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Kell stops immediately. “Bad?”
“No. Extremely not bad.” I’m breathing hard enough that the words come out uneven. “But unless one of us suddenly develops a background in competitive gymnastics, this is about as far as we’re getting like this.”
His gaze drops to the hand still inside my pants.
“Like this.”
“Fully dressed. Standing up. In my kitchen.”
He considers that. “We could take off the clothes.”
God help me.
“Yes, we could.”
His free hand snaps to the button of his jeans.
I close my hand around his wrist. “Not here.”
He stills.
The disappointment lasts maybe half a second before I slide his hand free, lace my fingers through his, and start toward the doorway.
“Upstairs.”
His eyes light. “Bedroom?”
“Bedroom.”
Chapter Ten
Laura
My bedroom is exactly as I left it this morning. Bed made. Lamps in place. Throw pillow centered because at seven-thirty this morning I believed decorative symmetry mattered.
I stop just inside the room. The carpet is soft beneath my bare feet, and I become absurdly aware of everything that belongs here. The bed. The lamps. The bookmark tucked neatly into the novel on my nightstand. Kell is at my back but doesn’t crowd me. His presence changes the room without him touching a thing.
My mouth has gone dry. Dave was the last man in this room. The last man in this bed. The last person who knew my body because he’d had years to learn it.
Kell has had maybe an hour. The difference feels enormous. Then Kell eases closer, warm and real, and I turn to him.
“Laura?”
He stays where he is. No reaching for me. No assumption that because I brought him here, the next thing automatically happens. Some of the tension in me eases enough for a full breath.
He tips his head slightly, his eyes warm and eager. “Still yes?”
“Oh, yeah.”
I reach for him, and Kell comes into my arms without hesitation. The kiss is slower than the ones downstairs, but there’s nothing calmer about it. His erection presses against my stomach, and I remember how hard he felt against my hip downstairs.
Kell understands what sex is. He understood what kissing was too, at least in the abstract, and tonight has taught me how little a word can prepare him for the thing itself.
We shed our clothes between the doorway and the bed, without anything remotely resembling elegance. My bra lands somewhere near my blouse. Kell nearly steps on one of his boots while getting out of his jeans, and I kick mine out of the way before our first time together ends in an emergency-room visit.
I take his hand and lead him to the bed. There is no graceful choreography. I sit, Kell follows, and we kiss again. We both shift at the same time, and his knee bumps mine out of position. He laughs against my mouth.
“So much for seduction.”
