Page 71 of A Country Practice Christmas
‘I like your property.’
He cups my face, tips up my chin. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘What?’
‘How many relationships have you had?’
‘Why would you want to know that?’
‘Humour me.’
‘One on and off, but it wasn’t serious. I’ve never wanted that.’
A frown. ‘I’ve had a lot of relationships, but nothing long term.’
I flatten my hands on his chest. Hard and warm. ‘Why did you want to know about relationships?’
‘I want to kiss you.’ His heart is beating just as fast as mine. His eyes are bright green, his lips are slightly apart. ‘But I don’t want to scare you.’
The tingling sensation at the base of my stomach sinks lower. I lift my hand and search for the place where his messy lion hair kinks at his neck and thread my fingers through it.
‘I can kiss you instead.’
When I touch his bottom lip with my tongue, he growls low in his throat and I pull back.
‘Is that all right?’
‘Yes.’ He dips his head and smiles against my mouth. And then, lips firm but cautious, he explores my mouth thoroughly but carefully. Passion, yes. Tongue, not yet. My breasts ache. A wondrous heat pools between my thighs. When I slide my hands from his neck to his shoulders to his chest, he kisses one eye and then the other.
‘You smell nice.’ My voice squeaks.
‘I want you, Amelie.’ The pulse in his jaw beats as frantically as my heart. He slides his mouth against mine, but his shoulders are tense, as if he’s holding back. I put my hand on the side of his face and touch his mouth.
‘You don’t have to take care of me, Cameron. You don’t have to be careful of me.’
‘I think I do.’ He’s so very serious.
This time I touch his top lip with my tongue. ‘I trust you.’
Blue eyes on green, we stare at each other.
And then he takes control. No more careful kisses, no more cautious exploration. This kiss takes over not only my mouth but my body and my thoughts as his tongue goes to places that I didn’t know a tongue could go. I must be breathing more than just through him, but how could that be when his lips are on mine and his tongue is circling my own?
When his hand slips from my waist to the side of my breast, my knees wobble.
He stills. ‘Can I touch you here?’
‘Yes.’ When I lean into him, he slides a leg between mine. My breath hitches and I hold back a moan. After freeing my lip from my teeth, he kisses me again, a long wet kiss in which the strokes of his tongue echo the strokes of his thumb on my breast.
‘Cameron …’
He lifts his head and searches my face before lifting me onto his workbench as if I weigh nothing. When I open my legs, he steps into the space and I wrap my legs around his waist.
‘Is that better?’
I wriggle even closer. ‘Yes.’
He kisses me again, a slow and searching kiss as I explore his chest and shoulders and down his back. I’ve stood on my own two feet for such a long time but he said he wants me and he doesn’t lie, so just for a little while I can lean against him. His breathing, his mumbled endearments, his groans when I trail kisses from his throat to his sternum to his chest. I’m a tangle of feelings and a mess of sensations and maybe he is too.
