Mother, Please! - By Brenda Novak & Jill Shalvis & Alison Kent Page 0,16
to the opposite side of your seat when I sit down next to you. People who are falling in love move toward each other. They touch at every opportunity because they crave the physical contact. They have trouble even looking at anyone else in the room.”
April swallowed a dreamy sigh. That was the kind of love she longed for, the kind of love she was beginning to believe would never exist. Not for her, anyway. “I admit you’re doing a much better job of pretending than I am,” she said. “But intimacy isn’t my strong suit. And I don’t lie well. Plus we already know that you have a lot more experience with, uh, relationships than I do.”
He pulled her to a stop and faced her, standing only a few inches away. “You’re a scientist, April.”
“So?”
“So experiment.”
April was halfway convinced he was joking. But he didn’t smile.
“You need to get comfortable with me,” he said, and he had a point. Surely if she could relax, the next few days would pass much more quickly and easily.
Taking a deep breath, she tilted her head expectantly. “Okay, go ahead and kiss me.” She squeezed her eyes shut and puckered up.
She waited, but nothing happened. When she opened her eyes, she found him watching her with a quizzical expression. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re going to kiss me.”
Her heart jumped into her throat. “I am?”
“I’m already experienced at this, remember?”
“But the guy is supposed to be the initiator.”
He shook his head. “And I thought you were a feminist.”
“I am, but—” She felt her nails curl into her palms.
“I’d imagine an accomplished physicist at the ripe old age of…what? Twenty-eight—?”
“Thirty,” she corrected.
“—thirty years old could handle kissing a guy.”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t handle it.”
“Then prove to me that you can,” he said, but he didn’t reach out to take her into his arms, which made the whole thing very awkward as far as April was concerned. How did she get close enough? Where did she put her hands?
“You’re purposely making this difficult because of what I said earlier about not wanting to sleep with you, right?” she muttered.
“I’m just letting you call the shots.”
“Or maybe you think that once I kiss you, I’ll turn into a puddle of desire and let you have your way with me.”
He grimaced. “That’s pretty dated terminology, April. If you want to turn someone on, you’d better not use it. And I’m not trying to take advantage of you. I’m doing you a favor. I’m offering to give you…intimacy lessons.”
“Intimacy lessons?” she repeated.
“Who can say when you might need to know more than you do?”
April wasn’t fooled that he’d be doing her any kind of service. He obviously thought he was getting the better of her in some way. But if he was really offering to teach her a few basics, no strings attached, she might actually be the one to come out ahead. At least she’d be able to make up for all the years she’d spent studying while everyone else her age was dragging Main Street and learning about the birds and the bees at Pinnacle Peak.
“Are you serious?” she said.
“Absolutely. Only…”
“What?”
“You’ve got to get rid of these.” He pushed her glasses up so they sat on top of her head.
She almost pulled them down again, for the security they provided. But he seemed resolute, and she was beginning to think that kissing him might be easier if she couldn’t see him so well.
“All set?” he said.
A shaky sensation traveled through her as April placed her hands on his chest. She could feel the thickness of his pectoral muscles through his golf shirt, which seemed too personal considering he was only her tutor. So she slipped her arms around his neck, going for the more traditional pose of a man and woman about to kiss and, closing her eyes at the last second, lifted her lips to his.
APRIL’S LIPS PASSED quickly over Gunner’s and were gone before he could even get a taste. “You call that a kiss?” he complained.
She opened her eyes, which were wide and clear, even pretty without those ugly glasses, and wrinkled her nose. “Was it that bad?”
“It was okay,” he said, although, on a scale of one to ten, it was about a zero. “It just wasn’t very…convincing. The best kisses have some intent, some passion behind them. The best kisses aren’t stifled with inhibitions.”