The thought pushed through her consciousness but Samantha shoved it right back out. She couldn’t seem to think straight, lost in the magic of kissing a fascinating man in the pale moonlight.
He was warm, strong, his hair silky under her fingers, and he smelled so good, like some kind of masculine soap and a laundry detergent that smelled like a mountain meadow.
His mouth tasted like chocolate cake and she couldn’t seem to get enough. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist, that only this moment mattered.
She gave in for several moments, telling herself it was only a casual kiss and didn’t mean anything. The man was only here for a few weeks. She could indulge in a few kisses in the moonlight with him, couldn’t she?
No.
This was a mistake. She was not the kind of woman who kissed a man she barely knew. Or at least she wasn’t that kind of woman anymore.
She had to be stronger than this. As tempting as Ian Summerhill might be with those stunning blue eyes and that accent and the casually messed hair she wanted to smooth down, she could no longer afford to make decisions she knew deep in her heart were bound to turn out disastrously for her in the end.
Only a moment more, she told herself as he deepened the kiss, his tongue licking at the seam of her mouth, his body strong and hard against her. What was the harm in two unattached adults sharing a kiss on a cool summer’s night?
It’s not like she was going to fall in love with the man. She knew he was leaving in a few weeks. She might have been stupid about men once upon a time but surely she had a little more common sense now.
She wrapped her arms more tightly around him, feeling hard muscles against her that told her he might be a scientist but he was also athletic. He made a low sound in his throat that seemed to slide down her spine, making her shiver.
Oh my.
They kissed for a long time, tasting, discovering, savoring. She didn’t want it to ever end. How had she forgotten how intimate a kiss could feel, as if he could learn everything about her by a simple brush of his mouth against hers?
This felt anything but casual. It felt...profoundly moving somehow, as if something significant had just shifted in her world, something she didn’t quite understand.
The night murmured around them. The water, the chirp of crickets, an owl in the treetops. She vaguely registered all of those sounds on some level but they couldn’t pierce the soft, dreamy haze surrounding her and Ian until Betsey suddenly gave a sharp bark.
The sound dragged her back to hard reality, to the knowledge that she was kissing a man she barely knew with an eager hunger that belied everything she had told him about looking for something deeper in a man than physical attraction.
What was she doing? She knew better. This had been a grave mistake, one she feared she would pay for eventually.
She slid her mouth from his and edged away on the bench, her heart pounding.
“I need to, um, go.”
He gazed at her, those blue eyes glittering in the moonlight. Why did he have to be all kinds of gorgeous?
“Do you?”
That voice. That accent, the low timbre. He hit every single one of her buttons, including several she hadn’t known existed until this moment.
She inhaled sharply, ignoring every instinct that urged her to simply slide back into his arms.
“Yes. Betsey and I have been gone too long. The puppies will be anxious.”
“Right.” He stood up abruptly and she shivered as cool air blew off the lake.
She couldn’t read his features clearly in the darkness. Was that regret she saw in his eyes? Was it because they had kissed? Or because they had to stop?
“Good night.”
She scooped up her dog, grateful for the buffer Betsey provided, and headed for the house. She had only made it a few steps before she realized Ian was following closely behind. They were in her own backyard. Did he really think he had to escort her to the door?
She wanted to tell him he didn’t need to bother, but by then they had reached her back step and she couldn’t see the point.
“Good night,” he said, some of his earlier stiffness returning to his voice.