Slow Burn by Starlight
Lost Harbor, Alaska ~ Book 10
Excerpt
She realized that Alastair was suddenly right in front of her. Like, right in front, blocking her view of the bonfire shenanigans with his very fit body. He wore a tightly woven wool sweater with a few buttons at the neck. He’d unbuttoned them to get some air, revealing a soft thatch of brown curls. “Kisses are very important,” he declared. “I can’t have this kiss shlander going on. Brace yourself, Ruthie.”
“What…for what…”
“You want to be prepared for kissing Ralphie, don’t you? That’s what I’m here for. I’m there when you need me, like a good friend.” He took her by the hand and tugged her away from the bonfire, out of sight of the others. He found a spot behind a pile of driftwood and turned to face her.
“What are you doing?” she asked in astonishment. “You want to kiss me?”
“As a concerned friend. I know you, kid. If you’re too anxioush when you’re with Ralphie, things could go very wrong. Like when you got nervous about cracking the eggs. You thent…sent every damn egg onto the floor.”
“And nearly created a death trap for Toni. It’s a good thing she’s so athletic or she would have landed right on her ass.”
“Exactly my point. You see the problem.”
She nodded slowly. “You think if I start getting closer to Ralphie, I might accidentally kill him.”
He burst out laughing. “You really do take the cake, lassie. How about it, then? Shall we try a practice kiss?”
She pursed her lips and surveyed him through a drift of smoke from the fire. He looked especially handsome tonight, with his hair windblown and his eyes a little wild from all that home brew. The tension he’d been carrying lately was gone, and instead a teasing smile played at the corners of his mouth. She’d always especially liked his mouth. His lips were firm and full, with a light growth of scruffy facial hair setting them off to perfection.
Kissing Alastair? To be honest, she’d wondered what that would be like a few times. You couldn’t work with someone so attractive without it crossing your mind. But then she’d firmly assigned him to work spouse status and that had been the end of that.
“I suppose so,” she said. “As long as we both know it’s not a real kiss.”
“Oh, it’ll be real, but it’ll be purely for your education.”
“My education?” She flicked him on the chest. His rough wool sweater smelled of smoke and whisky, an absolutely intoxicating scent. “I told you I’ve kissed three people. I know how to kiss.”
“Prove it, then.” He pursed his lips and pointed to them.
She folded her arms and glared at him. “I don’t have to prove anything to you. What do you want next, references? Phone numbers? I’m confident in my kissing skills. Mostly,” she added, since anything less than meticulous honesty always felt wrong to her.
He pounced on that last word. “Aha. Mosh-tly. That’th what I thought.” He threw up both hands. “If you think you’re ready to take on Ralphie Reed when it comes to kissing, then I wish you godspeed. If you’d like to brush up on your kissing skills, I’m here for you. Thass all I’m saying on that.”
“So you’re an expert, then?”
“I wouldn’t say expert, but I take that sort of thing very seriously. But it’s up to you. If you want to take on Ralphie with no advance preparation—”
Before he could finish that sentence, she made a rash, split-second decision and lunged toward him. A piece of driftwood caught at her skirt and made her stumble, but he caught her in his arms before she could fall.
“Are you here for the kiss or did you trip?” he asked, amusement rippling through his voice.
“Little of both?” Pressed flat against him, she propped her chin on his chest and peered up. “Sorry for the—”
This time she didn’t get to finish, because he dragged her up his front until her face was just below his. And then that firm mouth was against hers—and she knew instantly that even though she’d kissed three people, she’d never been kissed by someone who really knew about kissing.
The contact was magically light at first, just enough to make goose bumps shiver across her skin. She felt her lips warm under his and open without her conscious direction. As if they had their own agenda, which involved getting as much pleasure as possible out of this moment. He lingered on her lips, taking his sweet time sampling them. Almost as if he was imprinting the shape of her mouth on his sensory memory.
A little impatient, she made a sound deep in her throat. Her tongue tingled in anticipation of twining with his. He gripped the back of her head in response and tilted her face up. “More?” he growled.
She nodded. Definitely more. As much as she could get. And then more after that.
The pressure of his lips increased, and sensation streaked hot and bright through her insides. Desire struck like a flash grenade, stunning her into silence. Not that she could speak anyway, but the idea of wanting Alastair was so earth-shaking that her brain shorted out.
Alastair? Not Ralphie? Kiss? But not real? None of it made sense, or she couldn’t make sense of it, so she stopped trying.
When his tongue finally swept past the seam of her lips, sending wild sparks where it touched, she barely knew what was happening anymore. She was somewhere new, a place of sweet drugging pleasure with a man who she’d thought she knew.
But it turned out…she knew nothing. Alastair was right. She hadn’t really known about kissing. Every kiss before now had been a kind of trial run.
But this kiss was supposed to be a trial run for a kiss with Ralphie. Would that be even more head-spinning than this? Good God. If that was true, she definitely wasn’t ready to kiss Ralphie. She was an amateur. A rookie. A know-nothing.
That thought was like a surprise shower of cold water. She drew away from him, gasping for breath.
“Oh, crap-a-doodle-do.”
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