First Kiss Friday – Quotable by Kathy L Wheeler

Today’s First Kiss Friday featured guest is Kathy L Wheeler, author of contemporary romance Quotable.  Welcome Kathy!  Here’s the first kiss between Genna Lyndsey and Rick Johnson.

Irritation filled Rick, noting the dark storefront and the hour Genna Lyndsey heedlessly took for granted. It seemed an unnecessary risk, loaded down with her purse and another bag. Probably filled with books, he surmised, her back to the street. Hell, there was a building under construction just across the damn street. Rain fell in a gentle mist.

“Where is your partner?” he snapped.

“She went home hours ago,” she said cheerfully.

His jaw clenched with an unnatural exasperation.

“Is something wrong? I’m no expert, but you seem a little out of sorts.”

“I just drove up to get some coffee next door and I see you locking up your store with no regard to personal safety.” He encroached her personal space to make his point—certainly not for the sweet fragrance of wild honeysuckle. He breathed deep.

“Oh.” He saw her steel herself against the surge of emotions assaulting her when she turned and met his angry gaze. The stiffening of her spine, the deep pools of her eyes, color indiscernible under the night sky. Her gaze measured him intently through the black sturdy glasses. “‘I cannot think well enough to be intelligible,’” she whispered, her delicious mouth parting slightly. It was all the invitation he needed. He blamed the wild honeysuckle.

Without so much as a second thought, he moved his mouth over hers in a slow deliberation, allowing her almost ample time to step back should she have wished. It didn’t matter that the door was to her back and she had nowhere to step back to.

Definitely, the wild honeysuckle. It drove him wild with desire. Just the feeling of her timorous nature kept him from devouring her outright, tempting as it was. His tongue touched her lips in a feathery motion, drinking in sweetness so pure he wanted to fall to his knees. He pulled her slight body into his.

A sharp pain hit his leg. He grunted and broke the kiss, making the break as painful as the pain in his leg. He glanced down. She’d dropped everything she’d been holding, her hands clutching the front of his shirt. Her cheeks were flushed. With hunger? Need?

She seemed at a loss as to what to do next. He stifled an urge to smile, irritation dissolving for the moment.

He grasped her hands gently, surprised by the rising desire to safeguard her. Resisting the appeal to reclaim her mouth, he tugged them from his shirt. Kneeling down, he gathered the spilled belongings. Just as he suspected, he’d been besieged with books.