and fries. She grabbed one of the sodas and had a long, lovely sip. “So good. Thank you.”
“Eat.”
So she did. For several delicious minutes, neither of them spoke as they demolished the food.
Eventually he remarked on the Christmas music and all the decorations. “Nice house. And definitely holiday ready.”
“Nell and Garrett build them right.”
“Yeah, they do.”
As her stomach had filled up, her jitters returned. She hardly knew what to say next. “So... You finished? Let me have all that.” She gathered up the remains of the meal and carried it to the black plastic bag of trash she’d put at the end of the island to take out with her when she left.
Her hands smelled of grilled meat and grease, so she washed them at the sink and dried them with a paper towel from the roll she’d brought with her. He got up and came to wash his hands, too.
She passed him a paper towel. As he dried, she laughed nervously and said, “Now all we need is a breath mint.”
He dipped a hand in his pocket and came out with a matched pair of candy-cane mints. “They were giving them out at the DQ.”
She took one, twisted the wrapper off and popped it in her mouth. He did the same. For a moment, they sucked in unison.
And then he reached out and touched the tip of her chin, a feather-light caress that she felt to the bottom of her soul. “You’re not getting freaked on me, are you, Ava?”
She tucked the mint into the side of her mouth and confessed, “Yeah. I am, a little. I guess I didn’t really think it all through. I mean, maybe this isn’t the best setting for the start of this thing we’re doing.”
“Now it’s a thing?” His mouth quirked at one corner. She wanted to rise up on tiptoe and kiss that faint smile, to trace that tempting bottom lip with her tongue.
Instead, she eased the mint back to the center of her mouth for a moment and sucked it some more. She had to tuck it into her cheek again before she said, “There aren’t even sheets on the beds. And it just feels wrong. Kind of shoddy, you know?”
“Shoddy. Interesting word choice.” He touched her hair. Her heartbeat ceased—and then started up again, heavy and deep. He ran his hand down the length of a curl and then rubbed the strands between his fingers. “Silky. I knew it would be. I always loved the color. Like summer wheat. And sunshine.”
It was a beautiful thing to say, and she wanted to surge up, wrap her arms around him and kiss him hard and deep. But a second ticked by and then another, and she lost her nerve. She ended up blurting out, “I’m, um, on contraception. The shots.”
“Ah.”
“And I can’t believe I forgot to bring a sandwich, but I did remember to bring condoms.”
“Did you, now?” His eyes were a swirling combination of blues, like a whirlpool out in the middle of the ocean that could suck a girl down so very deep she might never find her way up to the surface again. He let go of her hair and then touched her left temple with his fingertips. Her skin heated. Burned. He pushed his fingers close to her scalp and then combed them downward, gently parting the long strands as he went.
A tiny gasp escaped her. “They’re in my purse. A whole box.” He cradled her chin, tipping it higher. Inside, everything was shivering and burning at once. She felt a definite heaviness down low, a longing so sharp, so immeasurably sweet. “Which is silly, right?”
He scanned her face as though memorizing her. “A whole box, you mean?”
“Mmm-hmm. Because there is no way we’re going to use a whole...” Words deserted her as his mouth covered hers.
Holy cannoli. His mouth was so soft, just as she’d always known it would be. Soft and pliant, that bottom lip like a pillow. She gave it a little bite, because she’d always wanted to bite him there and at last she could. He made a lovely, low groaning sound in response.
And seriously, now. Who knew a kiss could feel this good?
For the longest, loveliest time, they just stood there at the sink with their lips locked together.
Now, this was more like it. This was just what she needed. Dare Bravo for Christmas, delivering endless, candy-cane-flavored kisses, his big hands cradling her head, stroking her hair as “White Christmas” played from the dock in the living room. He sucked her mint into his mouth. She let it go without regret.
And then, still kissing her, he started moving. Dazed and delighted, she went where he guided her, backward, step by step, until she met the wall. He didn’t stop there. Oh, no. Not Darius.
He kept on kissing her, moving in even closer, so their bodies touched, front to front, his so wonderfully big and hot and hard as he pressed her to the wall. She could feel his erection against her belly.
Wow. Just...wow.
It was happening. Finally happening, after way too many years. And with Darius, of all people. He kissed her so long and intensely and well that she didn’t even care anymore that they were doing this in the perfectly staged home she would try to sell tomorrow.
And then those warm, knowing fingers of his strayed downward. He had the hem of her shirt in his hands, and he was sliding it upward. For the first time, the kiss broke.
But only long enough for him to take that shirt over her head and away. She felt the air of the room against her bare skin, and she almost got nervous.
“Shh,” he said, moving in good and tight again. “Kiss me.”
And she did, meeting his lips once more, drinking him in. She took his tongue into her mouth and wrapped hers around it as he went to work on her bra. Those knowing fingers skated lightly around between her back and the wall.
The clasp gave way.
She gasped in excitement and delight.
He went on kissing her as he slid the straps down her arms, so easily, smoothly, one and then the other, his fingers trailing along her skin, causing lovely little shivers to bloom wherever he touched her. He guided her hands down to her sides.
And then he eased a naughty finger between their bodies and unhooked the center gore of her bra, pulling it downward. The bra slid away, leaving her bare from the waist up.
He cupped her left breast. She moaned into his mouth as her nipple pressed into the hot center of his big palm. Had she ever been this turned on in all of her thirty-two years?
As her dazed, acutely aroused brain tried to ponder that question, a car door slammed outside.
The kiss broke. Her eyes popped open to meet his. They stared at each other. She wondered distantly if her mouth was as red and swollen as his.
Another door shut. Faintly, she heard voices. Feminine voices. She recognized Nell’s throaty laugh and put it together: his sisters must have come home early from Denver. Any second now, they would burst in the front door—and find her here in the model-home kitchen, half-naked with Darius.
Get moving. Put your shirt on. The voice in her head knew what to do. But she was immobilized by...
She had no idea what.
Disbelief, maybe. Embarrassment, definitely. And shock that she’d chosen such an unsuitable location for lovemaking in the first place and then managed to get caught in the act.
Or maybe it was simply the bizarre, dream-like quality of the moment. To be about to have sex with Darius Bravo after all these years—and have his sisters walk in on them.
Whatever the sudden irrational affliction that had her frozen in place unable to cover herself, it wasn’t contagious. Because Darius had no such problem.
He was a blur of purposeful movement.
First, he scooped her bra and