“Yes. Sometimes words are inadequate between a man and a woman. They obstruct the essential truth. Sex is honesty. Pleasure is truth.” Yet sex was really only a transitory escape from loneliness.
“Don’t play with me,” she whispered. “I don’t like games—or being the brunt of jokes.”
“You think I’m playing games?”
“I think I’m convenient. If we were anyplace else, you wouldn’t look twice at me.”
She was wrong. He had noticed her before, and she’d rebuffed him. The rejection had surprised as much as stung him.
“That’s not true,” he said. “Maybe you don’t remember the first time we met?”
“Yes, I remember all of it,” she answered.
“And?” he prompted.
“I didn’t trust you.”
“Why not? You thought I only wanted to use you?”
“Yes.”
“And now?” he asked.
She hesitated. “I don’t know. You made it obvious from the start that you didn’t want me around. I don’t understand the sudden turnabout. I’m not sure what I think.”
“As I said before, you think too much.”
*
Miranda was freezing cold, but she was also terrified. Of him. Of the feelings he’d roused in her.
He reached out his hand, beckoning softly. “Don’t be foolish, Miranda. Come and get warm.”
Tamping down her trepidations, she rose and settled herself lengthwise beside him. His arm came around her, wrapping her in his blanket, and instantly cocooning her in his body heat. He pulled her closer against him and nuzzled into her hair. “I don’t understand you at all, Miranda…but I like how you smell.”
She relaxed. “You do?”
“Yes. I do.” He burrowed into her neck, his breath hot and his lips soft. “Very much.”
She whispered back, “If we’re making confessions, I like how you feel.”
“Is that so?” He rolled her onto her back so that his body lay on top of hers. His mouth stretched into a slow smile. “Is there a particular part of me you like?”
Her face heated. If she’d had any doubt his desire was real, the proof was palpable through two layers of thick denim. “Um…maybe that didn’t come out quite right. I meant that you make me feel safe.”
“Safe?” His thumb skirted softly over her lips. “Maybe you aren’t as safe as you think.” He added in a tone that made her shiver with anticipation, “I think perhaps Goldilocks is about to discover that the old woman is really a big bad wolf.”
“You’re mixing up the stories, Keith. Goldilocks was with the three bears. Little Red Riding Hood was with the wolf.”
“You make films your way, and let me tell the stories,” he said. “Storytelling is in my blood, after all.”
“All right, then. Have it your way. Tell me this story about Goldilocks and the Big Bad Wolf.”
He flashed a big, bad lupine grin. “My version begins much the same as what you have heard before, but when Goldilocks enters her grandmother’s tepee, she exclaims, ‘Huttsi, what large hands you have!’
‘All the better to touch you with, my child,’ the wolf replies.
‘Huttsi, what a big mouth you have!’
‘All the better to kiss you with, my dear!’
‘Huttsi, what a long tongue you have!’
‘All the better to lick every inch of you, my sweet.’”
His eyes gleamed mischievously. Miranda suspected she knew what was coming next.
“‘But, Huttsi, what an enormous—’”
“Don’t say it!” She covered his mouth. His chuckle warmed both her hand and her ears.
“Don’t you want to know how it ends?” he asked.
“I’m not certain I do.”
“I’ll tell you anyway. He devours her bite by delectable bite.” He flashed another very wolfish smile. “You see?” His smile disappeared. “You are never safe with a wolf.”
His lips were soft, smooth, and so very knowing as his mouth melded with hers with slow, toe-curling deliberation. There was nothing hurried or clumsy, none of the typical hesitancy, nose bumping, or teeth clashing of a first kiss. Taking her face in his hands, he deepened the kiss by tiny degrees, increasing pressure, adding licks and nips, teasing and torturing her until his hot tongue breached her mouth. Their tongues met, sliding and tangling—both a prelude and promise of so much more. She’d never been kissed by a man who knew how to give her everything she wanted, but Keith did.