The Last First Kiss (Harlequin Special Edition)

by Ferrarella, Marie

  “Not anymore,” she corrected, a wide, satisfied grin on her lips.

  He was completely mystified. Gathering together what little strength he had left, Dave propped himself up on one elbow and fixed her with an unwavering gaze, trying to sort things out. And failing miserably.

  “How is that possible?” he wanted to know.

  “Well, you see,” she began calmly, “when little girls are born…”

  Holding on to his temper, Dave let out an impatient breath. “I know how it’s possible,” he bit off. “I’m asking you how the hell you got to be one.”

  “I’m trying to tell you,” she answered innocently, “I started out that way.”

  Damn it, she knew what he meant, he insisted silently. It didn’t make any sense to him. “But you’re thirty.”

  “Nothing gets by you.”

  “You might have a disposition like a viper, but you are beautiful. There had to be all sorts of guys who could put up with that tongue of yours for a little while,” he theorized, then came to the crux of his question. “How the hell did you stay a virgin?”

  “Clean living?” she offered, widening her eyes innocently.

  He was really losing his temper now. She was jerking him around, the way she used to when they were forced to spend their summers together. The memories it brought back were far from sweet.

  “Damn it, Kara,” he snapped. “I’m dealing with monumental guilt here. The least you can do is give me a serious answer to my question.”

  In all the ways she’d pictured him, she’d never envisioned him feeling guilty. It made him seem all too human to her. She felt something beginning to stir inside. Again.

  “There’s nothing to feel guilty about,” she assured him calmly. “In case you didn’t notice, this wasn’t exactly one-sided.” She punctuated her statement with another wide grin.

  Dave let out a ragged breath, then slowly took one in, trying his best to center himself. He didn’t believe in things like Zen, but he knew the merit of breathing correctly. And slowly.

  It helped. A little.

  Okay, he was going to ask one more time. He needed to know and he wanted a straight answer from her. “Why didn’t you ever sleep with anyone before now?”

  Her eyes danced with humor as she looked at him. “If this is what you call sleeping, you must be hell on wheels when you’re awake.”

  Okay, he’d had enough. He’d tried but there was just no winning with this woman. “Damn it, Kara—”

  She held up one hand, the other holding the blanket she’d had across the back of the sofa that was now pressed against her. “Okay, okay, you want an answer, I’ll give you an answer. Because I decided long ago that I wasn’t going to do it just to do it.”

  Her decision, she didn’t tell him, had been arrived at shortly after her father had died. Shortly after her mother’s heart had been broken into so many pieces she’d been afraid it would never work right again. It was also at that time when she’d sworn off getting serious with the male of the species. Ever. And she’d kept her word. Until just now.

  “That the only way I was ever going to wind up naked and spread-eagle with a guy was if my emotions were engaged. So far, they never had been.” She saw the alerted expression on his face and laughed shortly. Just as she’d thought. “Oh, don’t look like Bambi caught in the headlights. Relax, you don’t have anything to worry about. I figured it was high time for me to finally do it, so I decided to do it with someone I’d known forever.” It was a desperate lie, but, she judged, a believable one. “You happened to fall into that category, that’s all. It’s that simple. Scout’s honor,” she added, forming what she hoped was the scout pledge salute.

  Well, it sure as hell didn’t feel simple, not to him, Dave thought. Maybe he was old-fashioned, but he still believed that a girl’s first time was supposed to be something she would remember forever, not something that happened on the spur of the moment on the floor of her apartment.

  “You should have let me know,” he insisted, his voice accusing.

  “I would have, but I must have misplaced my business cards. It’s printed right under my name,” she told him, her face deadly serious. “‘Kara Calhoun, Resident Virgin. Approach at your own risk,’” she concluded with a wicked grin.

  “Can you stop being flippant for one damn minute? Do you think you can do that for me?” he demanded.

  Where did he get off talking to her like that? she thought, annoyed. “I’m not sure. I can try,” she said, acting as if she were as dumb as a proverbial post.

  Dave surprised her by looking at her seriously. “Are you all right with this?” he wanted to know. “I mean…”

  She put her finger to his lips, knowing that he could probably go on and on and say nothing and still feel tortured while he was doing it.

  “I know what you mean,” she assured him, “and I think it’s actually kind of sweet. Yes,” she told him in reply, “I’m all right with this. I would have told you to stop if I’d wanted you to, or if I had a change of heart. That’s why it was all right.”

  He shook his head, slipping his arm back around her and lying down again. “You know I’m never going to understand you.”

  She grinned. “Luckily for you, you don’t have to. Hey, since you broke me in—”

  “Oh God,” he groaned, hating the way that sounded. How could she be so cavalier about something so intimate as making love?

  “Can we do it again?” she continued, looking at him to gauge his response. “I mean, it was nice and— Oh, unless you can’t do it again,” she said suddenly, realizing she might be asking for more than he could deliver at the moment. “I heard that some guys can only do it once, and then they need to recharge. Kind of like a cell phone that loses all its power after a series of calls.”

  He rose on his elbow again to look at her. Dave shook his head. Damn but he should run for the hills before he slipped any further into this field of quicksand he’d wandered into.

  He felt it was a dangerous sign that he really didn’t want to flee. That he wasn’t at least trying to make a run for it. But he didn’t want to. He wanted to be exactly where he was. Here, with her. About to make love with her all over again.

  “You’re insane,” he told her, peering at her face. “You know that, right?”

  “So you keep telling me,” she said with a sigh. “So I take it that’s a no?”

  Curious as to how her brain actually worked, he asked, “Why would you think that would automatically be a no?”

  “Because—” She stopped suddenly, her eyes widening in surprise. And then pleasure. Dave was leaning against her, his still very naked, very rugged body touching hers. In all the right places. Grinning wickedly, she laughed. “Oh, wait, maybe you do want to do it again.”

  The woman would have been downright embarrassing if he wasn’t mercifully past that point with her. “Kara?”

  Settling in against him, anticipation humming through her veins, she turned her face up to his. “What?” she asked, her voice almost melodic.

  The order was short and to the point. “Shut up.”

  She grinned. Dave was so predictable. In an odd sort of way, she found that comforting. “Okay, I can do that.”

  “I sincerely doubt it,” he replied.

  There was no such thing as true silence with Kara, only less talking. And then, to keep her from saying another word, he did the only thing he could. He effectively sealed his mouth to hers.

  And with that, they began the sultry, stimulating dance all over again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sleep slowly peeled away from Kara’s brain one layer at a time.

  When she finally opened her eyes to the intrusive early-dawn light, she discovered that she was curled up against D
ave with her arm splayed possessively across his chest.

  Startled, shaken, she nearly bolted upright and pulled her arm away. At the last minute, she managed to stop herself.

  Kara slowly exhaled a sigh of relief. She was certain that the sudden movement would have woken Dave up, and she wasn’t ready for that yet. She had no idea what to say. She’d never had a “morning after” conversation, mainly because she’d never had a “morning after”—or “a night before” for that matter.

  And even if she’d had one of those nights in her past, it definitely wouldn’t have prepared her for this, for waking up and finding herself next to Dave, still apparently as naked as the day she was born.

  And so, from what she could detect, was he.

  What the hell had she been thinking? How in heaven’s name had she allowed this whole situation to get so far out of control?

  She knew the story that she’d given Dave, one she’d made up on the spur of the moment, but it had been a lie. She had no overwhelming desire to join the huge ranks of the nonvirgins. Old-fashioned though it might sound, she actually—until last night—had felt that lovemaking was supposed to happen with someone who meant something to her. With someone who meant everything to her, not someone with whom she engaged in frequent verbal sparring matches.

  Damn it, what had she been thinking? Or, more to the point, why hadn’t she been thinking? What was it about her childhood arch enemy, her irritating-as-hell adolescent nemesis, that turned her into an eager participant in the lovemaking game?

  And why the hell was she smiling like the Cheshire cat?

  Despite her mental upbraiding, Kara could still feel her lips curving. Amid the nerve endings that were standing at attention, all on high alert, she could feel an unaccountable surge of, well, happiness for lack of a better word.

  Damn it, she didn’t want to be happy about this, couldn’t be happy about this. She and Dave didn’t have a relationship, not the kind that didn’t require sharpened tongues at ten paces, at any rate. There was no future in this—not a single chance in hell. It would be like allowing herself to fall in love with a fictional character, someone like Shakespeare’s Romeo.

  No, not Romeo, she amended. There was no way anyone would ever mistake the very precise, exceedingly straitlaced and orderly Dr. Dave Scarlatti for the impetuously passionate character Shakespeare had penned. If she had to compare him to a fictional character, Dave was more like the stern, honorable Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird, more prone to loving principles than a flesh-and-blood woman.

  No, not him, either, she thought in the next moment, rejecting that image. God, but she felt confused.

  There was a headache growing between her eyes.

  “A penny for your thoughts.”

  Her heart slammed into her rib cage at the sound of his voice. Kara clamped her lips together to keep from uttering a gasp. She’d thought he was still asleep.

  Recovering, she took a breath to steady her nerves. “Sorry, at this point my thoughts are up to at least five-fifty.”

  “Five-fifty? Inflation’s a bear,” he commented with a laugh. He studied her face for a moment, making a judgment call. “Okay, I’m good for it. What are you thinking about?”

  There was no time to be creative, or even make up a last-minute lie. That left her no choice but to go with the truth, odd though it might sound. “What fictional character you’re most like.”

  “And?” he asked. “What conclusion did you come to?” This should be interesting, he couldn’t help thinking, bracing himself.

  She shrugged, her blond hair brushing along her bare shoulder. “I can’t come up with anyone.”

  “That means I’m either very unique, or so nondescript I don’t even leave an impression,” he theorized, amused. His eyes on hers, he asked, “Which is it?”

  She sighed again. Why did he scramble her insides this way? Why, with all the men she interacted with—her field was still dominated by mostly males of all ages—did he turn out to be the one who lit her fire?

  “I’ll let you know when I figure it out. So, until then—”

  She was about to wiggle her way out of bed, taking the blanket with her to cover up, when her phone rang. Now what?

  Nobody ever called her at this hour in the morning, not if they didn’t want their head taken off. They knew better.

  Kara was tempted not to answer it, but one glance at caller ID told her that her mother was on the other end. She had a better chance of growing six inches in the next half hour than she did of avoiding her mother. There was no escaping the woman. Paulette Calhoun would just keep calling and calling all day long, not leaving any messages, until the receiver was finally picked up.

  Better to face the music now than listen to the intro all day long, anticipating some kind of dire repercussions, coming up with scenarios in her head that were probably way off.

  Exhaling loudly, she silently counted to ten and then yanked the receiver off its cradle, pressing it against her ear. “Good morning, Mother. My, you’re up early,” she noted with sarcasm.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” her mother confessed, as if imparting some sort of dark secret.

  Tell me about it. Kara could remember being grilled by her mother as a teenager—where she went, who she went with, all the typical mother questions. These days she understood better why her mother had done it, but at the time, it seemed like a huge invasion of privacy.

  Right now, of course, it still was.

  “They have pills for that, Mother. Pop two and sleep until morning,” she recommended cheerfully.

  Since her daughter wasn’t asking her what was keeping her up, Paulette volunteered the information. “I kept thinking about you and Dave.”

  Kara’s eyes narrowed. There wasn’t even an attempt at subtlety on her mother’s part. “They have pills for that, too. You can find them in the reality section of your local pharmacy.”

  It was obvious to Kara that her mother had no intentions of allowing herself to be drawn into a verbal sparring match. “Did you bring Dave’s car to him?”

  Here came the headache, full force, Kara thought. “That I did.”

  “And?” Her mother made no attempt to hide the eagerness in her voice.

  “And he took it, just as you might have suspected, Mother.” What did the woman want from her? A blow-by-blow statement written in blood?

  She could almost see her mother shaking her head. “How did you ever get so sarcastic?”

  “It’s a gift,” Kara quipped. “Did you call for something specific, Mother? Or just to harass me in general?”

  “I just wanted to know if you saw Dave last night after you took off from the fair, that’s all,” her mother answered.

  “I gave him his car, so I pretty much would have had to see him, now, wouldn’t I, Mother?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Dave taking this all in. And grinning, damn him.

  “If you gave him the car, how did you get home, dear?” her mother asked innocently.

  She was fishing, Kara thought. And being painfully obvious about it. “He drove me, Mother.”

  “And let you off at your door?” her mother guessed innocently.

  It was official. The headache had exploded all over her forehead. “Instead of playing twenty questions, Mom, why don’t you just invest in a surveillance camera so you can have all your questions answered before you even have to ask them.”

  Her mother absolutely refused to get angry and hang up. “Then what would we have to talk about?” she asked innocently.

  “Normal things,” Kara shot back.

  “Asking about my daughter’s social life is a normal thing, dear,” her mother pointed out. “At least, it is to everyone but you.”

  Completely distracted by her mother,
Kara wasn’t prepared to suddenly feel Dave’s hand brush up against her inner thigh and definitely wasn’t prepared to feel that immediate, intense reaction to him that was now ripping through her like a tornado. She let out a gasp.

  “Did you just yelp?” Paulette asked, picking up on the sudden sound.

  Kara swallowed a curse. That was a dirty trick, she thought angrily.

  “No,” Kara denied with feeling, batting away Dave’s hand and glaring at him. What had gotten into him? “No, I didn’t yelp. Must be something wrong with the connection.”

  She didn’t like the long, drawn-out pause on the other end of the line. She could only surmise that her mother must be thinking, and that was never a good thing. Her mother possessed far too fertile an imagination.

  “Kara, is he there with you right now?” her mother asked suddenly.

  She was right. This wasn’t good. Rather than just wasting her breath with a denial, Kara turned the tables and asked her a question. “What makes you think that, Mother?”

  The answer came with no hesitation. “Because I can hear him breathing.”

  That was absurd. Kara couldn’t even hear him breathing. She could, however, much to her downfall, feel him breathing, because his breath was trailing along her neck and upper torso and swiftly undoing her.

  “No, you can’t,” Kara insisted.

  “Aha, so he is there.” Her mother sounded imminently pleased with herself. Too late Kara realized that she’d fallen for the trap. “Give him the phone, Kara.”

  Kara blew out an annoyed breath, knowing it was utterly useless to argue with her mother. So far, the woman was winning all the points.

  “Here,” she muttered, holding out the receiver to Dave. “My mother wants to talk to you.”

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. Dave took the phone from her and put it to his ear. “Hello, Mrs. Calhoun, how are you?”

  Kara closed her eyes. This whole scenario was just too bizarre for words.

  “I’m fine, Dave, thank you. Tell me, how did that little emergency of yours go yesterday? Is the little boy all right?”