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I rubbed my hand against my face, feeling around instinctively with my senses for a way through this maze. But I couldn’t turn around and go back. That was not an option.
I flung the door of the truck open. The rain on the earth had released a deep, sweet, spicy perfume, just like hers. Raindrops pattered heavily down onto my head, my shoulders. I circled the old truck, and stood outside the passenger-side door, staring into Nancy’s big, worried eyes through the rain-spotted glass.
I mimed rolling down the window. She did so, frowning in perplexity.
“What are you doing out there in the pouring rain?”
“Proving a point,” I said. “Continuing our conversation. You need control? Fine. Take control. The car door’s the limit, and I will not violate it. I swear upon my sacred honor that I will not touch any part of you that’s inside that truck door.”
She looked away with a nervous, embarrassed laugh. “Liam. Come on. You don’t have to play elaborate games like that. You’re getting soaked.”
“That’s my problem, not yours,” I told her.
“But it makes me feel guilty!”
Ah, yes. Progress. “Guilt is your problem. I can’t help with that. Sorry.”
She laughed, and something primitive inside me capered with glee. Yes. It was working. She was lightening up. Praise God.
“So?” Her eyes sparkled. “You’re just going to stand out there and get drenched, then? That’s so silly, Liam. And completely unnecessary.”
“It’s a crafty attempt to disarm you with my gallant moves,” I told her. “Is it working? Are you charmed? Disarmed?”
She wrinkled her nose and leaned out the window a little. “Nope. I think you’re out of your freaking mind.”
I felt jubilant as I sensed the change in her energy. “You’re charmed,” I said softly. “You’re also outside the established limit. Any part of you outside the plane of the truck’s window is fair game, remember? Which means that the tip of your nose and your forehead are currently at risk of getting kissed. This is a courtesy warning.”
“Very gentlemanly of you,” she said demurely.
“I’m trying,” I said, with stark sincerity.
She didn’t pull back. In fact, she leaned farther out, her fingers curled over the truck’s door.
I jerked my chin toward her hands. “You’re outside the limit,” I reminded her.
Her lips formed words that didn’t quite make it out of her mouth. She swallowed and tried again. “I know,” she whispered.
My heart thudded harder. The force of the rain was increasing. The patter beginning to pound, soaking my hair, beading on my face and hers.
Over the limit. Fair game. She’d been warned.
I reached out slowly, as if she were a bird that might take flight at any sudden movement, and touched the backs of her cool, slender fingers. Wet with rain.
Unexpectedly, her hands turned beneath mine, and excitement jolted through my chest. Palm up, like flowers, blooming beneath my hands. Fingers opening like petals.
I leaned closer. The rain murmured, pattering against the earth in a soft sigh. She glowed like a pearl, a faint blush of pink in her cheeks. Her huge eyes were wide and luminous, a greenish amber-brown, like leaves in the water. Her pupils dilated, deep and endless and inviting. There was a ruddy sprinkle of freckles on her nose. A frivolous detail that made her beauty even more earthy, more kissable.
The drops of water beading her forehead and cheeks were glittering adornments. They trembled on the grain of her dark eyebrows and clung to her thick mahogany hair, making the jut of her sharp cheekbone gleam. I was dazzled. Lost.
She extricated her hand and stroked my face from cheekbone to jaw. The trail of her finger was a path of light, like moonlight on water. Rain dripped into my collar, soaking my shoulders. It defined the dimensions of this liquid otherworld: pearly gray, green, brown, silvery, glittering and cool. Beneath that was Nancy’s secret, hidden heat. The blush in her cheeks, the warmth of her lips, all sweet with rain. Her scent, so elusive and maddening, vanishing like a violet’s perfume every time I tried to inhale it.
I swayed closer. Our lips touched.
The kiss pierced through me and broke something open. I clutched the edge of the door to steady myself. That shy, cautious, trembling kiss moved me. My eyes were wet.
Luckily, my face was already soaked with rain. Keep it together, Knightly.
I closed my eyes, drank in her scent, savored the delicate, silky texture of the inside skin of her lips, the uncertain flick of her shy tongue. I drank it up, slowly, tasting every drop. Like fine liquor. So much the sweeter for being given, not taken.