“Not this again,” I mutter. “You talk like there is something wrong with you. I know we have not known each other very long, but so far, nothing I have come to know about you is at all bad. The opposite, if anything.”
His eyes darken—not literally, not in color, but in expression, somehow. “Anjalee—”
“If I have a gift,” I say, speaking over him. “Then it is mine to give, is it not? Mine to decide to whom I should like to give it?”
“Yeah, I guess, but—”
“No, no butting from you.” I touch his lips. “No. It ismineto give. I will give it to whom I choose. And I choose you.”
“Anjalee, god…dammit.Dammit, woman.” He palms his face with a gruff sigh. “I can’t take something from you like that. Not when you don’t even know what you’re giving away. You can only give that once. Maybe you haven’t chosen to save it, like for a spiritual or religious reason, but—”
“No. It was chosen for me, likeeverything else.” I lean against him, reaching up to put my hands in his hair—for some reason, this makes him growl again, deep in his chest. I think it means he likes it. Goodness knowsIlike it, the feel of his hair and the way he responds. “One step at a time, Kane. I like kissing you. I want to kiss you more. I like it when you touch me. I enjoy your hands on my skin.” I swallow hard, and my voice will not rise above a whisper. “You touched my breast, Kane. I enjoyed this as well, very much.”
“One step at a time, huh?” He sounds amused at this notion.
“Yes. Perhaps I am foolish for this, but I trust you. You will not hurt me. You will not lose so much control that anything will happen which I do not want to happen. So…I trust you. Help me learn these things, one step at a time.”
“I can do that. Long as it’s what you want, and you’re honest about it.”
“It is, and I will be.” I lick my lips, wanting more kissing. “So, we will ride to your Rocky Mountains, and on the way, you will teach me and show me…” I brush my mouth on his, hoping he will take the hint and kiss me; he does not, “what is beyond kissing…and all the things I do not know, which I believe I will very much enjoy learning about.”
“Killin’ me, babe. You’re fuckin’ killin’ me.” His words are another groan.
“You are a big, strong, tough man. I think you will survive.”
“Now she’s teasin’ me,” he grumbles. “Shouldn’t have taught you that.”
I huff. “I want you to kiss me some more, Kane.”
His mouth slants across mine, somewhat roughly, and his tongue dances across my lips. I open for him, and he groans into my mouth as the kiss deepens. He leans into me, and I’m forced backward to the bed. My knees hit, and I sit. Then I am lying, and he is over me, his huge body sheltering me, so there is nothing at all but him. His mouth is warm, and his body firm. I touch his shoulders, and then his back—he opens his mouth more, and somehow there is a way for the kiss to go deeper yet, hotter, wetter,more.
How long, then? Seconds? A minute? An hour? We kiss until my lips are swollen, and there has never been anything but kissing Kane.
He pulls back, pressing up and away from me, but does not move off of me. His eyes are quicksilver, searching me. “Stop? Or more?”
I touch my lips, and then his. In response, I lift up and I kiss him. He groans again, lowering onto me—not all the way, though. He rolls to one hip, angled over me, leaning on an elbow. His hand roams my thigh, my hip, the one farther from him. Up over the waist of the denim and under my shirt, touching skin. I gasp again, and in order to make sure he does not stop this time, I knot my fingers into his shirt between his shoulder blades.
Goodness, he is so large. There is just so much of him, so broad of shoulder, so wide of back. Fist knotted into his shirt, his palm on my belly, kissing. Then, his palm moves up, and I stop breathing, willing him to not stop.
He does not.
His palm covers my breast, over the thin fabric of the bikini top. I gasp again, arch my back, and my other hand slides along back, under his shirt. His skin is hot to the touch, soft. I need more. Palm to his spine, I explore up his back. He merely holds my breast, at first, and then, when I touch his back, he squeezes. I gasp at this, too. My gasps now seem to embolden him, because when I gasp at the squeeze, his thumb moves. Brushes over my nipple—the reaction in my body is not merely lightning, but an explosion. My whole body jerks, flinching, heat smashing through me, pushing down between my thighs.
He breaks the kiss, lips whispering on mine. “Shit, Anjalee. Barely touchin’ you, and you’re about to come apart for me.”
I can barely form words, much less filter them for appropriateness—and I am finding I do not want to beproperwith him, or appropriate, or good. I want to simply be me and to enjoy this with him. “I feel as if Iamgoing to come apart.”
“Afraid?” he asks.
I nod. “A little. Not enough to stop.”
“Eager little minx, ain’tcha?” he murmurs, laughing.
“What does that mean?”
“Means you like it and you want more.”
“Then yes, I am an eager little minx.” I lick my lips, and he seems to watch my tongue very closely. “When I say I am afraid—it is fear, but also…excitement. Do you know what I mean? A thrilling, exhilarating kind of fear. You know this?”
