he suggested and immediately regretted his words. At this rate by the time the night ended she would be forgiven for thinking he was in love with her.
She reached out to touch his hand. “That’s probably not true but I love that you said it, Carter.” She took his hand in hers and kissed it before leaning forward to press a long sweet kiss against his lips. “Thank you.”
Irritated by the effect her kissing his hand had on him he spoke in the terse voice. “Don’t start any shit you’re not prepared to finish,” he warned.
“Sorry,” she said, rolling away from him.
Fuck! He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The sooner he got over her the better for them both.
“Carter?”
He kept his eyes closed. “Yes?”
“I hope you’re not angry with me. I didn’t mean to…”
The hell she hadn’t meant to arouse him. But he was not a damn teenager. His lack of control with her was purely his own fault.
“Carter?” She touched his arm. “Please don’t be angry.”
“I’m not,” he said and lifted his lids to find her staring down at him with an unhappy look in her dark eyes. His annoyance evaporated. “It’s all right. I’m not angry.” And that time he meant it.
She stretched out on her side, facing him. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For asking me out and for… everything.”
“You’re welcome.” He closed his eyes again. Within minutes he felt drowsy and opened his eyes. The ex-cop in him would not allow him to relax enough to fall asleep outside unless he was camping.
Kira slept beside him. He sat up, placed the pillow against his back, and watched her as she slept. It would be …nice to wake up in the middle of the night and roll over to find her lying next to him or to wake up each morning with his arm around her waist.
A little over two hours later, she opened her eyes, blinked, and then bolted into a sitting position. “Please tell me you fell asleep too.”
He shook his head. “I could tell you I did but I didn’t. Let’s face it, you fell asleep on me again. I’m beginning to see a pattern which is giving me a complex.”
She bit her lip.
He held up his right hand, palm out. “Let me guess. You didn’t sleep well last night and you planned an early night tonight.”
Her lips quivered in what he suspected was an attempt not to laugh. “Oh come on, Carter. You’re making it sound as if I don’t want to be here with you.”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why do you keep falling asleep on me? Damn, woman, I had no idea I was so boring.”
“If you must know, I find you incredibly exciting.”
“Oh yes? You have a damn funny way of showing it.”
“Looks can be deceiving. Let me show you what I mean.” She took his hand and placed it against her breasts while gazing into his eyes. “Do you see what I mean?”
He could feel the steady pounding of her heart against his palm. His own heartbeat mirrored hers. Linking his fingers through hers he brought her hand to his lips. “I think we should get the hell out of here.”
“Do you? Why?”
“I have to take you home so you can dress for dinner. We have reservations for seven o’clock tonight. If we stay here much longer I’m going to end up fucking you.”
“And that would be a bad thing?”
He inhaled slowly. “I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
She sighed. “You sound like a man with the plan. I guess we’d better go.”
He helped her sit up. “Yes we’d better – unless you can think of something else you’d rather do.”
She met his gaze. “I can think of at least one other thing I’d rather do, but we’d better err on the side of caution and leave.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why worry about caution now? If either of us were cautious, we probably would never have met because we wouldn’t have been at Eve’s Garden.”
“Do you regret being there, Carter?”
“How can I when I met you there? Not having met you would’ve been a damn shame. So, we could once again toss caution to the winds and stay right here and fuck until we drop.”