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He looked resentful. “Why do I have to start?”
Corey looked at his balky expression and felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to burst out laughing. She had started out tonight hoping to fulfill the most cherished dream of her lifetime – to be kissed by him – really kissed – by him. As badly as she’d wanted that, the prospect of it had made her feel nervous and inadequate. Now it was a foregone conclusion that she was going to be kissed, but it was Spencer who was uneasy and off balance, and it was she who was amused and very relaxed. “You have to start,” she informed him, “because that’s the way things… start.” When he still didn’t seem able to move, she peered at him with sham concern. “Do you know how to start?”
“I think so,” he drawled.
“Because if you aren’t certain, I can give you a hint. Most guys-“
Corey broke off as the absurdity of her suggestion registered on him, banishing his annoyance over his assigned task and making his eyes gleam with amusement.
“Most guys do what?” he asked with a grin as he reached out and moved her closer to his chest. “Is this how Johnson starts?” He bent his head and Corey braced herself for some sort of wild kiss that would make her faint. What she got was a swift clumsy kiss that was slightly off center and made her shake her head in the negative.
“No?” he joked. He pulled her forweard into a bear hug and nipped her ear. “How was that?”
He was being playful, Corey realized, and she suddenly feared that this sort of kissing was all there was going to be. She resolved not to let all her carefully made plans lead only to this, but she couldn’t help laughing as he quickened his demonstration of how he pictured poor imaginary Doug Johnson treating her. “I’ll bet this technique is a real favorite of his,” he said, starting to kiss her and deliberately bumping her nose instead.
“Did I miss? He switched to the other side and bumped her nose again. “Did I miss again?”
Laughing, Corey leaned her forehead against the solid wall of his chest and nodded.
He caught her chin, turned her face aside, and rubbed his nose against the side of her neck like a playful puppy. “Let me know when I’m driving you out of your mind with passion,” he invited, and Corey laughed harder. “Am I great?” he asked, nuzzling the other side of her neck. “Or am I great?”
Her eyes swimming with mirth, Corey raised her gaze to his and nodded vigorously. “You’re completely great –“ she said, “but you just aren´t – Doug.”
He grinned back at her, sharing the joke, and in that prolonged moment of silent companionship, with his hands linked loosely behind her back and his eyes smiling into hers, Corey felt utterly content. Alive. At peace. So did he – she knew it with every beat of her heart. She knew it as surely as she knew he was about to kiss her again and that the joking was over.
His gaze holding hers, he tipped her chin up and slowly lowered his head. “It’s time,” he said softly, as his mouth descended, “for a more scientific approach to the problem.”
At the first touch of his lips on hers, Corey’s entire body stiffened with the shock of the contact. He obviously noticed her reaction, because he took his mouth away and touched it to her cheek, kissing her there as he continued in a throaty murmur, “In order for us to obtain reliable data…” His mouth slid slowly to her jaw. “… both parties have to…” His lips traced a warm path to her ear. “…collaborate in the…” He lifted his mouth slightly, his hand curving around her nape, tilting her face into better position. “… experiment.”
His mouth captured hers in a slow, insistent kiss that steadily increased in pressure, forcing Corey’s lips to part beneath his and setting off tremors of passin inside her that began to collide and combine with stunning force. With an inner moan of pleasure and need, Corey slid her hands up his chest and gave herself over to the kiss, letting him part her lips, yielding to the probing of his tongue, then welcoming it with mindless desperation.
His fingers shoved into the hair at her nape, loosening the pins that held her hair, and suddenly the mass of golden strands were pouring over them like a veil, and everything was out of control. She was kissing him back, falling forward into his arms while his tongue plunged into her mouth, breathlessly insistent, stroking and caressing.
His hands slid over her breasts, cupping them possessively, and Corey crushed her mouth to his, her nails digging into his arms, her body pressing intimately against his surging erection while his arm clamped around her hips, pressing her tighter to him, holding her as he rolled her onto her side.
Years of love and longing more than compensated for lack of experience, and Corey returned each endless, scorching kiss, her hands sliding over the bunched muscles of his back and shoulders, her parted lips surrendering to and then boldly conquering the man whose long fingers were caressing her breasts, tormenting her, tantalizing her with the same promise of pleasure her mouth was giving him. Time ceased to exist for her, obliterated by the turbulence of raging desire and a sensual mouth that was hungrily devouring hers with increasing urgency… and a knee that was nudging her legs apart while his hands… stopped.
He tore his mouth from hers and lifted off her so abruptly that Corey felt completely disoriented, and when she saw the awful expression on his face, she was afraid to breathe.
His brows were drawn together into a dark frown of utter disbelief as he stared down at their bodies, then he seemed to notice that his hand was still on her breast and he jerked it away, glaring at his own palm as if it had somehow offended him. His accusing gaze snapped from his hand to her face, and his expression slowly transformed from angry to utterly thunderstruck.
Understanding dawned, and Corey expelled her breath on a rush of joyous relief. He had lost control and he didn’t like it. He hadn’t imagined she would ever be able to do that to him, but she had done it. She had done that to him. Filled with pride and satisfaction and a world of love, Corey smiled slumberously at him, her hand still resting on his chest. “How’d I do?”
“That depends on what you were trying to do,” he said curtly.
She leaned up on her elbow, so happy that she had been able to make him want her that nothing he could have said would have spoiled her joy. “Now that you’ve had a demonstration,” she teased, “would you care to tell me at what point things got out of hand?”
“No,” he said, and sat up.
Corey sat up beside him, thoroughly enjoying the situation, her smile disarmingly innocent. “But you were supposed to notice and tell me if things got out of hand because of something I did. Do you ned another demonstration?”
“No more demonstrations.” He stood as he said it. “Your father would get out his shotgun if he knew what happened out here tonight, and he’d be justified.”
“Nothing happened.”
“If this is your idea of ‘nothing’, then that’s why the boys in your life are trying to take things too far.”
She walked beside him trying to look deeply concerned when she felt like laughing with delight. “Would you say, then, that things went too far between us?”
“They didn’t go too far. They could have gone too far.”
Six
HE LEFT, AND COREY DIDN’T SEE HIM AGAIN UNTIL THE following Thanksgiving. When he finally came over to the house, Corey had the feeling that she couldn’t have gotten him off to a solitary spot if her life depended upon it, and she told herself that if the kiss hadn’t affected him, he wouldn’t be so wary.
Diana was inclined to agree, and Corey again enlisted her aid in helping to accomplish her dream, a dream she’d cherished for years. She wanted it to come true so fiercely, so completely, that she couldn’t believe fate would ever prevent it. In order to accomplish her goal, she was careful toward the end of Spence’s visit to seem a little distracted and just a touch sad. Once she’d made certain he couldn’t help but notice, Corey left him alone in the living room with Diana, then she hid around the corn
er to see how things went. “Poor Corey,” Diana said – as they’d rehearsed.
“What’s wrong?” Spence asked quickly, and Diana’s heart soared at how concerned he sounded.
“She’s been looking forward to the Christmas dance at school all semester. She’s on the decorations committee and everything. She’s had the dress she’s going to wear for months.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that Doug Johnson was going to take her – he’s on Baylor’s football team – but he phoned this morning to tell her that his family had decided to go to Bermuda for Christmas, and they won’t even consider letting him stay behind. I feel terrible for Corey.”
“She’s better off not going out with jocks, anyway. You know what they’re like and what they think they’re entitled to from any girl they honor with a few hour of their time.”
“You were a jock,” Diana said with a laugh.
“And that’s how I know what I know.”
“The point is, she’s not going to be able to go. The dance is a big thing, especially for graduating seniors.”
“Why doesn’t she ask someone else to take her?” he suggested, sounding puzzled that Diana was bringing the problem to him.
“Corey has lots of friends, but they already have their own dates.”
To Corey it seemed like hours before he said, “Are you suggesting I take her?”
“That’s entirely up to you.” Diana got up then and headed out of the room, and as she passed Corey in the dining room, they exchanged a silent “high five”. Corey was halfway into the living room before she remembered to wipe the grin off her face and replace it with a more woebegone expression, but Spencer didn’t notice; he was putting on his jacket to leave.
“My mother is coming home for Christmas,” he said.
“That will be nice.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing her,” he admitted, looking a little embarrassed by his sentimentality. “The point is,” he continued abruptly, “I haven’t seen her in three years. Diana explained that you don’t have a date for the Christmas dance. I’ll be in Houston, so if you don’t mind having an old man take you to your dance, and you can’t find anyone else, then I will.”
