She shakes her head. “Nope. My turn. Have you been married?”
“Nope. Never even close. Like I said, I’ve been a workaholic for many years. I’ve never let anyone get close enough to me to consider marriage.” I glance up at her. “Until now.”
She visibly shivers. “No long-term girlfriends?”
“None. I’ve occasionally dated women for a few weeks or months, but then they would get clingy, and I cut them loose.”
She frowns. “Clingy? Clingier than you marching into my house five seconds after meeting me and declaring yourself to be my life partner? That kind of clingy?”
I laugh. “Touché. I don’t think I’ve ever dated a woman as clingy as that, no. So I guess the point is that they were never the right woman for me.”
“And I am?”
“Definitely.” I don’t have any doubts. I’ll tell her that every hour until she believes me. “Now you. Boyfriends?”
She hesitates, staring at me for long seconds. “One.”
I stiffen, wondering what I’m up against. “How long ago?”
“It’s been about an hour.”
I nearly drop the knife as I jerk my gaze to hers. Her adorable cheeks are that deep pink again. I can see splotches on her chest above the neckline of her sundress, and I really want to see how low the blush extends..
“Yeah, like I said, I’m a hopeless romantic. I went on a few first dates in college. My roommates would try to set me up with their boyfriends’ buddies, but there was never a spark, and I didn’t see the point in carrying the farce on if there were no fireworks. After a while, I decided marriage wasn’t in the cards for me. Maybe I’m jaded from spending so much time reading and writing fiction, but I swore a long time ago I would not settle.”
I’m still holding the knife in one hand, not moving. This perfect woman sitting two feet from me, looking all cute and sexy, perched on her stool with her legs crossed and her hair a wild mess of curls, has never had a boyfriend?
I swallow hard. I should feel the pressure her words convey. I feel the challenge, but not in the sense that I might not get the prize. I will. And I’m going to enjoy proving to her that I’m the one.
After setting the knife down and releasing the green pepper, I wipe my hands on a towel and round to her. Her face is a few inches closer to mine with her on the stool. I cup her cheeks and hold her head. “How many men have you kissed?”
“My parents have a story about a little boy in Africa kissing me on the lips when I was about three, but I don’t remember it. Then there was you in the car.”
My nostrils flare with my sharp intake of breath. “That was not a kiss. That was the briefest brush of lips.” I slowly lower my head. “This is a kiss.” After giving her a moment to turn away, I close the gap and drop my mouth onto hers.
The soft purr she makes drives me out of my head. So sweet. She even leans into me, uncrossing her legs as her hands come to my chest. At first, she flattens her palms on my pecs, but then she fists my shirt. I doubt she’s aware.
I angle her head to one side and deepen the connection, dragging my tongue along the seam of her lips until she parts for me. Taking my time, I taste her lips, stroke along the ridge of her teeth, and then gently suck her tongue into my mouth.
When I release her tongue, I soothe it with mine, tangling, learning every detail about my girl’s mouth. Every moment is perfection with her. Every step we take forward proves that she is mine.
This angel was sent to me. I had to wait forty-five years for her, but she’s here now, and I will spend the rest of my life reminding her how fucking romantic I can be, fulfilling her fantasies every single day.
I kiss my girl until she’s panting and dazed. When I release her, I stay close, meeting and holding her gaze while I continue to keep her face in my hands. Fuck, I’m lucky.
“Brody…” Her voice is husky, sexy, satisfied.
“Is that how you write a kissing scene?” I ask softly.
“I will now.”
I grin. Score.
“But you’ll need to kiss me in a slightly different way every day so I don’t run out of material.”
“I can do that, baby. You’ll never run out of material with me. How the hell have you been writing kissing scenes without ever being kissed?”
Her cheeks turn a deeper pink as I ease back. “Brody, I write about a lot of things I’ve never done. That’s the beauty of fiction. I don’t have to do all the things in my books. I’ve never kidnapped anyone or been kidnapped, and yet I write dark scenes with that in it. I’ve never jumped out of a plane. I’ve never crawled through the jungle or hunted someone down in a cave or shot a gun or built an explosive device or eaten live cockroaches. But all those things have happened to my characters.”
