The Kiss Keeper - Krista Sandor Page 0,58

whatever creepy things hung out around old wells.

“We should do this right,” she said, then tore two strips of fabric from her lobster bake luau skirt.

“You want me to blindfold you?” he asked.

“And then put one on yourself. That’s how the kiss keeper works. The guy and the girl are supposed to be blindfolded. If we’re going to try to break this curse, we might as well do everything,” she replied, handing him the strips.

She had a point.

He took the fabric and pressed it over her eyes. “Is that okay? It’s not too tight?” he asked, gently tying the blindfold.

She pressed her fingertips along the edge of the frayed material. “It’s perfect. Now, it’s your turn.”

He stared down at her just as he had when he’d removed his blindfold all those years ago when the night patrol threw a wrench into their first kiss.

“Jake, are you ready?” she asked.

“Hold on,” he said, securing his makeshift blindfold.

They stood there, frozen in time. It was like being thirteen again, except now, there was a lot more riding on this kiss.

“Hey, Heels?” he said, resting his hand on her hip.

“Yes.”

He wanted to tell her everything. In the inky blackness, while wearing a blindfold decked with tiny lobsters, he wanted a clean slate. He wanted to erase the past fifteen years and confess, but her voice halted that train of thought.

She pressed her hands to his chest and twisted the fabric of his shirt. “Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

In the space of a breath, he forgot his past. He forgot the heartache of losing his parents and the emptiness of a career spent wheeling and dealing and amassing a fortune that never felt like enough. Here, in this place, he was solely Natalie Callahan’s kiss keeper. He pulled her in close and pressed a whisper-soft kiss to the corner of her mouth.

She hummed a contented sigh as the sound of the hypnotic ebb and flow of the ocean carried in on the night breeze. At Camp Woolwich, a million miles from where he thought he’d end up, holding the girl he could never forget, he was home.

“Natalie, I…” he began, not even knowing where to start when she pressed her index finger to his lips and silenced him.

“I think we need to go big time on this kissing business,” she said with a smile in her voice as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“You want big time?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“Curse busting big time,” she challenged.

He gripped her ass, lifted her into his arms, and held her flush against his body. “Challenge accepted,” he answered, then captured her mouth in the exact opposite of anything that could be described as whisper-soft.

The friction between their bodies ignited an explosive kiss. Her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck as she rocked against him. Lips and tongues met in a primal dance as their inhibitions disintegrated into the darkness. Without the gift of sight, his other senses heightened as he grew hard, wanting to devour every inch of the woman in his arms.

He pressed her back to one of the stone pillars that supported the well’s worn wooden roof, then kissed a trail to her earlobe. “You taste like blackberries and sweet cream,” he said, his voice a low gravelly rumble.

She bucked her hips, grinding into him as her smooth skin and soft curves sent his pulse racing. He thrust his hips in rhythm with her and pressed his hard length against her in the hottest session of dry-humping he was positive this well had ever seen.

Natalie’s soft sighs fed his desire, but he hungered for more. More of her scent. More of her touch. He ran his tongue along the shell of her ear, tasting her, and she moaned his name.

“Jake.”

The syllable hung hot and heavy in the air, dripping with a deep yearning that echoed his ravenousness, unbridled drive to toss aside that damn skirt, tear off her panties, and thrust his cock into her sweet heat.

“I want to feel you. I want all of you,” he rasped.

“Then, take me. I’m yours,” she said, gasping as he continued to piston his hips.

He stilled and pressed his forehead to hers. “You are?”

She ran her fingertips along his jawline. “I think I was a goner from the moment you threw me over your shoulder to make our flight. That feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?”

But she had him before that.

The image of her, standing across from him after they made