Christy McKellen - Mills & Boon Showcase

And here he was, against all resolutions, kissing her.

Her lips were warm and pliant beneath his. Her breasts were pressed to his chest. Her eyes, startled at first, were filled with an expression of bliss.

He shouldn’t be kissing her. Starting things he could not finish. Risking pain for both of them. But those thoughts were lost in the wonder of having her close to him again.

It was as if the twelve years between kisses had never happened.

He twined his hands in her shiny vanilla-scented hair, tilted her head back as he deepened the kiss, pushed against her lips with his tongue. Her mouth parted to welcome him, to meet the tip of his tongue with hers.

She made a small murmur of appreciation and wound her arms around his neck. His arms slid to her waist, to the smooth, warm skin where her top stopped, drawing her close. He could feel her heart thudding against his chest.

He wanted her. She could surely feel his arousal. But this wasn’t just about sex. It had always been so much more than that with Sandy.

The world shrank to just him and her, and the surf was a muted pounding that echoed the pulsing of their hearts, the blood running hot through his veins.

He could feel her nipples hard against him. Sensed the shiver of pleasure that vibrated through her. He pulled her tighter, wanting her as close to him as she could be.

But then something landed near his foot, accompanied by a piteous whining. Hobo. The driftwood. Damn!

He ignored it. Sand was dug in a flurry around them, stinging his legs. The whining turned to sharp, demanding barks.

Inwardly he cursed. Willed Hobo to go away. But the dog just kept on digging and barking. Ben broke away from the first time he’d kissed Sandy in twelve years for long enough to mutter, ‘Get lost, boy.’

But when he quickly reclaimed Sandy’s lips she was trembling. Not with passion but repressed laughter. ‘He’s not going to go away, you know,’ she murmured against his mouth.

Ben groaned. He swore. He leaned down, grabbed the driftwood and threw it as far away as he could—so hard he nearly wrenched his shoulder.

Now Sandy was bent over with laughter. ‘He wasn’t going to let up, was he?’

Ben cursed his dog again.

‘I know you don’t really mean that,’ she said, with a mischievous tilt to her mouth. ‘Poor Hobo.’

‘Back to the shelter for him,’ Ben growled.

‘As if,’ said Sandy.

She looked up to him, her eyes still dancing with laughter. She looked as though she’d been thoroughly kissed. He didn’t shave until after his morning surf and her chin was all pink from his beard. He felt a surge of possessiveness so fierce it was primal.

‘That...that was nice, Ben.’

Nice? He struggled for a word to sum up what it had meant to him. When he didn’t reply straight away, the soft, satisfied light of a woman who knew she was desired seemed to dim in her eyes.

‘More than nice,’ he said, and her eyes lit up again.

He reached out to smooth that wayward lock of hair from her eyes. She caught his hand with hers and dropped a quick kiss on it before she let it go.

‘Why did you kiss me, Ben, when with every second breath you’re telling me go away?’

Did he know the answer himself? ‘Because I—’

He couldn’t find the words to say, Because you’re Sandy, and you’re beautiful, and I still can’t believe you’ve come back to me, but I’m afraid to let you in because I don’t want to love you and then lose you again.

Her eyes were huge in her flushed face. She’d got damp from hugging him while he was still wet from the surf. Her tank top clung to her curves, her nipples standing erect through the layers of fabric.

She ran the edge of her pink pointy tongue along her lips to moisten her mouth. He watched, fascinated, aching to kiss her again.

A tremor edged her voice. ‘It’s still there, isn’t it, Ben? That attraction. That feeling there isn’t anyone else in this world at this moment but you and me. It was like that from the start and it hasn’t changed.’ She took a deep gulp of air. ‘If only...’

He clenched his fists so hard his scars ached. ‘I told you—no if-onlys. That—the kiss—it shouldn’t have happened.’

‘Why not?’ Her eyes were still huge. ‘We’re both free. Grown-up now and able to choose what we want from our lives, choose who we want to be with.’

Choose to leave when we want to.

Even after that one brief kiss he could feel what it would be like, having found her, to lose her again. He’d managed fine these past years on his own. He couldn’t endure the pain of loss again.

She looked very serious, her brow creased. ‘That time we had together all those years ago was so special. I don’t know about you, but I was too young to appreciate just how special. I never again felt that certainty, that rightness. Maybe this unexpected time together is a gift. For us to get to know each other again. Or...or...maybe we have to try it again so that we can let it go. Have you thought of that?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not that easy, Sandy.’

‘Of course it isn’t easy. It isn’t easy for me either. I’m not in a rush to get my heart broken again.’

He noticed again the shadows under her eyes. Remembered her ex had got married yesterday. Typically, she wasn’t letting on about her pain. But it was there.

‘I can see that,’ he said.

He was glad the beach was practically deserted, with just a few people walking along the hard, damp sand at the edge of the waves, others still in the surf. Hobo romped with another dog in the shallows.

Her voice was low and intense. ‘Maybe if we gave it a go we’d...we’d burn it out.’

‘You think so?’ He couldn’t keep the cynicism from his voice.

She threw up her hands. ‘Who knows? After all this time we don’t really know what the other is like now. Grown-up Sandy. Grown-up Ben. We might hate each other.’

‘I can’t see that happening.’ Hate Sandy? No way. Never.

She scuffed the sand with her bare toes, not meeting his eyes. ‘How do you know? I like to put a positive spin on things when I can. But, fact is, I haven’t had a lot of luck with men. When I started dating—after I gave up on us seeing each other again—it seemed to me there were two types of men: nice ones, like you, who would ultimately betray me—’

He growled his protest.

She looked back up at him. ‘I know now it was a misunderstanding between us, but I didn’t know that then. If anyone betrayed me it was my father. By lying to me about you. By cheating on our family.’

He didn’t disagree. ‘And the second type of man?’

‘Forceful, controlling guys—’

‘Like your father?’

She nodded. ‘They’d convince me they knew what was best for me. I’d be in too deep before I realised they had anything but my interests at heart. But obviously I must have been at fault, too, when things went wrong.’

‘You’re too hard on yourself.’ He hated to see the tight expression on her face.

Her mouth twisted into an excuse of a smile. ‘Am I? Even little things about a person can get annoying. Jason used to hate that I never replaced the empty toilet roll. It was only because the fancy holder he installed ruined my nails when I tried, but—’

Ben couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘What kind of a loser was this guy?’

‘He wasn’t a loser. He was smart. Clever. It seemed I could be myself with him. I thought at last I’d found Mr Perfect. But that was one of the reasons he gave for falling out of love with me.’ She bit down hard on her lower lip. ‘And he said I was noisy and a show-off.’

Ben was so astounded he couldn’t find an appropriate response.

Her eyes flickered to his face and then away. ‘When I first knew him he said I lit up a room just by coming into it. Effervescent was the word he used. By the end he said I embarrassed him with my loud behaviour.’