Still Lake - Anne Stuart [97]
“There’s only one thing that would get me to kiss a girl on a first date,” he said. “If I was falling in love with her.”
“Well, then, I guess I’m flat out of luck….” Her words were silenced by his mouth on hers.
It was quite a kiss for such a well-behaved young man. No groping hands, but he didn’t need to. He was a very good kisser. Maybe the best she’d ever kissed. And then she stopped thinking and kissed him back.
When he drew away she stared at him, confused, entranced, half crazy. “See you tomorrow, Marthe,” he said cheerfully, and bounded off the porch.
She could see the grin on his face as he got into the truck and drove away. He was pretty pleased with himself, she thought. Well, she was pretty damned pleased with him, as well.
She stayed on the porch until his taillights disappeared into the night, then she opened the kitchen door, ready to face her disapproving, eavesdropping sister.
Doc was sitting at the kitchen table, alone, a cup of coffee beside him, a genial expression on his face.
“Hello, Marty,” he greeted her warmly.
And then she saw the gun.
Griffin liked the expression of outrage on Sophie’s pale face. Hell, he liked everything about her, from her surprisingly long, gorgeous legs beneath the tattered skirt to her lush breasts. He liked her full, sweet mouth, he liked her soft, clever hands, and he wanted them on his body.
He pulled off his T-shirt. There was no such thing as a warm night in August in Vermont, but it was close enough, and the slightly cool air touching his skin merely made him hotter.
“What are you doing?”
“Guess,” he said, reaching for his zipper.
She let out a protesting shriek. “I didn’t say I would.”
He unfastened the button, letting the zipper ride over his erection as he reached for her. “You didn’t need to,” he said, unbuttoning the row of tiny buttons down the front of that stupid thing she was wearing. The buttons went all the way to the ripped hem, and it required great concentration to undo them all, when he wanted nothing more than to rip them off and pull her across the table and wrap her legs around his hips. “Just once,” he said under his breath, “I would like to see you in something skimpy. Something that clings to your body and doesn’t end at your goddamn ankles.” He reached the last button, and spread open the jumper, only to find a ruffled petticoat beneath it.
He cursed. “This is like trying to strip a nun. What am I going to find next, a chastity belt?”
“A little late for that,” she said in a shaky voice.
She was still frightened of him. Not afraid that he was a killer, but afraid of sex. Of him making love to her, even though she wanted it almost as much as he did. Hell, she had to want it, since she was still here and hadn’t run screaming into the woods again.
He slid his hands up her legs, slowly, beneath the ruffled petticoat, and her eyes widened. She made a soft, gasping noise when he reached her hips. He was half expecting bloomers, or at least some enveloping cotton panties. Instead his hands reached thin strips of silk.
He pushed the petticoat up to her waist, exposing what looked like white-lace thong panties. “Now, that’s more like it,” he said. “Come here.” He pulled her off the table, into his arms, and began to strip the layers of clothes off her and toss them on the table.
He found her bra to be as stimulating as her almost-nonexistent panties. Her breasts were magnificent—there was no other word for them. Full, luscious globes of pearly satin, spilling out of the lacy cups of her bra. It would have been enough to finish a lesser man.
He left the underwear on her. After all, she’d worn it for a purpose, and he had every intention of putting it to good use. “Get up on the table,” he said, his voice tense.
She did, dressed only in her skimpy lace underwear, and she gave him a worried look. He leaned forward and nipped her lace-covered breast