Pete closed his eyes against me and dropped his head back against the tree. A crease formed between his brows that I longed to smooth away. It reminded me of how he looked that day at the diner—resigned. When his eyes clicked back open, mine were waiting, shining back with sympathy and understanding. I stared until flinty eyes softened back into the warm pools I was accustomed to seeing reflected back at me. Then, giving in to the urge, my fingers fluttered to his face. I traced the blue-fading-to-violet patch over his left eye (which was either the exact wrong or right thing to do, depending on which way you wanted to look at it).
I was aware of his decision before he even moved. As if in tacit understanding of my knees giving way, he reached for me. My breath caught. Eyes never leaving mine, he slid his hand beneath my head to lay me out before him on the blanket. Dozing butterflies in my stomach just woke up. Pete stared down on me for an immeasurable moment—still debating.
Unable to take the intensity another second, I closed my eyes, my lips parting expectantly. But, once again, he deprived me. I huffed out some frustration and opened my eyes . . . to witness the slow curving of his lips. Something about that knowing smile uncurled something within me. Whatever it was had the elite cadet breaking rank, because he advanced forward. His lips feather-brushed mine before trailing up to my ear, where he slowly exhaled out his sweet scent. I shivered and wound my arms around his neck to draw him closer. I did this as naturally as if I’d been doing it every day of the week instead of for the very first time in my life.
His journey—mapping my skin with his lips—continued south, bypassing my lips again to slide over the sensitive region of my neck. There he discovered the cross, nestled in the hollow of my throat, and paused to lift his lips in an ironic smile. He traced the sacred shape with his fingertip before moving along the line of the chain. My breaths became heavy, my arms pulling him down impatiently. He stopped me short to just hover over me.
“Kate,” he breathed, a husky whisper. “What am I going to do with you?”
I was kind of wondering the same thing, but my body seemed to be the one with all the answers. It was still trying to close the fraction of distance still left between us, impatient for the fusing of our lips and our hips. This was something I’d never experienced in real life before, but felt as familiar to me as breathing—that need to push myself against him, to feel the contours of his muscular body meld into the feminine softness of mine.
Pete was still propped up on his elbows, keeping his weight off me, but I could feel his breath quicken, see his eyes transform into molten lava as he regarded me. It was suddenly more than I could take—this need, the anticipation, the chemistry cooking between us on a slow burn. Things didn’t seem to be heating up as rapidly as my body wanted, so I made an involuntary impatient sound in the back of my throat, sure that if he didn’t kiss me in that instant I’d start to cry. Telltale moisture gathered in my eyes.
Finally, finally! he released me from my purgatory. Closing his eyes in surrender—at long last—he brought his lips to mine. God in heaven, I’d never felt such a powerful force on earth as I did in that moment. His warm lips molded into mine in a lingering lip lock before parting them, firm and insistent. And it was like I’d never been kissed before. This is heaven. Yet I still wanted more. Grasping him frantically across his back, I yanked him to me, and oh—yes!—he finally collapsed his weight on me. I moaned in pure ecstasy.
His apparent expertise and my relative noviceness were irrelevant, because a better match was unimaginable. It was pure bliss for the senses: his taste, his smell, his feel. My hands ran along the muscles of his back, pressing him farther into me, like I could make one thing out of two. His hands were also busy: one pushing into the thickness of my hair, the other sliding along the contours of my waist. Our mouths melted together, moving in an enticing synchronicity that made me greedy for more, more, more! I moaned again, and his answering groan was music to my ears. My hands wound through his hair, clutching him to me. That’s about the point he withdrew his lips to breathe out my name.
Why’s he stopping?
“No,” I whimpered.
He half-heartedly tried to get up, but I held him down in a vice-like grip, desperate for more of this smooth, sensuous feeling. We began passionately kissing again, his wandering mouth quickly forgotten and forgiven. My hips arched up, urging him on. I didn’t even stop to think about stopping. I felt like I was beginning to be lifted off the earth. A warm, melty feeling starting in places I’d only imagined at. I literally felt like I was on drugs—high on Pete Davenport and drifting away on a cloud of pure bliss.
Finally, Pete was able to snap out of it. He wrenched his lips from mine. I immediately protested again, trying to pull him back. But he held my head firmly between his palms, leaning off me now. “Kate . . . look at me,” he commanded in a low growl.
“No,” I protested, not wanting to be brought back down to earth with a crash. No, no, no, no, no! I wanted to cry like a baby. Aggravation heaved from my throat. Then, resigned, I slowly opened my eyes like a good girl. I could see Pete’s glorious face was also flushed, his breathing ragged, and he was sweaty . . . in a good way.
I reached up to wipe a bead of perspiration from his temple, brushing back his hair from his forehead. His eyes flamed into two smoldering embers of desire. He barked out a short, humorless laugh, and my own mouth quirked up. He closed his eyes, getting control over himself I presumed, because when he reopened them, the fires were put out.
“Sweet Jesus!” He rolled off me and sat up, drawing up his knees and in a deep breath.
I frowned at that, hating to think of him taking the Lord’s name in vain. But in this instance, I could see how it was fitting. A feeling this rapturous had to come straight from God, right? I brushed back another lock of his hair, smiling lazily up at him feeling punch-drunk and starry-eyed.
“Would you please, Kate, in the name of God, please quit looking at me like that?” he said, rather unkindly, too, I thought under the circumstances. He slid farther away from me.
“Like what?” I asked, trying and failing to keep the hurt from my voice.
“Like you want me to ravage your body.”
I huffed out a single chuckle. “Well, I hate to say . . . but that might be pretty accurate.” I shrugged carelessly.
He snorted. “I swear you can actually smell the pheromones in the air.”
I smiled at that—our chemistry was undeniable.
Pete seemed really preoccupied, and my body was still trying to come down from its high, so we sat like that for a bit, faces flushed and chests heaving. When I looked at him, I expected camaraderie, but instead, I saw his face harden in a way that made me feel brittle.
Could he be mad?
Unthinking, I placed a hand on his back. To my utter horror, he flinched back like I’d scorched him with a curling iron. I snatched my hand back.
“Kate, really. I mean it . . . just don’t,” he said in the clipped tone usually reserved for Ashley-Leigh.
What have I done to make him look like that? I searched his face for answers, found nothing but rigid anger. I fingered my lip to keep it from trembling, and he scowled at me. Winding around to face the playground, I tried to get control of my emotions, which had also just done a swift one-eighty.