The Last First Kiss (Harlequin Special Edition) (12 page)

Her knees went weak, as did the pit of her stomach. To steady herself—or perhaps to anchor Dave into place—she put her arms around his neck, holding him closer to her. Savoring the taste of him as her head continued to spin madly around.

He wanted her too much.

The way Dave saw it, while he was still capable of coherent thought, was that he had one of two options. He could either run like hell and find himself fighting off this urge time and again, even when she wasn’t anywhere around. Perpetually wondering if he was missing out on something.

Or, he could just follow his instincts, make love with this one-time harpy from his past and most likely discover that the expectations ricocheting through him right now were far too high. Then, once again, he would find himself being greatly disappointed in the person he’d selected because she wasn’t what he’d hoped she was—someone who actually made him feel alive and grateful to be so.

Still, he couldn’t very well force himself on Kara. She needed to make her own choice.

Drawing back, Dave looked at her. He pulled in a somewhat ragged breath before he asked, “So, are you going to invite me in?”

Shell-shocked, Kara looked around, more than half expecting that civilization as she knew it had self-destructed.

Apparently, it hadn’t. She had no idea why everything was still intact. God knew she wasn’t.

“You mean you’re not in yet?” she murmured, her voice low and husky.

She looked so dazed. Dave bit his lower lip to keep from laughing at the confusion in her eyes. There was almost something endearingly sweet about her expression, even though he knew better than to comment on that or point it out to her. If he did, it would probably be the last thing he’d get to say on this earth.

So instead, he gave her a serious answer and said, “No, not yet. We’re still standing out here in guest parking.”

“Not for long,” she assured him. Taking his hand in hers, she pulled him along in her wake. Looking over her shoulder, she told him, “I have no intentions of remaining in ‘Park’ any longer than I really have to.”

Ignoring the warmth that anticipation was spreading through his limbs—hadn’t he been disappointed enough times to know that this was all eventually leading nowhere?—Dave laughed.

“You never struck me as someone who could keep from moving around for long.”

She looked at him over her shoulder again as she dug through her purse, searching for her keys. “I guess we’re about to find out a lot of things, aren’t we?”

Yes,
he thought,
I guess we are.

Chapter Twelve

A
s he walked across the threshold into Kara’s apartment, Dave waited for his common sense to prevail. At that moment, he had every intention of stalling, of giving them both time to think through what seemed to be on the verge of happening.

Those were his intentions.

But then Kara turned around and looked at him with those incredible blue eyes of hers. And just like that, all the air around him evaporated, making it almost impossible for him to catch his breath.

Impossible to do anything but focus on her and this sudden, intense and overwhelming need he felt raging inside of him.

What the hell was going on with him anyway?

This wasn’t him, he argued. He wasn’t given to feeling these kinds of passions and desires. He was far more sedate than that.

Yet here he was, his mouth sealed to hers, his body heated in anticipation of what was to come.

Maybe if she hadn’t kissed him back the way she had, his ardor might have dampened slightly and his mind would have been able to prevail, to take control. But the moment they came together, Dave could feel her responding to him, could taste the desire on her lips. In less time than it took to draw in a breath, all bets were off and sanity went straight out the window.

Dave was only vaguely aware of moving into Kara’s living room, but he was acutely aware of her. The way her curves fit into the spaces of his body. The way her skin felt like the softest newly spun silk. And the way her mouth worked over his, fueling his passion and moving it up to the next level. Had he been a lit torch instead of a man, he would have burned so brightly that no one within miles could miss it.

His downfall, he knew, was inevitable.

Kara was in trouble and she knew it. This was no longer pretending, going through the motions for the benefit of their mothers.
This
was something that was happening in the privacy of her apartment with no one to see what was going on but the two of them. There was no excuse for this, no reason for it to be happening.

None except that she was going to self-destruct if it didn’t. If he didn’t make love to her soon and thus uncork the volatile forces that threatened to implode her if they weren’t released, she was certain her minutes were numbered.

Survival meant only one thing. She needed to make love with this man.

Now.

With her hands amazingly a great deal more steady than what was going on inside of her, Kara began to peel Dave’s T-shirt away from his rock-hard chest. She dragged it up over his head and threw it on the floor without missing a beat. Her lips were hardly separated from his.

When she began to uncinch his belt, Dave reached behind her, found the knot holding together her halter and started to untie it. For a second, she felt him fumbling as the knot initially gave him trouble, but finally the ties fluttered apart, one to either side of her, leaving her exposed.

She could have sworn she felt a hot breeze pass over her bare skin as she anticipated what was to come next.

She felt him catch his breath as his hands passed over her breasts lightly, reverently, as if she were breakable and required the utmost care.

Her heart began to hammer so hard, Kara was certain it was going to crack a rib.

She didn’t care. It was worth it.

Reacting to the way his fingers caressed her, she kissed him harder. His touch was gentle, soft, but there was no question. At this singular moment in time, Dave owned her. She was his without a word needing to be uttered.

Kara drew in a fortifying breath, then began undressing him again. With less-than-certain moves, she pushed his jeans down over his hips. The moment he was left wearing only his underwear, it was as if Dave suddenly snapped to attention and got busy. Within the next two heartbeats, she was no longer in her denim short-shorts. One more heartbeat and the white thong she’d had on beneath them became history, as well.

A slight groan escaped her lips. Trying her best to keep her wits about her, Kara returned the compliment in kind. She hooked her thumbs beneath each side of his underwear and pulled it down with one quick snap of her wrists.

Their bodies hot, their desire hotter, they came together like the opposite fields of a magnet, sealed against one another, their mouths still questing, still devouring.

And then she was on the floor with Dave’s body over hers.

Breaking contact, his mouth moved from hers. But there was no respite in the offing. His lips were already moving along the sensitive side of her neck, driving her absolutely crazy as desires she’d never felt before suddenly came to life within her core. Kara arched her body into his, trying to capture this sensation he was creating inside her.

As his mouth slid down, bringing havoc to everywhere his lips and tongue touched, it stoked an urgency within her that was threatening to explode. Kara found herself in the throes of a sweet agony she’d never even suspected could exist.

And then stars exploded as his tongue found what was to her a brand-new pressure point. Next to no extra contact was required before bursting rockets joined the stars, obliterating her sky, utterly and completely disorienting her.

As she fell back, gasping, her eyes reduced to small slits, she could still make out his expression. Dave wasn’t smug, but there was a smile curving his mouth. A definite smile that denoted triumph.

Seeing it caused her to rally, to somehow find a second wind and to silently vow that she was not the only one who was going to undergo this kind of wondrous torture.

With a quick movement, she caught him off guard and managed to flip their positions. Within a blink of an eye, she was over him.

Taking her time, teasing, moving forward and then back, she swept the tip of her tongue over him. With that one weapon, she successfully brought him to the brink, only to retreat again.

Once.

Twice.

As she ventured toward a third time, Dave caught her wrists, tugged her over to one side and was on top of her again. No more games, he thought. He could only hold himself in check for so long before it all slipped beyond his control.

His eyes on hers, vaguely mystified how he and the person he’d thought of as his mortal enemy close to twenty years ago had gotten to this place, he brought his mouth down on hers. Completely lost in her, he kissed her over and over again until they were both in danger of simply dissolving in a puff of steam.

Parting her legs with his knee, the warmth of her core guiding him, Dave began to enter her slowly.

And then stopped.

His eyes widened and he looked at her, dumbfounded. He saw her looking back at him, something almost defiant in her crystal-blue orbs.

Drawing back, he managed to form the words, “Are you—?”

She threw the word “yes” back at him, thrust her hips upward and the discussion-that-wasn’t became a moot point.

They were one now.

Her hips moved in tandem with his, initially setting a pace until he took over. And then she mimicked him, not just echoing his movements but actually anticipating them. It seemed almost impossible for him to believe that this was their first time, they were that in sync.

And yet, it was. It was their first time together.

And it was hers, as well.

His arms tightened around her protectively as the last moment seized him, bringing him to the mind-numbing, heart-pounding climax he sought. For a frozen moment in time, it held on to him as tightly as he held on to her. And then, the effects began to loosen, to recede, until he was left with a semi-racing pulse and encroaching confusion mingled with guilt.

The euphoria disappeared.

The guilt didn’t.

Shifting, he dropped down rather than simply lay down beside her, his heart rate slowly returning to normal.

“You’re a virgin,” he said hoarsely.

“Not anymore,” she corrected, a wide, satisfied grin on her lips.

He was completely mystified. Gathering together what little strength he had left, Dave propped himself up on one elbow and fixed her with an unwavering gaze, trying to sort things out. And failing miserably.

“How is that possible?” he wanted to know.

“Well, you see,” she began calmly, “when little girls are born…”

Holding on to his temper, Dave let out an impatient breath. “I know how it’s possible,” he bit off. “I’m asking you how the hell you got to be one.”

“I’m trying to tell you,” she answered innocently, “I started out that way.”

Damn it, she knew what he meant, he insisted silently. It didn’t make any sense to him. “But you’re thirty.”

“Nothing gets by you.”

“You might have a disposition like a viper, but you
are
beautiful. There had to be all sorts of guys who could put up with that tongue of yours for a little while,” he theorized, then came to the crux of his question. “How the hell did you stay a virgin?”

“Clean living?” she offered, widening her eyes innocently.

He was really losing his temper now. She was jerking him around, the way she used to when they were forced to spend their summers together. The memories it brought back were far from sweet.

“Damn it, Kara,” he snapped. “I’m dealing with monumental guilt here. The least you can do is give me a serious answer to my question.”

In all the ways she’d pictured him, she’d never envisioned him feeling guilty. It made him seem all too human to her. She felt something beginning to stir inside. Again.

“There’s nothing to feel guilty about,” she assured him calmly. “In case you didn’t notice, this wasn’t exactly one-sided.” She punctuated her statement with another wide grin.

Dave let out a ragged breath, then slowly took one in, trying his best to center himself. He didn’t believe in things like Zen, but he knew the merit of breathing correctly. And slowly.

It helped. A little.

Okay, he was going to ask one more time. He
needed
to know and he wanted a straight answer from her. “Why didn’t you ever sleep with anyone before now?”

Her eyes danced with humor as she looked at him. “If this is what you call
sleeping,
you must be hell on wheels when you’re awake.”

Okay, he’d had enough. He’d tried but there was just no winning with this woman. “Damn it, Kara—”

She held up one hand, the other holding the blanket she’d had across the back of the sofa that was now pressed against her. “Okay, okay, you want an answer, I’ll give you an answer. Because I decided long ago that I wasn’t going to do it just to do it.”

Her decision, she didn’t tell him, had been arrived at shortly after her father had died. Shortly after her mother’s heart had been broken into so many pieces she’d been afraid it would
never
work right again. It was also at that time when she’d sworn off getting serious with the male of the species. Ever. And she’d kept her word. Until just now.

“That the only way I was ever going to wind up naked and spread-eagle with a guy was if my emotions were engaged. So far, they never had been.” She saw the alerted expression on his face and laughed shortly. Just as she’d thought. “Oh, don’t look like Bambi caught in the headlights. Relax, you don’t have anything to worry about. I figured it was high time for me to finally do it, so I decided to do it with someone I’d known forever.” It was a desperate lie, but, she judged, a believable one. “You happened to fall into that category, that’s all. It’s that simple. Scout’s honor,” she added, forming what she hoped was the scout pledge salute.

Well, it sure as hell didn’t feel simple, not to him, Dave thought. Maybe he was old-fashioned, but he still believed that a girl’s first time was supposed to be something she would remember forever, not something that happened on the spur of the moment on the floor of her apartment.

“You should have let me know,” he insisted, his voice accusing.

“I would have, but I must have misplaced my business cards. It’s printed right under my name,” she told him, her face deadly serious. “‘Kara Calhoun, Resident Virgin. Approach at your own risk,’” she concluded with a wicked grin.

“Can you stop being flippant for one damn minute? Do you think you can do that for me?” he demanded.

Where did he get off talking to her like that? she thought, annoyed. “I’m not sure. I can try,” she said, acting as if she were as dumb as a proverbial post.

Dave surprised her by looking at her seriously. “Are you all right with this?” he wanted to know. “I mean…”

She put her finger to his lips, knowing that he could probably go on and on and say nothing and still feel tortured while he was doing it.

“I know what you mean,” she assured him, “and I think it’s actually kind of sweet. Yes,” she told him in reply, “I’m all right with this. I would have told you to stop if I’d wanted you to, or if I had a change of heart. That’s
why
it was all right.”

He shook his head, slipping his arm back around her and lying down again. “You know I’m never going to understand you.”

She grinned. “Luckily for you, you don’t have to. Hey, since you broke me in—”