Page 29 of Holidate Fail
She clearly didn’t believe him, not with that narrowed glare. She scooted up so she was sitting. “What’s my favorite book?”
“Pride and Prejudice.”
Her mouth quirked at the corner. “Too easy. Favorite color?”
Ooh. He’d have to take an educated guess. “Purple,” he said with conviction.
“Why me?”
“You’re smart and you make me laugh.”
She stared at him without saying anything. Without moving. Being funny was a good thing, right? Should he have said she was pretty? She was, but so was Lacole. So was Kristy. He didn’t get the same heat in his body, the same pleasure at her company, as he did with her.
He held his breath until she lowered her lashes. They made an inky smudge on her pale cheek.
“Okay, then,” she said. “What color are my eyes?”
Chapter 9
Dahlia fought the shiver that ran rampant over her body at Kelly’s words. If this was some sort of ploy to get into her pants, it was working. If she’d been wearing pants.
When the sunlight had filtered in through the thin curtain and she had woken up, her cheek had tickled but she’d been loath to move. Something had anchored her, something with a heady, natural scent, something that held her close and kept her safe.
She could have stayed with that feeling forever. But now, fully awake and breathing faster than a magnet finds north, could he answer her question?
“Brown.” Kelly said the golden word promptly and with no hesitation. “There are flecks of green in there, too, and maybe a hint of gold, but I haven’t been able to see them directly and in the light for a while. But more importantly, they’re curious and observant and I could spend a lot of time watching you watch things.”
She opened her eyes and sucked in a breath. The affirmation restarted her heart with an electric charge.
But Kelly wasn’t done. “And the way you scrunch your nose when you’re thinking, and how you always lugged Pride and Prejudice around in high school. And now, ever since I saw you at the beginning of the race, I wanted to undo your hair and run my fingers through it. I wondered how long you’d let it get, and ached to have it draped across my body and wrapped in my hands so you couldn’t move while I kissed you. Thoroughly kissed you until neither of us could breathe.”
She shifted at her side of the bed, his words a swift current carrying her right into his arms.
Kelly was still shirtless, a streak of sun from the parted curtains highlighting his beautiful chest. Maybe…maybe he did want her? Really her. Dahlia Pesch.
If ever there was a moment for New Dahlia to show up, this was it. To take control and give in to what she wanted, what she’d always wanted. To kiss the daylights out of him.
But New Dahlia must have still been sleeping, because all Dahlia had was her old self. If she wanted this, she had to be the one to stand up and reveal her thick thighs to the gaze of a man who knew her eye color and her favorite book. Who had encouraged and supported her, who laughed at her jokes. Who made her feel safe even in sleep.
“Look, if you don’t want anything from me, it’s okay to say no.” Kelly’s voice was soft, almost dejected. “I can go in the bathroom while you get dressed.” He started to stand.
“No!” Dahlia spoke without thinking, for once letting her heart dictate instead of overthinking. “It’s not that. It’s just…I mean…I’m just…” Apparently her heart had trouble with full sentences. “I’m not any good at this.”
Kelly held out his hand. “Why don’t you let go of the sheets and hold my hand? That’s a start.”
With the courage of a warrior battling a gang of brigands, Dahlia pulled the sheets down to her legs, her Georgia Adventures t-shirt clinging to her body. She stilled her fingers to keep from tugging the t-shirt loose and bit her lip to refrain from commenting or giving excuses about her body. He’d already felt more of her than most people. There was nothing left for her to hide.
Kelly took her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist, sending darts of need through her. “I liked when you touched me this morning.” He placed her palm on his bare chest. His well-built, lightly furred bare chest that showed off his slight farmer’s tan while his heart beat steady and strong under her fingers. “Here. I wanted you to touch me in other places.”
“You…did?” Unable to take a full lungful of breath, she longed to admit she wanted that, too, but the last time she did that, the guy had thought it was the funniest thing. Her, round little Dahlia, when he could have lithe and long-limbed anyone else.
Like Lacole. And probably Kelly’s ex-wife.
Kelly’s fingers curled around her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek and sending pulses of want and desire through her system.
“I did.” He leaned forward, his breath like a heated caress. “And I do. I’m going to kiss you.”
It took all her strength to hold still and not put up her defenses and run, to keep herself from being the butt of a joke or from being hurt.
