Safe Harbor (7 page)

“Well...okay,” she mumbled. “I’ve made out a
couple of times.”

“You don’t sound real thrilled about
it.”

“I’m not. It wasn’t much fun.”

“No?” He eyed her curiously, his lips twitching
into a bashful smile. “Jeez. It bothers me that I might kiss some
girl and then she’ll say good night and go inside and say, ‘That
wasn’t much fun.’ I mean, do girls really do that?”

Shelley’s heart swelled in her chest. How rare
it was for a boy to express his self-doubt so openly. The boys she
knew back home all behaved cocky and arrogant and overwhelmingly
sure of themselves. Whenever she wrestled with one at the end of a
date, his attitude was always that there was something wrong with
her, not that he’d been any part of the problem.

This was why she loved Kip—because he hid
nothing from her. Because he didn’t put on an act with her, or
pretend to be some creepy macho dude.

“I suppose it depends on whether the guy is a
good kisser or not,” she said.

“How do you get to be a good
kisser?”

“Practice, I guess.”

As if on cue, both of them rose up and peered
over the window sill. Judging by the evidence, Shelley had to
conclude that Mark was a good kisser. Diana didn’t seem to have any
intention of breaking away from him, let alone going inside and
issuing a negative critique of his performance.

“He’s using his tongue,” Kip noted, observing
Mark’s technique with scholarly intensity.

“That’s gross.”

“It’s supposed to be exciting.”

“It isn’t,” Shelley said.

“You’ve tried it, huh,” Kip easily
deduced.

She felt a faint flush warm her cheeks. It
faded as quickly as it came, though. She had no reason to be
ashamed with Kip. “Yes,” she admitted. “I’ve been kissed that way a
few times. It’s kind of...slimy.”

“Maybe the guy needed practice.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe you did,” Kip contended.

Shelley opened her mouth to refute him, then
shut it without speaking. If she could lecture him about
male-female equality in literature, he could lecture her about
male-female equality in kissing.

Kip continued to gaze at her, his eyes
hypnotically dark behind his eyeglasses, his mouth curved in an
enigmatic smile. Shelley knew what he was thinking. She was
thinking the same thing.

Slowly, without having to explain or ask, Kip
leaned toward her and brushed her lips with his. “Was that slimy?”
he asked once he’d pulled back.

“No.” She swallowed, reconsidered the wisdom of
what they were doing, and decided that if she did need practice—and
there was no question in her mind that she did—she could imagine no
one she’d rather practice with than Kip Stroud. He would never
laugh at her, never get pushy with her, never force the issue. All
he wanted was what she wanted: practice.

“It’s the tongue part that’s slimy,” she
explained.

He nodded and glanced out the window again,
observing Mark and Diana. “I think,” he said, twisting back to
Shelley, “we’ve got to tilt our heads a little--you this way and me
that way. So our noses don’t collide.”

With a shy smile, Shelley tilted her head one
way and Kip tilted his the other. He seemed to be tilting too
far—his face was practically perpendicular to hers—and she reached
up to readjust the angle of his head. Her hand bumped into the side
of his eyeglasses and he winced and jerked away. “Ow! You could
break my nose doing that,” he groaned.

“Well, take them off then, if they’re so
dangerous.”

He did, setting them carefully in the far
corner of the cupola so they wouldn’t get crushed. Shelley rarely
saw him without his eyeglasses. The bridge of his nose was narrower
than she’d expected, with a slight bump in it. It was a really
handsome nose. His eyes were handsome, too, larger and more thickly
lashed than she’d realized.

He tilted his head again, this time only a few
degrees, and covered her mouth with his. His lips were warm and
dry. He moved them. She moved hers, too.

“I’m going to try my tongue,” he whispered,
causing her to giggle from the tickly sensation of his breath
against her nose. “Let me know if it’s slimy.”

“I will,” she promised, bracing herself for
this new phase by taking a deep breath and tightening her hand on
the molding of the window sill.

His tongue touched her lips and she reflexively
pressed them shut.

“Shelley—come on! You’ve got to help me out a
little.”

Shelley checked the action down below on the
veranda. There was no question that Diana was helping Mark out a
great deal. “Okay,” she murmured apprehensively, settling down on
her haunches and tilting her head again. “Why don’t we just, like,
touch tongues and see what happens?”

“Okay.” He leaned toward her.

“You haven’t got a cold or anything, do
you?”

“No.”

“Because I don’t want to get sick from
you.”

“I don’t have a cold,” he swore, then closed in
on her before she could stall any longer. Tilting his head just a
fraction, he molded his mouth to hers.

She forced herself not to react as his tongue
slid between her lips. She refused to shrink back as he probed her
teeth. And then she acknowledged that it was all right to react,
because there was nothing slimy about this at all. It felt—well,
strange, but really not bad.

She opened her mouth and rubbed his tongue with
the tip of hers. Then they separated and let out their
breaths.

“Well?”

“It wasn’t gross,” she said.

Far from being flattered, he looked disturbed.
“Well, like—on a scale of one to ten, how was it?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed, trying to sort her
thoughts. “It wasn’t bad, Kip. Maybe we’re supposed to do it for a
longer time.”

“I think you’re right.” Kip slid his arm around
her shoulders, urged her toward him, and fused his mouth with hers
again, exploring her lips and then her teeth with his tongue until
she opened fully for him.

Once his tongue found hers he moved it from
side to side. That made her want to laugh. She started to shake her
head, but he stayed where he was, denying her the opportunity to
break away. His arm held her close to him, and his fingers coiled
through her hair to the nape of her neck, keeping her head at the
proper angle. It felt surprisingly pleasant to be caressed on her
neck that way.

After a moment, the urge to laugh faded and she
relaxed in the curve of his arm. He moved his tongue again, this
time deep into her mouth and out with a stroking motion that didn’t
make her want to laugh at all. She felt peculiar all of a sudden,
unreasonably warm, as if her heart was pumping blood too rapidly
through her body.

He thrust his tongue deep again, and her pulse
raced even faster, causing her flesh to tingle with heat. For a
fearful moment she couldn’t breathe. Her mind went blank, her
muscles grew tense. Her breasts felt almost uncomfortably tender,
and a fiery sensation gathered between her legs.

“Oh, God,” she moaned, twisting away and
gulping in a frantic breath of the cool night air.

Kip instinctively tightened his arms around
her, drawing her against him. She rested her head on his shoulder
and let out a shaky sigh.

“How was that?” he whispered, sounding more
than a little breathless himself.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, “Okay, I guess.”
She reconsidered and decided she owed Kip her total honesty. “It
was scary, Kip. It felt a little too good, maybe.”

“Yeah?” She could almost feel his smile. “On a
scale of one to ten—”

“Shut up.”

He toyed with her hair again, twirling his
fingers through the soft waves in a soothing pattern. His chest
rose and fell against her as his breathing slowed. She took comfort
in the rhythm, in the solid feel of him. This was Kip. She was
safe. Everything was all right.

Gradually her pulse returned to normal and the
muscles in her thighs unclenched. It dawned on her that she was as
much on the spot as he was. “How about me?” she asked timidly. “Did
I do okay?”

“Oh, I think you need more practice,” Kip
declared in a deliberately pompous tone. She poked him in the ribs
and he grunted and slapped her hand away.

“I’m being serious, Kip. Tell me the truth. Was
I awful?”

“No, you weren’t awful.”

“Well...how not-awful was I?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

She considered poking him again, but decided
not to. Maybe it was better if they joked about this. If she didn’t
laugh, she’d dwell on that strange, tantalizing heat that had
infused her breasts and hips. “Okay. What’s my score?”

“Maybe an eight,” he said.

Eight! What an insult! She pushed as far away
from him as she could get in the cramped space, and glowered
furiously at him. “If I were going to grade you, I would have given
you a ten,” she said, her voice hushed but bristling with
indignation. “And all you can give me is an eight?”

“Hey, I’m a tough grader. Like Mr.
Goober.”

“You’re a goob, all right.”

His dimpled grin assuaged her anger slightly.
“Come on, Shelley—we’re both beginners here. If you’d given me a
ten I would’ve called it grade inflation.”

“You didn’t think it was that good?”

“I thought it was terrific,” he said, his eyes
solemn despite his smile. “I thought it was better than any kiss
I’ve ever had before.”

She eyed him suspiciously, but he looked so
earnest she had to believe him. “Then what did I lose two points
for?” she asked.

He shifted his legs, bumping hers. She was
acutely aware of their lightly haired texture against her smooth
skin. After extensive reflection, he said, “You lost two points
because you pulled away.”

“I was running out of breath.”

He shook his head. “I’ve seen you swim under
water for a long, long time before you have to come up for
air.”

She traced the curves of the sill molding and
stared out at the sky, at the nearly full moon blurred behind a
layer of fog. “I told you, I was scared,” she mumbled, willing to
tell him the truth as long as she didn’t have to look at him when
she did so.

He didn’t speak for a while. A breeze rustled
through the leaves of the red maple that stood just south of the
house. A cricket roiled the air with its persistent chirp. Kip was
so still, so silent that Shelley jumped when she suddenly felt his
hand on hers, folding tightly around it. “You know I’d never do
anything bad to you,” he murmured.

More than before, she couldn’t bear to look at
him. “I know,” she said in a tiny voice.

“I’d never admit to another girl what an
amateur I am,” he continued, his voice soft and sincere. “But with
you... Well, you know me. I can’t pull a fast one on you. I’m not
going to go crazy with you. You know that.”

“I know that,” she agreed. “That’s not why I
was scared.”

He gave her hand a slight tug, forcing her to
look at him. How much did she have to say? How much did he need to
know?

Only the truth. “I told you—” she cleared her
throat “—it felt too good. I was afraid if I didn’t stop right
then...”

“What?” he coaxed her.

“I don’t know. Something might have
happened.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

It’s me I don’t
trust
, she almost blurted out. Her cheeks
felt warm, her extremities chilly. Closing her eyes, she recalled
the sensation of his tongue filling her mouth, retreating and then
filling it again in that slow, relentless rhythm...and she
experienced the same frightening rush of heat, gathering in two
points at her breasts before surging down through her body to her
hips, to her womb. She felt heat and dampness and an aching hunger
for something. Something more. Something she’d never wanted before.
Something she knew instinctively she shouldn’t
want.

Mortified by the raw emotions rampaging through
her, she broke from Kip and fumbled with the trapdoor latch. Before
he could stop her, she raced down the ladder to the attic, down
again to the small bedroom on the second floor and through the
hallway to the bathroom. She locked herself inside.

Gripping the edges of the porcelain pedestal
sink, she forced herself to look into the oval mirror above it. She
looked feverish, her hair tousled, her eyes watering with
tears.

This was too humiliating. Did Kip understand
what had happened to her? Did he know about the throbbing, the
warmth and dampness, the quivering in her flesh and the
inexplicable longing she’d felt when he’d held her against his
chest? Did he comprehend what his kiss had done to her? Would he
use his knowledge against her?

Would their
friendship ever be the same again? Would
she
ever be the
same?