A man doesn't kiss a woman the first time with his hat on. Not where I come from.
I bring my free hand up to the side of her face.
The other one I keep where it is, under her jaw. I'm holding her with both hands now and she's still got her grip on my shirt, and her breath is unsteady under my palm.
The chain at her throat is rising and falling against the cotton of her t-shirt.
I bend down slowly.
I take a long second to look at her face this close—closer than I've ever been to it.
The freckles I didn't know she had across the bridge of her nose. The way her lips part because she's not breathing right.The way her eyes are still on mine until they're not, until they drop to my mouth and stay there.
That's the part that finishes me.
I kiss her.
It's not a hard kiss.
It's not the kind of kiss a man gives a woman when he's been waiting to give it to her.
That's the kiss I'd give her if I were a different kind of man.
This one is slow.
She makes a small sound against my mouth that isn't a word.
I feel it more than I hear it.
It does something to me I'm going think about every night for the rest of my life.
I kiss her gently, steady, and I don't press.
I let her come into the kiss at her own speed, and she does, slow and uncertain at first and then less uncertain, and then her hand on my chest goes up and around the back of my neck.
The kiss changes when her hand changes.
Her fingers find the hair at the base of my skull and grip there, not hard, just steady.
The small sound she made earlier becomes a longer one against my mouth.
I lift my head before she can change her mind about it.
I rest my forehead against hers.
Both of us are breathing harder than we ought to be.
She says, low, "Rogue."
"Yeah."
"That's the first time I've kissed a man who wasn't my dead husband."
I close my eyes and keep my forehead against hers.
I don't say anything for a long second because the only thing I could say right now is the wrong thing—how I feel about her.
She has too much on her mind for me to offload my feelings on her.
