it. Just enough time for me to tell you a few things. Like how happy I am that you walked out on that restaurant and came to the mountains.” He followed the bite with the lightest of kisses. “If someone had told me I’d find a woman like you in a place like this, I never would have believed it.”
“Well,” she said, lifting her fork to his mouth, “I could say the same thing.”
“I know I come with baggage,” he said, feeding her. “Difficult baggage. Thank you for understanding. And for trying so hard. It’s going to work out, Kelly. It has to.”
“How do you know?”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile, and he gave a little shrug. “I’m thinking of making her a cash offer. Or maybe I could just buy her a Lamborghini?” She laughed at him, knowing he was not that kind of father at all. “I’ll do anything,” he said. “One more bite,” he said. “Then when you’ve had enough, we could take this wine to the third floor.” He ran his hand along her thigh to her butt. “I’ve never had a proper tour of the third floor.”
“And what would make it proper?” she asked him, arching one brow. She tore off a small piece of bread and fed it to him.
“We could do it in the nude.” He grinned at her. And he fed her a piece of bread.
“I suppose I’ve held you off just about long enough,” she said, feeding him one more bite. But what she thought was that she couldn’t really wait any longer.
“I sleep with you every night,” he said. “It’s not intentional, but it happens all the time. I can feel you, taste you, smell you. Every night, in the middle of the finest dreams a man could wish on himself, I explore every inch of you. I feel like a sixteen-year-old boy. And I can’t wait to fall asleep.”
She felt a zing of electricity pass through her, quivering its way down to her panties. “Do you think you can stay awake a little while tonight?” she asked in a flushed whisper.
“For the real thing? Long enough to be sure your dreams will be as sweet as mine have been?” he said.
That was all it took for her to stand up. Ready. But he pulled on her hand, sitting her back down. “I know you worked on this meal all day. We’re going to put it away, then take our wine upstairs.”
“Right,” she said in a daze. “Right.”
She slipped the main course and salad into the refrigerated drawers on the bottom of the work island while he folded foil around the warm bread. They each held a wineglass, and he grabbed the bottle, but they hadn’t made two steps up the staircase before they stopped to kiss. Two more steps brought them together again. Another three steps and… “Climb!” she ordered. “We’re going to be covered in Shiraz!”
He didn’t move. “Not a bad idea,” he whispered.
When the wine was safely sitting on the bedside table, Kelly fell with Lief onto her bed, and lying there, they worked at the buttons of each other’s shirts. She laughed softly between kisses. “We feed each other, undress each other…”
“Do I need a condom?” he asked her.
“Pill,” she said. “Not to mention, no man in such a long time…”
“God, what a relief,” he whispered. “I have one. And I already know once isn’t going to be enough.”
“Promises, promises,” she murmured, catching his bottom lip gently between her teeth.
He spread her shirt wide as she did the same to him. He caught the front clasp of her bra and freed her breasts, instantly filling his hands with them, then his mouth, drawing on one nipple and then the other. Kelly threw her head back and groaned in sheer delight. But her hands were already on his belt, the snap, the zipper. She was so intent on her chore she barely noticed her own pants were slipping down over her hips, and before they’d passed her knees, he had his fingers on her, slipping into the moist folds, working her until she was nearly in tears. She grabbed his wrist, stilling his hand. “Listen,” she said. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”
“You can’t, sweetheart.”
“I’m not experienced. Maybe I’m the reason it always seemed like I’d been just wasting my time.”
He shook his head and gave her a light kiss. “Not this time,” he said. “We’re going to take our time.”