LITMIR.BIZ

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      Chapter Three

      Big mistake.

      As soon as the thought formed in her head, Laurel amended it.

      This wasn’t just a big mistake. This was a whopper. A screwup. The mother of all mistakes.

      Which explained why she felt like a complete idiot.

      Which didn’t explain why she was enjoying Noah’s kiss quite so much.

      The thoughts tumbled through her head at the same time a riot of sensations assaulted her body. Lips that were skilled. A taste that was unique. A certain heart-stopping sizzle that bubbled through her bloodstream. And the heat.

      Laurel tipped her head back, and when Noah parted her lips with his tongue and deepened the kiss, she heard a moan of pure pleasure rise from deep in her throat. The heat of Noah’s hand seared her skin even through her sweater. His lips scorched hers. An answering heat built inside her. She leaned closer. The hard edge of the glass display case poked her in the ribs, and Laurel cursed her luck. If it wasn’t for the display case, she’d be feeling Noah’s arms around her. If it wasn’t for the display case, she’d be pressing her body against his. If it wasn’t for the display case, she could get closer still and let her hands roam over him, exploring and remembering.

      If it wasn’t for the display case, she’d be making an even bigger fool of herself than she already was.

      The heat that pounded through her veins froze with the icy realization, and Laurel flattened one hand against Noah’s shoulder and pushed away from him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She stopped just short of screeching the question and struggled to collect herself. With any luck, he was as confused as she was. As overwhelmed. As flustered. Otherwise, he might catch on to the fact that she wasn’t sure if she was asking the question of him or of herself.

      “Are you nuts?”

      Another question she could very well have aimed at herself. Instead, Laurel ran a hand through her hair and moved back a couple steps. It might have been easier to ignore the thread of desire wound tight inside her if she didn’t find herself with her back against a display of itty-bitty panties and teeny-tiny bra tops and eentsyweentsy wisps of lace that tickled the back of her neck and her imagination in ways it shouldn’t have been tickled. At least not when Noah was in the room. Or at the Hideaway. Or on the island.

      Beyond the point of knowing or caring if what she was about to do looked as much like a retreat as it felt, Laurel darted from behind the counter and headed for the door.

      “Where are we going?” she heard Noah call from behind her.

      On her way past the front desk, Laurel grabbed the first set of room keys she could get her hands on. She glanced at the name etched into the heart-shaped brass key chain. “Almost Paradise,” she told him.

      Behind her, she heard Noah’s footsteps against the antique Oriental rug. She felt his arms go around her waist, holding her in place. At the same time, his breath brushed against her neck, soft and warm. “Cool,” he murmured. “I have to admit, I wasn’t really planning for that little kiss to turn into a full-scale seduction, but if you’re willing…”

      This time, Laurel did screech. She screeched her annoyance and her frustration. She screeched not because of Noah’s suggestion, but because what he was suggesting sounded good to her. Way too good.

      “You are crazy.” Laurel spun and darted out of his reach. She slapped the room keys into Noah’s hand. “If you think I’m going to go up to that room with you and—”

      “Isn’t that what you just said?” Noah looked from the key to the stairs that wound to the second floor to Laurel. He gave her a lopsided, devilish smile, the kind that in the old days packed the magic punch that could make her do anything. “Let me get this straight. You kiss a guy—”

      “I didn’t kiss you, you kissed me.”

      “You kiss a guy and you’re having a really good time and—”

      “I wasn’t having a good time.” Laurel set her jaw. “You’re imagining that part of it.”

      “You’re having a really good time and then you make a move. Not just any move. You move quickly, conclusively, dare I say…” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Enthusiastically toward the lobby.”

      “Not enthusiastically,” she insisted. “I was never enthusiastic.”

      “You move enthusiastically, a woman with a mission. You can’t wait. You can’t wait to get out of the gift shop. You can’t wait to get across the lobby. You can’t wait to—”

      “Oh, I can wait, all right. I can wait until hell freezes over.”

      “And you grab a set of room keys and you tell me we’re headed to paradise and you mean…What?” He looked at her, his expression hovering halfway between I dare you to try and talk your way out of this one and Go ahead, make my day.

      “What I mean…” Laurel moved back one step. Two steps. It was well past time to put some distance between herself and Noah. Some distance between herself and the memories he had a way of evoking, like a magician conjuring something beautiful and tempting where only moments before there had been nothing but thin air. “I mean it’s time for you to go to your room and stay there.”

      “You mean…” Noah gave her the sort of wide-eyed, dramatic, smart-aleck look that told her he was going to milk her discomfort for all it was worth. “You mean…good night?”

      “I mean good night. What else would I mean? How could any woman in her right mind mean anything else? I mean good night. I mean goodbye. Because I won’t be here in the morning, and that’s when you’ll be leaving.” She hurried to the other side of the front desk. At least with a few hundred pounds of solid mahogany between herself and Noah, she felt as if she stood a fighting chance. “You’ll find everything you need in your room,” she told him, using the kind of honeyed tones that seemed to suit an innkeeper. “Towels. Soap. Shampoo.” She glanced at the little pink shopping bag he’d managed to bring along with him from the Love Shack. “I see you’ve got everything else covered.”

      “I do.” Noah moved toward the desk, and Laurel found herself automatically moving back. Even then, he managed to reach across the sign-in book and the room keys and the pile of mail she hadn’t finished sorting. Gently, he touched her arm. His cocky grin softened and so did his voice. “Take it easy, Laurel,” he said. “It was only a kiss.”

      Only a kiss?

      Laurel could hardly believe her ears. Only a kiss? That? What happened between them in the Love Shack was only a kiss like Pavarotti was only some Italian guy who liked to sing in the shower.

      She shook off the thought. And the memories. And Noah’s hand. She supposed she should be grateful that he’d laid it on the line. It was only a kiss. At least to him. At least she knew where he stood. At least she knew where she stood, and where she stood was on the edge of an abyss. She could take a step forward and free-fall headlong into the void. She knew what waited for her there. For a while she’d feel as if she was floating, as if she was flying, and while it lasted, it would be awesome. Like the feeling she had the first time someone called her doctor and the buzz of Fourth of July fireworks and Christmas morning all rolled into one.

      But sooner or later she’d land, and when she did, she knew she’d land hard. There was nothing waiting for her but a rocky pit and nothing as sure to make her forget the good times as the bad times.

      She had to choose and she had to do it right here and now. She could take the step and start on a dizzying trip that was sure to end with nothing but heartbreak. Or she could convince herself that Noah was right. It was only a kiss.

      “Only a kiss, huh?” Laurel congratulated herself—she sounded nearly as nonchalant about the whole thing as he did. “That wasn’t only a kiss, Noah. That was an aberration. A deviation. An anomaly. A freak of nature, like two-headed snakes and those

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