Second Chance Pass (Virgin River #5)(97)

“There wasn’t.”

“There was,” he insisted. He put his lips there again. Barely touching. He ran his tongue along her upper lip. “Tear,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

Her eyes closed and another tear squeezed out and ran down her cheek. He was right on it, kissing it dry. It took many soft kisses. “No one should make you cry like this. Tell me who he is. I’ll kill him for you.”

“I wasted so much time on him,” she said with a hiccup of emotion.

He kissed her eyes. “He’s a dick,” he said. “Worse. He’s a stupid dick.”

She responded with a small, whimpering laugh.

He pulled her closer, slipped his arms around her and lowered his head to kiss her neck.

“There are no tears there,” she said in a whisper.

“I know that now,” he said. “Do you have any idea how good you smell?”

“Of course. I meant to smell this way,” she said. Her hands were on his arms. Not embracing, but not pushing him away. “Do you do this a lot?”

“I’ve never done this before,” he said.

“You’re such a liar,” she said softly. “I bet you pick up girls all the time.”

He lifted his head. “I try,” he admitted. “It doesn’t work that often. And I swear, I have never found a beautiful woman crying over some jerk and kissed her tears away. Never. But I think I like it. And I’m getting good at it.”

“Not too bad,” she said with a sigh, laying her head on his shoulder. “For an amateur.”

He chuckled. “Nikki, you’re beautiful and sexy. And funny. You shouldn’t be treated badly by anyone. No one should make you cry. Ever.”

“Believe me, I want you to be right.”

“Oh, I’m right.” He touched her lips again, a little more firmly this time. He moved over them tenderly. “I think you’re starting to feel a little better.”

“Not yet,” she said, her eyes closing as she leaned into his kiss again.

Something happened inside Joe’s head, inside his chest. There was a kind of lightness and fullness at the same time. He opened his lips as he kissed her, tasting her mouth, and she was delicious. In fact, she tasted even better than she smelled and he was falling headlong into her. Whoa, he thought. I’m wanting this girl, this woman. I want the maid of honor. She opened her lips under his and allowed his tongue inside and it brought a thrilled, lusty moan from him. He held her close against him, probing the inside of her mouth. No way he was letting her go, now that he finally had her in his arms. Her arms went around his neck, yielding to the kiss, making small noises that were not associated with crying. He found himself thinking, Paul is going to kill me. I’m thinking carnal thoughts about the maid of honor and how to get her out of this pink dress and Paul is going to kill me.

But I will die happy, he further thought.

He pulled away from her just a bit, whispering against her lips, “That’s what you needed. You needed to be kissed.”

“Possibly,” she whispered.

“We should be sure,” he said, covering her mouth again. And again, tongues played, lips moved. He ran a hand down her hair and found it felt as soft as it looked—pure silk. The softest thing he’d ever touched. He scrunched up a handful at the base of her neck. “God,” he whispered, in awe of the texture. “God.”

“We hardly know each other,” she said again, but she said it while her lips were still in contact with his.

“Yeah…but that’s a short-term problem. We’re going to get to know each other lots better.”

Like an answer to a prayer, she came to his lips with hunger, thrusting her small tongue inside, moaning softly as she did so. He ran his hand down to the small of her back and pulled her against him. He devoured her lips for a full minute, for two full minutes. Three. A light from the great room inside the house flicked off, leaving the deck that much darker and he became intoxicated with the taste of her, the feel of her small body molded to his. With a will of its own, his hand brushed against her breast and if he wasn’t mistaken, she kissed him harder, deeper. He could feel an erect nipple under the silk of her dress and he ran his thumb over it, bringing a sigh from her. She didn’t push his hand away. His lips slipped to her neck. “Yeah. You’re starting to feel better I think.”

“Maybe. Just a little.”

He couldn’t hold it back any longer; he was aroused. Erect. Damn. This was going to put him in a tough spot, because this reaction always made it a lot more difficult to think straight. It was a real challenge to be sensible. Logical. Thoughts of Paul killing him for making love to the maid of honor fled from his mind, replaced with obsessive thoughts of what his lips around that nipple would feel like. He lowered his head to check. He was absolutely right—it felt perfect. Even through the dress.

“Maybe we shouldn’t get any more worked up,” she said in a whisper.

“Whatever you say,” he replied, but he was agonizingly unable to lift his head. He was busy putting small kisses on her breast, her neck, her shoulder. He ran a hand down her back, over her bum, down her thigh. He accidentally found that slit in her dress and before he knew it, his hand was inside. “Oh God, Nikki. I’m a dead man.”

“You’re not doing too bad for a corpse,” she said.