“One kiss.” She bit her lip, her eyes dark with desire. “No one has ever asked to kiss me. It usually just happens. We’re talking on the couch or lying on the bed and then our faces move closer and I know we’re going to kiss. My heart starts to pound in anticipation and I hold my breath and . . .”
“Shhhh.” He slid his hand around her neck and pushed himself up so he could clearly see her face.
“Is it now?” she whispered.
“Yes. It’s now.” He kissed her gently, softly, pressing his lips against the soft bow of her mouth. Everything stilled, the sounds of the emergency room fading away beneath the pounding of his heart and the rush of blood in his ears. With a sigh, she opened to him, stealing his breath with the slow sweep of her tongue. Abandoning himself to the sweetness of her mouth, he pulled her on top of him, palms skimming her lush curves, fingers sinking into the silk of her hair. Her scent, the soft moans and panting breaths, the tremble of her body, the white-hot heat that blazed between them. It was too much and not enough. He understood now why his mother had asked for the promise. A lifetime of these kisses was far better than being alone.
“Blood work.” An amused voice froze the blood in his veins.
Zara stiffened and slid to the side, burying her face in his shoulder. Somewhere in his lust-soaked brain he remembered that they were in a hospital and that he’d come here for a reason, although he couldn’t recall exactly what that was.
“Well, that was fun.” Zara pushed herself up after the nurse had taken another vial of blood. Mercifully, she hadn’t said anything about their lapse of judgment. “I feel like I’ve just been caught making out with the high school quarterback in my parents’ basement.”
Jay tightened his arm around her when she moved to leave. “Where are you going?”
“I think it might be better if I sit chastely on a chair at the other side of your cubicle because if we keep doing what we were doing things might not end well for either of us.”
His chest puffed with pride. “I am an exceptionally good kisser.”
“I give you a B-plus.”
“Are you kidding me?” His voice rose in pitch.
“I can’t give you an A.” She lay back beside him, her head on his chest. “You’d have nothing to strive for.”
“Maybe I should try again right now.” He touched her face, cupped her jaw in his palm.
“One kiss.” She gently moved his hand away.
“One kiss.” Jay smoothed back her hair, listening to the rhythm of her breaths. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so relaxed. Content. So damn right.
“Jay?”
“Yes?”
“The day we met on the paintball field, would you ever have imagined we’d be here?”
He chuckled, amused. “In a hospital because I fell trying to get away from you? It wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility.”
She pushed herself up on one arm and glared. “That’s not what I meant. Would you have imagined we would ever kiss?”
“No,” he said honestly. “I thought you were the most irritating woman I’d ever met. Also, you shot me in the ass. It didn’t scream romance.”
“I thought the same about you.” She lay down again, her palm resting on his chest. “Yet here we are.”
“Indeed.” She’d crashed into his life like a hurricane and damned if he could let her go.
He heard his name in the distance. A murmured conversation. The thud of boots and the squeak of leather.
“Jay.” His mother walked into the cubicle dressed in head-to-toe black leather, a motorcycle helmet in her hand. “What happened? Are you okay? Rick and I were out for a midnight ride when I got a call from the hospital because I’m listed as your emergency contact. He’s just parking the bike.”
Zara jerked up and rolled off the bed, landing in a squat on the floor. She pulled herself up and straightened, a stiff smile on her face.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I had a fall at work and I came as a precaution.”
“I’m Zara.” She held out her hand. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met at Tarun’s wedding. I was on the floor. With the head . . .”
Jay’s mother shot him a sideways glance, her lips tipping at the corners. “I do remember you. It’s not every day I see my Jay rolling around on the floor during a wedding.”
“We weren’t rolling around, Mom,” he gritted out. “We fell.”
“I brought Jay to the hospital,” Zara said quickly as if sensing the rising tension. “He didn’t want to come, but he hit his head pretty hard on a cauldron, so I thought he should get it checked out.”
“A cauldron?”
“Zara is a matchmaker. She’s helping me find someone to fulfill my promise to you. In return, I offered to introduce her to a few celebrities. We were at a movie wrap party tonight so she could meet one of the actors.”
“Zombies.” Zara held out her arms and lurched forward. “It was the bomb.”
His mother gave a snort of laughter, her eyes glistening with amusement. “It sounds like fun.”
“It was work,” Jay snapped, inexplicably irritated that his mother and Zara had bonded over his humiliating accident. “There was nothing fun about it.”
He could see he’d been too harsh when Zara froze mid-lurch, a pained expression on her face.
“It looks like you’re in good hands, so I’d better get going.” She grabbed her bag and gave his mom a half smile. “It was nice to see you again.”
Before he could apologize, she pushed aside the curtain and walked away. Mouth agape, Jay could only stare at her departing form.
“I really like her,” his mother said.
Jay liked her, too. So why had he pushed her away?
• 15 •
It wasn’t easy to find potential matches for Jay in a hotel ballroom that held over five hundred guests, but after four days of radio silence, and having convinced herself that a kiss was just a kiss, Zara was up to the task.
“His name is Jay Dayal.” Zara crouched beside Mara Bedi and her mother and flashed a picture of Jay that she’d scraped off his website. “He was a captain in the air force and now he’s the CEO of a successful security company. He’s tall, very fit, intelligent, and well educated. He owns a condo and a car. No pets. No siblings. No family but—”
“No family?” Mara’s mother shook her head.