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That wasn’t all he did. She could feel his tongue find its way inside, until it stroked hers and made her tremble. His hand and his mouth seemed to work together, and she felt the strangest and wildest sensations crash through her. She felt shaky and exhilarated and like everything inside of her was being shaken up like it was in some kind of blender.

Still he kissed her, in that slow, steady, methodical way. He kissed her as if this was the entire point of the evening. As if this wasn’t any kind of rehearsal at all.

As if he could stay here and kiss her forever.

Kitty could feel her entire body respond to that thought with unbridled enthusiasm.

She could feel the blood in her veins, and a soft, hot ache between her legs. She could feel a delicious, demanding heat coiling around and around inside of her. It made her want to do things she didn’t even understand, like press herself against him. She must have moved her hands at some point, because they were gripping his chest, her palms flat against the wall of muscle, her fingertips digging into the soft fabric of his shirt.

He kissed her so long, so thoroughly, that when he pulled away she felt as if her entire system had short-circuited.

Her cheeks felt as if they were a flaming, burning hot red. Her breasts hurt, for some reason. She wasn’t entirely certain that her legs would hold her up if he stepped away from the doorjamb.

Luckily, when he pulled back, he only pulled back a little and kept his face close to hers. And there was a look in those blue eyes of his that she’d never seen before. She couldn’t have explained it.

But she could feel it.

It was all that intensity wrapped up in too much blue. It was the kind of look that seemed to be as much inside her as in front of her.

Finn didn’t say anything. She wondered if he could hear the racket of her heartbeat as it thundered inside of her. She wondered exactly how red her face was. She had no idea what expression she could possibly be wearing or what he might see there.

His gaze moved as if he was tracking all of those details and more. The hand on her face moved so he could rub his thumb over her lips, like he was memorizing their shape. And somehow that left her feeling shaky. Everywhere.

“What do you think?” Finn asked, and his voice sounded a little more gravelly than before. Kitty was still so close to him, and she could taste him in her own mouth, and she could see the exact moment when something else kindled in his gaze. Amusement, once again. “Should we practice a little more?”

Kitty actually forgot that she had called for this rehearsal. She swallowed hard and almost asked him to explain—but then it came back to her.

And for the first time, maybe in her whole life, she had to force herself to frown at someone. “No,” she said, maybe too quickly. “I think this rehearsal means it will be a success when we take it wide.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Yes. Well.” She cleared her throat. “We better go now. We wouldn’t want to be late.”

It seemed to take Finn an eternity to straighten up. When he did, there was something in his gaze, the set of his mouth, that made what seemed to be an all-new heat inside of her… burst into flame.

She held her breath.

“No,” Finn drawled, while she tried to tell herself that his voice was just a voice, that it did nothing at all inside of her, “we sure wouldn’t want that.”

Chapter Six

Kissing Kitty Bennett had to rank as a highlight in any life, Finn thought as they walked in what he was pretty sure was not entirely a companionable silence down the length of the dirt drive that led to her house, back out on to the main road.

He felt fantastic, though he thought Kitty was having a little more trouble coming to terms with what had just happened between them.

Kissing Kitty, he discovered, had provided him not only with an immediate and serious upgrade to the interest he already had in her, but with a whole lot of new information.

Because unless he had suddenly started completely misreading signals sent by women, and he doubted that, Kitty was pretty inexperienced.

He was tempted to conclude that she’d never kissed anyone in her life.

But he couldn’t quite believe that, because look at her.

Finn took his own advice and studied her as they walked away from her restaurant, with the band playing out beneath the patio lights and the sound of all that bright and happy laughter as the evening wore on, still bright as day. He’d been shocked to see that she followed his instructions. He’d expected she would, as threatened, show up looking the way she always did. Not that Kitty looking like everyday Kitty would be a hardship, because she sure was cute.

But he wouldn’t say her normal, everyday clothes were appropriate date attire. Certainly not for someone who wanted to convince her friends and neighbors that she was falling head over heels in love with him.

Still, he’d been unprepared when she opened up the door. He’d never seen her in a skirt before, just that dress from the wedding yesterday, that had been pretty but had not been formfitting. It had certainly not sported the kind of high waist that, coupled with the top she was wearing that looked like it ought to be a simple T-shirt—but was also blessed with a V-neck, and a narrow waist—made it clear that Kitty Bennett had been walking around all this time with that curvy little hourglass figure that made him feel hollow inside.