He took a step back.
He sucked another deep breath into his lungs as they stared at each other, her hands falling off him and her eyes searching his.
“I’m sorry, but that was…amazing. Far better than I dreamed it could be, but we won’t let it happen again, right?” she said, lifting her brows and looking at him.
“Yeah. It won’t happen again. We… We need to set a good example for the kids, and we can’t be sneaking off and kissing all the time.”
“Even if we want to,” she said, making it sound more like a question than a statement.
He nodded. “Even if that’s the only thing I can think about all day long, is getting you in my arms, running my hands through your hair, and your lips on mine, we can’t.”
“Right. I won’t think about it either. Although, now I have much more to think about.”
“Same. It’s one thing to think theoretically, it’s another thing to think in concrete terms.”
“Yeah.”
They stood staring at each other, both of them breathing hard, both of them knowing that what they had just done could not be repeated, and then he wasn’t sure whether it was him, whether it was her, but they seemed to move as one, taking a step toward the other and reaching for each other, his lips coming down as hers lifted, and his hands burying again in her hair as she sighed and melted against him.
This kiss was even better than the first, and he didn’t even know how that was possible. He was too old to feel things like this. He was in his thirties, for goodness’ sake. He wasn’t a teenager anymore, but she made him feel all the things he had originally felt with his wife, only deeper and stronger and with substance behind them. Since he knew the kind of person she was, and the things that she did, and the way she lived her life. But she was the kind of person he admired and respected and wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life with.
This time, it was her that pulled away, although her lips ran along his jawline and down his neck as her hands moved over his chest and down his rib cage.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said, her eyes closed, her words pained.
“I shouldn’t have let you.”
She took a deep breath, and after moving her arms up his chest and down his biceps, she took a deliberate step back. “All right. That was…better than the first one. It makes me wonder if a third might be even more spectacular, but I’m afraid that it would be foolish to try and find out.”
He ran a hand through his hair and hooked it around his neck. What was he going to do? He couldn’t live in the same house as this woman if he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Or, more accurately, his lips.
“Yeah, I was actually just thinking that.”
“If we’re going to do that again, I think I’m going to need to sit down. That, or I’m going to fall.”
“No. Sitting down is way too close to lying down, and that way lies trouble. I don’t want our relationship to go that way. We do have a relationship?” He lifted his brows and couldn’t help holding his breath.
“Yes. Oh goodness, yes.”
He smiled. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”
They grinned at each other.
“All right. We’re going to have to figure this out.”
She nodded. “I can move back out. I think it’s probably dangerous for me to live here.”
“No.” The word was said immediately. “If anyone moves out, it’ll be me.”
“But you own the place, and your kids are here.”
“I’m not doing this to play. Maybe I should have said that to begin with, although I wasn’t expecting to kiss you today. I… I’m not messing around.”
“I’m not either,” she said, looking confused.
“I mean, I want to court you. I want to get married. I’m not asking you right now, but I don’t kiss just anyone. And definitely I don’t do it to you.”
“I see what you’re saying. I think kissing should be mostly between married people. I just haven’t been acting that way for the last fifteen minutes.”
