full gust and pries feathery tufts away from the nearby fescue bushes, and Kara giggles as the little buggers cling to us.
“You’ve got stars in your hair, Professor.”
“So do you, Miss Valari.” I can’t help the smile that brims as I flick one away from her eyebrow. “And here. And…here.”
But once I finish thumbing one off her bottom lip, I don’t move my touch.
I revel in the snag of her breath. Then the flicker of the sunlight and the need in her gaze. While pressing my thumb to the corner of her mouth, I stretch my fingers across her cheek.
“Stars,” I repeat, letting my feelings match my words. I know she gets it. I know she feels me. She’s getting off on my adrenaline and my wonder, and I accept the flow of hers in return. It’s like we’re becoming junkies for each other—and for the first time, I don’t resist being higher than a kite.
“You think they’re guiding us somewhere?” she asks in a whisper as warm as the wind.
I mold my body closer to hers. “If the destination’s heaven, I’m halfway there.”
The words, warm and husky on my lips, feel perfect for the moment—until Kara steps away, nearly tripping over her own feet.
What the hell?
“Sun’s going to be down in just a few minutes,” she hurries to say. “Race me up to the observatory? We can keep talking over dinner.” She tilts her head and winks, an obvious play to lighten the suddenly weird air that’s fallen like a lead balloon between us.
I want to push her on the whiplash response, but my intuition already reins me back. Pressing her to reveal anything more than she wants, especially in the middle of this trail, is going to be an exercise in futility.
I’ll have to be sneakier about the whole thing. Smoother. A task completely outside my wheelhouse. That means I’ll have to ask myself the unaskable question.
What would Jesse do?
Unbelievably, the query becomes my lifeline as I follow her up the rest of the hill. The final part of the trail also proves to be one of its steepest, meaning Kara’s having to show off the flex of her glutes in all their well-honed glory—and those ruthlessly sexy shorts.
The only thing that saves me from rocking a full-blown hard-on once we get to the top is focusing on my conjecture of how Jesse would do this. It’s fate’s cruel joke on the pair of us. I’ve got the legs that work but the small-talk game that doesn’t. Jesse’s stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his days but can charm a nun out of her panties.
I’m pretty damn sure Kara Valari’s not wearing any panties.
Not that charming her out of them would be my intention here.
I just need to figure out how to get her to open up to me. Because for the first time, in the absence of my own fear, I’m starting to think she may have plenty of secrets of her own.
I sit back and survey what’s left of the decadent food spread we’ve demolished. “I can’t believe you arranged all this in a few hours. Okay, scratch that. I can’t believe you arranged all this, period.”
While her cute ponytail allows me to view every enticing inch of the blush staining her cheeks, I tamp the fiftieth urge to tug at the tight elastic tie and set her thick waves free. It’s not the only temptation I’ve been fighting the last hour.
“I’m really glad you’re having fun,” she says with a sweet smile that turns my throat into sandpaper and my senses into mush. But the good kind. A lot of the good kind. While our view from the small table she’s somehow set up on the terrace is even better than the view from the trail, I can’t take my eyes off the beauty in front of me.
“Fun?” I scoff. “Fun is a run on the beach or a Sunday matinee. But this is…”
Romantic. Meaningful. The best night I’ve had in a long time.
But I don’t say any of that.
Kara quirks a curious smile. “This is…what?”
Again, I think about speaking the truth of my soul out loud—but her reaction to when I did it the first time tonight, out on the trail, is still a lingering sting in my memory. Instead, I pop an olive into my mouth and gaze out at the skyline once more.
“This is fun on crack.”
Her melodic laughter draws my attention back to her.
“So how did you do this?”
Her