THIS PERFECT KISS

by Christie Ridgway

  His tongue was deep in her mouth, her body was plastered against his, yet she twisted against him restlessly. He slid his hands up and down her back to soothe her, to slow himself, but Jilly moaned so erotically that he had to lift his head to catch his breath.

  Her head dropped bonelessly back. With her eyes closed and her mouth wet, she looked on the brink of orgasm. Rory's head spun, and he groaned and ground his hips against her. Jilly's eyes opened to slits, glittering greenly, greedily.

  Their light lit him on fire. He bent his head, kissing her neck, biting it, sucking it, no taste enough. Startled by the thought, he lifted his head again, reining in the impulses that were driving him.

  She opened her eyes slowly, as if coming awake. "How do you do that?" she whispered. "You make me so hot."

  He laughed, the sound strangely shaky, and he held her with one arm so he could draw the cruel velvet band from her extravagant curls. "It's you," he said, tossing the band away. "You're the one making it hot."

  She shook her head and her hair fanned out. Then she slid her hands from his neck to his shoulders, to push off his jacket. It fell to the floor behind him. "Maybe this will cool you down."

  But he didn't think so, because then Jilly started plucking at the studs fastening his shirt. His heart slammed against her fingers, and she made a face as she awkwardly managed to undo them. Then she pulled out his shirt—delicious agony as it slid over his erection—from his pants. The tails fluttered to his thighs.

  "There," she said, taking a tiny step back.

  There? There? Two could play that game.

  With a slow smile, he reached toward the buttons of her tuxedo jacket. He heard her suck in a breath, but he didn't dare look at her face, or anywhere else. He concentrated on his fingers, freeing the buttons without touching her skin.

  Once unbuttoned, the jacket parted to show only an inch of her pale flesh and a small strip of tantalizing black lace, right at the point of her cleavage. Rory let his hands fall to his sides. "There," he whispered.

  Her breath exhaled in a small moan, and the edges of the jacket inched farther apart. Rory looked up, into Jilly's green eyes. "I'm still hot," he said, holding her gaze as he shrugged out of his shirt.

  Her hand crept toward his bare chest. Jilly's gaze broke from Rory's to watch her own fingers as they moved toward him. Rory's belly clenched in anticipation. God, she was good at this.

  Four fingertips met the wall of his chest, just below his shoulder. He clenched his teeth, his muscles, locked his knees to keep perfectly still as her fingers stroked downward, burning four separate trails, and leaving four separate swaths of goose bumps behind. The nail of her middle finger bumped over his pebbled nipple, and he was so hellishly tense his groan couldn't fight past his tight throat.

  Her fingers met the waistband of his pants and fell away. Her gaze moved up to his. There was something in her eyes—uncertainty? nerves?—but both must be wrong. Even though she was trembling, she played these sexy games too well to be nervous.

  He ran his fingers down her hot cheek anyway, a comforting gesture. "My turn," he said. His fingertips slid inside her tuxedo jacket at her shoulders. He meant to go slow, he meant to build the anticipation just like she had, but God, he didn't have her control. Suddenly he couldn't wait anymore.

  In one quick movement, he jerked the jacket off her shoulders.

  She gasped.

  He thought he just might die. She'd been working up to killing him since the moment he'd met her, and if her hooker high heels or her decadent taste didn't do him in, the heaven-sent abundance of her breasts would take care of it. They spilled over the top of a black, lacy bra, plump and pale, their color as pure as snow dusted with freckles of angel gold.

  Oh, but before they buried him six feet under, he needed more. See more, taste more, have more.

  His hands shook as he grasped the black bra straps and pushed them down her arms. Air dragged in and out of his lungs, rough and painful, as he then pulled on the straps to drag the lace cups over her stiff nipples until the bra settled at her waist.

  She swayed. "Rory," she breathed.

  "Shh." He slid one arm around her back and cupped one breast in his other hand. Its full weight settled hot and sweet into his palm.

  "Rory."

  "Shh." He bent his head, his heart pounding in an unholy, reckless rhythm, and licked her nipple. She cried out, her body arching in a genuine, generous response that wound his arousal even tighter and set his erection throbbing against the black wool of his pants. He licked again, her taste and scent entering his bloodstream, that addictive drug that drove every other need but the need for her from his head.

  His body shook as he bent her over his arm and took her breast in his mouth, sucking on her nipple as if he could fill himself with her taste. In the distance he heard her cry out, and he felt her skin go even hotter.

  His heart was slamming around his body, moving like a pinball from groin to wrist to chest to throat and he needed more Jilly to satisfy it. He lifted his head and gently squeezed her wet nipple between his thumb and forefinger as he moved to take the other in his mouth.

  Her hands buried in his hair, she was rubbing against him, her hips pushing on his arousal, and he felt her movements quicken, thrusting against him in an unmistakable rhythm. God, Rory thought. She's almost there.

  He palmed the tender bud of her nipple one last time, then released the breast he'd been toying with. But he kept sucking her other breast, listening to the beat of his blood, the beat strangely synched to her sinuous movements. His fingers trailed past the bra still fastened about her waist. Flattening his hand, he moved his fingers between their bodies until the tips brushed the vee of her thighs. She was so far gone she didn't even seem to notice, but he shuddered at the heat there and at the telltale dampness.

  "Oh, Jilly," he murmured against her full, hot breast, and then, knowing what she needed, he cupped her firmly, pushing his fingers hard against her.

  Her body jolted. She cried out. Her body shuddered again and again and again.

  He knew when she came back to earth. His mouth drifted reluctantly from her breast up her throat, and he pressed a kiss against her soft, surprised mouth. He looked into her eyes and tenderly stroked her cheek. "Good flight, angel?"

  She looked stunned. "What?"

  He laughed softly, even though his body was aching with the need for a journey of its own. "Are you always so responsive?"

  She blinked. "What?" She shuffled back and he let her go, because her bewilderment was so cute and he enjoyed the idea that he'd shaken up the sexpot. Her arms crossed over her magnificent breasts. "Oh, my God, Rory." Her face flushed bright red.

  He tweaked her nose. "It's okay. I can make it happen again."

  She shook her head, obviously flustered, and backed away. "Oh, no, you can't."

  Now he really laughed, even though the peek of her rosy nipples he could see through her fingers was making the throb in his groin even more painful. "Not your convent sex ed again? Jilly, honey, your choice of partners has been decidedly average if no one has ever proved to you your unlimited, um, capabilities."

  She still looked shocked.

  He reached out toward her. "C'mon, sweetheart, let me take you to bed."

  "No. I told you. I can't." She bent down and picked something up from the floor, throwing it over her nakedness. His shirt. "I took a vow."

  "What?"

  "I said I took a vow."

  Without warning, that gray cloud that was his constant companion once again took on an anvil weight. It fell on his chest, hard and ominous. "A vow? What the hell kind of vow are you talking about?"

  She looked away. "Um. Well. You know."

  Rory sensed southern California in the air, and, of course, disaster. "What kind of vow?"

  Jilly licked her lips, still reddened from his kisses, then met his eyes. "A vow of celibacy. Four years ago I took a vow of celibacy."

  No. No way. He refused to believe it. He
also couldn't believe she'd even said such a stupid thing.

  "Damn it, Jilly! If you don't want to have sex, just say so." He was mad at himself and mad at her and mad at how difficult it was to ignore the pulsing, insistence of his erection. "Just because we—you … fooled around, you're still under no obligation. I thought I explained that. No elaborate excuses are necessary."

  Of course, he was going to have to find the ice machine and then find some way to stuff all six feet of himself inside it, but he meant what he said. Damn it.

  Despite his reassurance, her expression was miserable. "I'm sorry, but it's not an excuse. It's a lifestyle. My lifestyle."

  She couldn't be serious. But she looked serious. Her lifestyle.

  "Why? No." He pinched the bridge of his nose against a sudden headache. "Don't tell me. This is something you cooked up with your astrologer, right?"

  "No, it's not like that at all." Jilly slipped her arms into his shirtsleeves and wrapped the garment tightly around her body. "Maybe you won't understand, but it's like what you said before—about becoming the opposite of what you're raised to be."

  He narrowed his eyes, still not sure he was buying this. "Yeah, but your grandmother sent you to convent school. To—what was her name?—Sister Bernice or whoever. Your grandmother raised you to be celibate."

  "But then expected the opposite when I moved to FreeWest. In her mind, I was my mother all over again. I wanted to prove to her how wrong she was about me. About both of us. Being celibate takes all the guesswork out of a sex life, you see. No disease, no unwanted pregnancy. No emotional mistakes either."

  Rory just stared. To his mind, what Jilly needed was to take her sex a little less seriously. A long weekend on a soft bed with a hard man should do it.

  But he wasn't volunteering for the job, because he could tell by the determined set of her shoulders and the serious pleat of her brow that getting her there would take more effort than he was willing to put forth. Especially for some crazy woman from southern California who'd become the bane of his existence.

  And maybe he even understood a little her fear of emotional mistakes.

  He stalked toward the suite's front door, kicking his tuxedo jacket out of the way in frustration. Really, he should have seen this whole thing coming. He had seen it coming. But she was just so damn difficult to stay away from.

  "Um, Rory."

  He paused. "What now?"

  Her voice was soft, apologetic. "Well, if you need to … if you want me to do something for you…"

  Hell. He kicked his tuxedo jacket again and continued on his way to the door. "Gee, thanks, but no."

  "Where are you going?" Jilly asked.

  He didn't spare her a glance. "To find the ice machine."

  * * *

  Jilly squinted against the afternoon glare coming through the Mercedes's windshield, then slid a glance at the man driving. Despite Rory's quasi-calm exit the night before and his current impassive expression, she could feel his annoyance. He'd spoken only two words since emerging from his bedroom this morning, one being "come" and the other being "on," as a way of telling her it was time to leave for the airport to catch their flight home.

  Now on the way to Things Past from the L.A. airport, she squirmed in her seat, wishing for something to break the monotonous, ominous quiet besides the subdued hum of the luxury car. She cleared her throat.

  Rory didn't take his gaze off the road ahead.

  Jilly couldn't stand the silence, and the tension, any longer. "Aren't you going to say something?"

  There was a long pause. "Like what?" Only his mouth moved.

  Jilly made an impatient gesture. "I don't know. You could say you understand. You could accept my apology. You could yell at me. Something. Anything."

  "Maybe I'm still trying to take it all in."

  She didn't believe that for a minute. He'd taken it all in last night, every word. He just didn't get it. "Can you understand what I have to prove? When I said I was going to take over my mother's business, my grandmother tried to prevent me from leaving her house by saying she loved me and that she needed me. When I still insisted, she instantly predicted all sorts of vile things. Utter failure. Abject poverty. That I'd turn into a tramp like my mother and end up back on her doorstep, pregnant."

  Oh, she'd recognized the desperation in her grandmother's words. The old woman knew she was losing Jilly. But in the name of "love," she had kept Jilly's mother from her and then tried to control her life. This was why Jilly had broken all ties with her grandmother. And why she'd had a private chat last night with Uncle Fitz to make sure that no one in the Blue Party would try to reconnect them.

  "There are ways to prevent pregnancy and disease, Jilly," Rory pointed out.

  "I know that." But there were some lessons not easily undone. After years of nun-training, she couldn't abruptly enter into a casual sexual relationship.

  He shook his head in disbelief. "And in the last four years you've never been tempted?"

  "Never," she answered emphatically. "My friend Kim and I took the vow of celibacy together. Sure, it started out as a pathetic giggle over a cheap bottle of wine, but there was a rightness to it the next morning. And all the days after. No, I can honestly say I've never been tempted."

  "What about last night?"

  Oops. She couldn't quite figure out a way to explain last night … and all the other times with Rory.

  "You let me undress you," he reminded her. "You undressed me. And then you let me—"

  "Okay, okay! I remember it perfectly well." His clever mouth on her breast, his lean cheeks hollowing as he took that part of her inside him. His too-wise fingers finding, touching, pressing, creating perfect pulsing waves of delicious, heated pleasure.

  She squirmed against the soft leather of the seat and cleared her throat again. "It must be an allergic reaction or a nutritional deficit."

  Okay, so that explanation sounded goofy even to her ears, but she had to say something to return their relationship to a less intimate footing. "Maybe I need more leafy green vegetables. Would you mind a quick stop at the whole-foods store so I can stock up?"

  There was an astonished pause, and then he muttered under his breath.

  "What was that?" she asked innocently.

  "Just a prayer. That as soon as I'm out of L.A. the Big Quake hits and dumps this half of the state straight into the Pacific."

  She made a face at him. "You don't mean that."

  "Sweetheart, you don't know how much I mean that."

  He sounded so sure, and so surly, Jilly scooted closer to her window and welcomed the silence that followed. She needed to get away from him. With her nose to the cool glass, she wished for light traffic and a quick trip home.

  * * *

  Rory turned up the Mercedes's air conditioning and tried to muster up some contrition over needling Jilly about the night before. But, dammit, the sex-free package of sensuality beside him deserved a little discomfort for what she'd done to him. Despite all her La-La Land celibate looniness, and even after the roller-coaster ride of the past twenty-four hours, she had a way of insinuating herself into his blood.

  And then turning him upside down. Inside out. Though he'd grabbed control of his life ten years ago, it took only this one woman with her wacky curls and even wackier lifestyle to loosen his grip. God, he had to find a way to deal with her before his entire life spun out of control.

  Even now he could feel the sleek heat of her skin against his fingertips and taste her berried nipples against the roof of his mouth.

  bap bap bap bap

  Rory cursed. The car had drifted to the left and was riding the lane bumps. He quickly jerked the wheel, steering into the lane's center.

  Inhaling a calming breath, he checked the rearview mirror. A battered Chevy was riding the Mercedes's butt. Glancing to his left, he switched lanes, then checked the rearview mirror again. The Chevy had changed lanes, too, and was practically kissing his bumper. "Damn," he muttered.

 
; Watching the cars around him closely, he speeded up and switched lanes again. "Damn it all to hell."

  He could feel Jilly's gaze on him, but he didn't want to take his focus off the traffic. Another car—a Dodge truck—gained on the right, keeping level with them. "We're being followed," he said.

  "No!"

  "Yes. My guess is they picked us up at the airport." Freelance photographers were known to stake out LAX, hoping to catch surprise shots of surprised celebrities. Rory gritted his teeth and pressed on the accelerator. The late Sunday afternoon traffic was thickening and he didn't like the way the Chevy and its buddy the Dodge were boxing him in.

  "The guy over here is gesturing for me to roll down my window," Jilly said.

  "N—" But smoggy L.A. air poured into the car before he could get out the word.

  The Dodge veered dangerously close to Jilly's side. Rory's gut clenched, but with the Chevy behind him and the traffic in front of him, he had no place to go. "Dammit, Jilly. Roll up your window!" He didn't dare take his hand off the wheel to use the driver controls.

  "They need to get out of our way," she said over the wind. "My exit is coming up."

  The Dodge inched even closer. Rory's leg muscles tensed. If the asshole driver caused an accident, if something happened to Jilly, he'd break the guy in two. Rory was counting on the chance to strangle her himself.

  She leaned out the window. "What do you want?" she shouted.

  Oh, Christ. Rory's heart bucked in his chest. The driver was taking photos with one hand while steering with the other. Without thinking, Rory grabbed Jilly's arm and hauled her close. "He wants to get us killed, you idiot. Now roll up your window."

  "They're going to make us miss the exit," Jilly insisted. "We can't miss the exit."

  Rory gritted his teeth again. "To hell with the exit. You're going to Caidwater with me anyway."

  "I want to go home!" But she leaned over to lever up the window and it was suddenly quiet in the car. "I need to go home," she said again.

  Rory's gaze flicked from the Chevy behind him to the Dodge on his right. The damn paparazzi weren't giving up. "No," he said. If the photographers followed them to Things Past, Rory could guarantee only one thing. "If we all end up there, at least one of those bastards will get a camera in his face. Right after my fist."