First Kiss Friday – An Improper Situation by Sydney Jane Baily

Today’s First Kiss Friday featured guest is Sydney Jane Baily, author of historical romance An Improper Situation.  Welcome Sydney!  Here’s the first kiss between Charlotte and Reed.

“You seem to have no notion of just how appealing you are,”Reed continued. “Not just your fine face,” he said, touching her cheek with his hand, “or your glorious hair,” he added, twisting it around his finger, “but coupled with your admirable intellect, Miss Sanborn, I can only believe the reason you’ve not been plucked off the tree of single womanhood by now is that you’ve hidden yourself in this backward place.”

She opened her mouth to defend Spring City as best she could, but she could think of nothing with him kneeling beside her in the grass. She could hear nothing more for the blood was pounding in her ears, and she could feel her heart beating an excited tattoo in her chest. She was silent, watching this man with his tousled hair, whose handsome face looked so earnestly into her own.

“I’m wondering, Charlotte Sanborn, if right now you’d mind being kissed, because at this moment, I have an incredibly strong urge—no, a compulsion—to kiss you.”

For a long moment, she could not find her voice, staring into his blue eyes, which had become so familiar, whether engaging her across the dining room table or flickering intelligently as they conversed in her study at night.

There was a falling in the pit of her stomach as if she were sailing high on the rope swing she’d shared with her brother as a child.

Reed Malloy was not smiling now; he looked extremely serious and that fact, too, made her tremble. She did, at this moment, want desperately for him to kiss her. But she was ashamed to tell him that she had never been kissed by a man before, that she didn’t know how to or what he expected of her.

Yet when she opened her mouth to tell him this, all she said was, “Yes.”

A fire lit in his eyes, and the expression on his face turned sensuous at her acquiescence, anticipating what would come next. With him on his knees and her on the chair, they were face-to-face. He had merely to lean forward and he did.

Charlotte held her breath a moment, relishing the warm smell of him, the softly spicy sandalwood that always clung to his clothes and the male scent that she recognized as his alone. Her palms were wet and she dropped the comb as his face came closer.

Her eyes locked on his until the last moment when she closed them. She gave herself over entirely to feeling, both her hearing and sight lost in the sensation of his mouth pressing against her own.

His lips were a sweet surprise, firm but gentle, slightly rough—and the roughness was an unexpected delight. His hands did not touch her at all, but enclosed her by resting on the arms of her chair, so she felt enveloped by him. His shirt brushed her arm as he leaned closer, and she shivered.

She wanted this moment to last and last as his kiss grew firmer. He didn’t hold her head, but she kissed him in fervent response, as if pressed from behind. For just a moment, she felt his tongue against her lips, and it sent shock waves that seemed to head directly to her most feminine parts.

Then slowly, lingeringly, he pulled away, resting his forehead against hers as her eyes opened in wonder to look at him. She gasped drawing air into her starved lungs.

“Oh,” she said, still breathing heavily. He sat back on his heels with a mystified look lurking in his glittering eyes, and she noticed his own chest rising and falling rapidly.

“Thank you for the honor, Miss Sanborn.” His voice was honey thick and low, as if it stuck in his throat. Then, in a quick, fluid motion, he was up on his feet and walking toward the house.

Charlotte sat in her chair, stunned by what had happened. It was as if she’d conjured him with all her thoughts that morning. But she half-suspected that he’d hurried off to hide his own turbulent emotions.