She began to shiver as he dragged his mouth up her throat, and goose bumps cascaded down her body, all the way to her toes.
She had wondered whether, in the end, she would change her mind and back away, as she had done so often, but his sudden human warmth was blissful. Easy and, at the same time, thrilling. She groaned in hungry relief, and pressed her body closer, as close as she could get.
Take that, Jim Oliphant. She wasn’t ruined. She was still a woman, and she could still catch fire from a man’s touch. It just had to be the right man. The right touch.
David seemed to understand that she didn’t want him to waste time with a gentle seduction. She didn’t want to change her mind. He lowered his mouth over hers and took her parted lips. His kiss was fierce, and the inside of his mouth was hot and sweet.
She heard herself moan, and for just a flash she wondered…what was he going to think of her? They’d just met, and—
But she didn’t care. Tomorrow he’d disappear back into his real life, and she’d never see him again. He wasn’t David Gerard, and she wasn’t Kitty Hemmings. They were simply bodies, doing what healthy, hungry men and women did.
His hands slid across her back, down to her hips and up again, into her hair, and everything he touched tingled—her scalp, her ears, her spine, her arms.
She felt a sudden wetness under her eyes, but it wasn’t tears this time. She’d been frozen, and now she was melting. The ice water was seeping out, overflowing. She felt it around her heart, too, and between her legs.
She reached between their bodies and touched him, hoping she could urge him to hurry. She was ready. She’d been ready for years.
He was ready, too—she could feel how ready. But though she stroked that exciting, swollen warmth and traced the strong contours with her fingertips until she could hardly breathe, he never lost his focus.
His lips were still doing fiery things to her collarbone, even while his fingers found the metal pull to the zipper that ran down the front of her dress. Her stupid, too-tight, too-short bartender’s costume.
As the fabric peeled open, David bent his head further, kissing each new inch of exposed skin. The moonlight glistened on his dark blond hair, as if he’d been dusted with glitter.
She threaded her fingers through his hair and arched toward him. Oh, she wanted this so much. It might be midnight outside, but as he slipped the dress from her shoulders she felt suddenly full of sunshine. Her nerve endings sizzled, just like the ocean on a bright summer afternoon.
She reached out, tugging at his button, and he smiled. He shed his clothes quickly, without a trace of self-consciousness.
And why should he be self-conscious? He was amazing. She shut her eyes against the overwhelming beauty of him, and the power. He made every other man on the island look like a child.
Gently, he eased her back against the cool leather. They both knew that his bed was too far away, but it didn’t matter. Only the moon watched through the picture window, and the palms shifted in the breeze, throwing shadows across their bodies.
He got up long enough to find a condom, and soon, so soon, the moment had arrived. She tried not to think about it. She tried just to feel, and to let it flow through her.
His body was hard, intimidating in its primitive strength, but he was sensitive and gentle, and besides, in spite of the fear, her body ached for him. Those silver flashes exploded everywhere now, and her core was tugging toward him.
She felt him, so wondrously rigid and velvety at the same time, pressing against that tingling spot between her legs. Her lungs tightened. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. She tried to find enough air to breathe.
He kissed her again, his tongue driving that spiced sweetness into her mouth, and she inhaled sharply. And then she let her knees fall apart to welcome him.
After that, for a very long time, nothing seemed quite linear or logical. She was all body, all sensation, with no brain to interfere. She was all aching and pushing, panting and exploring.
Finally, even the body was unnecessary. He had, with his amazing hands and his clever lips, unwound the spiraled fortress of that outer shell and found the vulnerable truth inside. She was sunshine and starlight and invisible currents that were ready to carry her to places she’d never been.
But at the very end, in that point-of-no-return moment before the currents took her away, like a fool she opened her eyes.
And David Gerard’s strong face was above her, gleaming with the sweat of their lovemaking. And so, as she twisted away into the most shattering climax she’d ever experienced, she was looking into his eyes. And God help her, he wasn’t just a man. He was this man. Âme perdue.
She wasn’t going to be able to forget him now.
DAVID WOKE in the purple hour before dawn, and he sensed immediately that he was alone.
He lifted up just enough to squint toward where her clothes had fallen. Nothing. The carpet was bare. His sweet, mysterious lover—he knew only that the name on her badge had been Kitty—was gone.
He fell back onto the couch, irrationally disappointed. Had he really expected her to stay all night? What, in fact, had he expected from any of this?
He sleepily relived the strange events that had led to…
To this.
If anyone had told him that he’d mark Belle Carson’s wedding day by picking up a tough-talking, green-haired bartender whose badass attitude barely covered up the fact that she was really a little girl lost, he’d have laughed in their faces.
If anyone had told him that the bartender would make crazy love with him until he collapsed and passed out stark naked on his own couch, he would have said they were crazy.
And if anyone had dared to suggest that, when he woke up, he’d still be hard as a rock and hungry for more, he’d…
But he was. He was exhausted, and yet he was fully aroused, still on fire, as if she’d cast a spell on him. Why the hell had she left? He wondered if the hotel would give him her room number. If he could stand the pain of putting on pants, maybe he could go and…
He laughed at himself. He couldn’t even walk right now, much less go out in public.
Could he find her before he’d have to leave for the airport? His plane was at two, which gave him…
Not long enough.
Not nearly long enough.
How much would it cost him to change his flight? He rolled on to his side and groaned as the cool leather pressed against the sensitive places.
He didn’t care if it was a thousand dollars. There was something about his little green-haired Kitty with no last name. Something clever and sexy…and something else, too. A haunting quality he couldn’t put a name to.
He remembered the look in her eyes as she made love to him. She’d been frightened, and at the same time so alive, so in love with the feeling. He could almost hear her whimper, and feel her pulsing helplessly around him. He groaned again. Oh, yeah. Once with that woman was definitely not enough.
