Page 30 of Can't Fight the Moonlight

"I know that."

Despite their agreement, neither one of them seemed able to look away, to break the connection. The air between them grew tense and filled with electricity. He felt an irresistible pull to Lizzie, and he didn't feel like fighting it, especially not when he could see the same hunger in her gaze. Just a kiss.What was the harm?

Before he could let an answer come to mind, he leaned forward, putting one hand behind her head as he pressed his mouth against hers. Her lips were sweet and hot, and they parted eagerly for his kiss. With her hunger matching his own, he angled his head and took the kiss deeper. It felt so easy, so familiar, so perfect… Which almost made him pull back, because perfect scared him. But she tasted too good, and he felt like he'd been needing this kind of a kiss for a long time.

Finally, Lizzie pulled away, stopping the madness. She gave him a breathless smile, her eyes lit up in the moonlight. "So…that happened."

"It turns out it was a good idea after all," he said.

"For now."

"Do we have to worry about any other time but now? You just said I should take a minute once in a while. I was just following your advice."

"That wasn't what I had in mind. But it was…nice."

He didn't particularly care for the lukewarm adjective, but she was already on her feet.

"Are we leaving?" he asked, as he stood up.

"I need to get back to the inn. My minute is over."

"All right."

He followed her down the path, feeling awash in a swirling silence of emotions, unspoken words, and a conflicting desire to turn back time or just stop and kiss her again.

Maybe giving in to his desire hadn't been a good idea after all, because now he wanted more.

Chapter Six

She should say something,but she didn't know what to say. Lizzie dug her hands into the pockets of her jacket as she walked back to the inn with Justin. He didn't seem to know what to say, either, and quiet surrounded them as they made their way through the park. It was getting colder, too, or maybe it just felt that way with the new tension between them.

She'd never expected their walk to the lake to end in a fairly spectacular series of kisses. One minute they'd been chatting about family and work stuff, and the next minute they were tangled up in each other's arms.

Justin had kissed like he did everything else, with a confident, hungry impatience, and that hunger for her had ratcheted up her own desire. She hadn't felt so caught up in a man in a very long time, and the attraction had swept her away in a tidal wave of feeling.

Passion had not been part of her life this past year. The few dates she'd had, the couple of men she'd kissed, now seemed rather pale in comparison to Justin. Those kisses had been nice but not heart-stopping, and while she'd told Justin his kiss was nice, too, it was only because she hadn't been able to come up with a better word or a way to describe just how he'd made her feel.

Justin had woken something up inside her, and she really, really hoped she could get that something to go back to sleep, because this was the wrong man, the wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong everything…

At least she'd had the willpower to stop things from going any further. When they got back to the inn, Justin would go his way, and she would go hers. Their kiss would just be a memory of an impulsive, moonlight moment that would never be repeated. Maybe Justin was a world-class kisser, but he would never be part of her world. While a fling could be fun, she didn't have time for that, and deep in her heart she knew that she wasn't really a fling kind of girl. Although, maybe she should be. She worked hard. She deserved some fun, too.

Not that kind of fun, she told herself, wishing her brain and her body weren't suddenly at war. That wouldn't be helpful. She needed to focus on her work, on her dream. Getting distracted now could be a disaster.

As they walked up the steps to the inn, Justin suddenly broke the silence.

"Do you want me to apologize, Lizzie?"

She paused in front of the door, looking him straight in the eye for the first time. "No. It was just a kiss, a really good kiss," she found herself admitting.

"I thought so, too. And I likereally goodbetter thannice, which is what you said before."

"I might have been trying to downplay it," she admitted. "The thing is, Justin, I'm not interested in a one-night stand, and that's all this could be."

"I am here for five nights," he said lightly. "We could have a lot of fun in five nights. And I think you challenged me to fun earlier."

"That was for karaoke, and while you did rise to my challenge, I can't take it any further. I have so much work on my plate right now. I'm juggling a lot of balls in the air. You, of all people, should be able to understand that."

"I do understand. I've actually said the very same thing."

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