“Always a risk in my line of business.”
“Oh, Ward! I just . . . I don’t think I realized until now . . . how very brave you are!”
Iced razor blades sliced through Nigel’s heart. What was this voice of hers? What was this sweetness, this . . . this . . .seduction?He hated it. Hated it so much. He tried to move his arm, to grasp the edge of the curtain and yank it back, but his hand felt like a lead weight at his side.
“Is that what you think? That I’m brave?” Ward’s voice was turned away from the curtain now. Nigel listened to more footsteps, to the sound of the counter hinge creaking up and down.
“You know, Ward,” Luna continued, “I’ve been thinking. About what you said earlier today.”
“Have you? Remind me. WhatdidI say earlier today?”
“How you’ve got plans? To, um, to make me fall head-over-heels in love with you.”
“Oh, did I say that?”
“You also asked if . . . if I would come out from behind the counter and kiss you again.”
“Sounds like something I’d say, yeah.”
“And Ward.”
“Yes, Luna?”
“I’m out from behind the counter now, aren’t I?”
There followed the sound of several short footsteps.
Then silence.
Too much silence.
Nigel made another attempt to grab the curtain. This time, his fingers managed to catch hold of a fold of fabric, and he twitched it back just a little. Just enough.
Enough to be hit full in the face with the sight of Ward the Wardsman, Luna wrapped in his big, muscular arms, bending her over backwards in an absolutely enormously swallowing sort of kiss.
Was it possible that Ward had somehow become aworsekisser since that afternoon?
Because that was the fact of the matter. Luna knew it now, having some basis for comparison: Ward wasn’t a good kisser. Or, at the very least, he didn’t know how to kissher.Ward threw himself into his kissing like it was a game he intended to win at all costs. It was overwhelming, exhausting, and unpleasantly damp. Luna struggled to imagine how anyone could actually enjoy being on the receiving end of that sort of amorousness.
Oh dear,she thought when his tongue sought to gain entrance through her fastened lips.Have I become a kissing snob?
Maybe. Or maybe she was just spoiled. Because after the delicious pleasure of Mr. Grimm’s kisses—the way his lips had played with and plied hers, gently guiding her from a place of delicate sweetness down deeper into something so richly delectable, so sensitive, so exquisitely aware of her barest response—gods! She didn’t know how a girl was supposed to come back from kisses like those.
Green Mother above, was this kiss still going on? Was Ward’s tongue still trying to pry her mouth open, while his hands were . . .yikes, his hands.
Luna shook her head, grunting softly as she broke contact. “Gracious, Ward!” she gasped, then forced herself to smile and look up at him all limpid-heroine-like. “A girl’s got to breathe, remember?”
“What?” Ward grinned down at her, his dimples deepening even as his eyes glittered with an expression she did not entirely trust. “Afraid Old Man Grimm is going to walk in on us?”
Luna couldn’t help the barest flash of a glance toward the nook curtain. Oh, please, let Mr. Grimm still be slumped unconscious back there, oblivious to the world and the doings in his shop! “He might,” she said and planted her hands on Ward’s chest, pushing. His hands were still gripping her, one slipped rather lower on her hips than she liked. “Seriously, Ward, you need to go.”
At a second, more forceful push, he released her. She took his arm then, turning him around and all but dragging him up the center shop aisle back to the front door. “It was nice of you to stop by,” she said, but was cut off before the words quite left her mouth by another abrupt pressing of eager lips against hers. Oh gods, did he think he could just kiss her whenever he liked now? She had no choice but to endure it, so she braced herself, trying not to let any obvious recoil betray her true state of mind. When he finally pulled back, she forced herself to smile again. “Thanks,” she said.
Ward’s eyebrow rose. “Thanks?”
“Yes?” Luna peered up at him. “You know, for the, um . . .” She pointed vaguely at her mouth.
“Are you thanking me for kissing you?”
