He was the one who ended it, pulling away and staring at her in the moonlight, his breathing rough. She closed her eyes, willing her heart to stop leaping about inside her rib cage.
"I didn't know anyone could kiss like that," he said in clear bewilderment, which helped bring her back down to earth.
"I didn't, either," she whispered.
"That was—"
"Was what?" she asked.
"Wonderful," he said, his hands on her shoulders positioning her so that her face rested against his chest. He hadn't expected it to feel so right.
"Are you cold?" he asked when he felt a little tremor run through her.
"Warmer now," she murmured, her voice muffled by his shirt.
He pulled away. "We should have brought jackets. And, maybe, a blanket."
"I'm comfortable," she said.
"I feel like a crazy kid, kissing you on the beach out here in front of strolling senior citizens and tourists and skateboarders," he said. He struggled to control his voice so that it wouldn't tremble.
"I feel like—" she said, but she stopped.
"Feel like what?" he asked.
"Like doing it again," she said, sounding more helpless than he felt, and he laughed and pulled her close.
"In that case, we will," he said, and this time he spent more time at it, reveling in the softness of her lips, the sweetness of her breath, the delight he felt at indulging himself in something that was pure perfection.
Up on the bike path the teenage skateboarders whooped as they rolled past, their wheels noisy on the asphalt path.
"Are you ready to go?" Jay asked.
"Perhaps we should," she said, not sure if she meant it. She wished the skateboarders would leave.
Don't analyze this too much, Lisa warned herself. Even though she knew that he now realized the impact of the attraction between them, he might not feel any real emotion for her. She couldn't dare to hope for love, didn't dare even to think the word, even though she had known in her heart from that first day that she could easily love this man and perhaps already did.
At Jay's place, Lisa followed Jay into the kitchen and sat on a stool to watch as Jay piled turkey on thick slabs of pumpernickel bread.
"Did you roast the turkey yourself?" she asked.
"Yes. It's one of the few things I eat that doesn't come already cooked out of a zip-open bag at the supermarket," he admitted. "Mustard or mayonnaise?"
"Mayonnaise, please," she said.
"Mustard for me," he said, applying it with a heavy hand.
The sandwich was good, but it was Jay who was the real treat. She liked sitting across from him, liked the way he seemed to enjoy watching her. She found herself growing more animated as they sat and talked. Sometimes his eyes flickered with appreciation at something she said, and she fought the impulse to become reckless with wit, to laugh louder, to toss her head, bat her eyelashes—anything to impress him.
But that would be a mistake. He was impressed. She was flattered. And the attraction between them was magnetic.
After dinner, Jay turned out the overhead light, leaving their faces illuminated only by the hood light over the stove. She held her breath and felt her heart fluttering in her chest. Almost ceremoniously he put his arms around her and kissed her.
"You're a girl who really knows how to kiss," he said after a few minutes. "You must have had lots of practice."
"Not with the right person."
Sunshine and Shadows
The Keeping Secrets Series
Book Three
by
Pamela Browning
~
To purchase
Sunshine and Shadows
from your favorite eBook Retailer,
visit Pamela Browning's eBook Discovery Author Page
www.ebookdiscovery.com/PamelaBrowning
~
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bookmakr:Meet the Author
Pamela Browning learned a lot about healing with herbs and plants by raising her children and doctoring her pets.
"I'd read somewhere that cabbage could heal bruises. So when my daughter came home from the playground with a large bruise, we tested it. You take a large cabbage leaf, rough up the thick white part at the base to make it pulpy, and tape it the pulpy side over the bruise. We left the cabbage in place overnight, and in the morning, the half of the bruise with the cabbage was almost gone. The other side was still black and blue."
Pamela says that when Cassie, the heroine in Through Eyes of Love, fled to the mountains, it seemed natural and right that she'd want to heal others using her grandmother's old recipes.
"My own experiences with herbs helped me to write authentically about what a healer does," she adds.
She's presently dosing her cat with anise tea for his indigestion.
"So far, it's working," she says.
The cat, however, is not talking. Which is probably just as well.
Pamela invites you to visit her website at www.pamelabrowning.com and hopes you'll look for the other books in her Keeping Secrets Series: Ever Since Eve, Sunshine and Shadows, and Touch the Stars.
Table of Contents
Cover
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
A Note from the Publisher
Excerpt from SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS (The Keeping Secrets Series, Book 3)
Through Eyes of Love Page 17