This must be the week for celebrating first kisses;
first I went all dreamy over Kyle and Nikita’s first kiss on Tuesday, and now I’m
taking a look back at the first kiss shared by Sara and Gideon in SAVAGE
ANGEL. Sara and Gideon had some bumps to
overcome—after all, the path to true love is never a smooth one—but even I was
surprised at how intense the chemistry was between them. They just worked,
these two complex characters. And their
first kiss proved it…
Sara.
A
rough sigh escaped Gideon as he stared blankly at the security pad by the
garage’s main door. Time and again the memory of trying to eject her from this
job flashed through his mind, and every time the memory of her stricken
expression sliced him like a blade. She’d recovered almost immediately, as there
didn’t seem to be anything that knocked her sideways for long. But it had been
there. He’d made her hurt, deliberately, for no other reason than he’d wanted
to be in control of something. So he’d
tried to control Sara.
Big
mistake.
She’d
come way too close to the truth when she’d accused him of focusing all his
energies on her, and it grated that she knew him better than he knew himself
these days. And it wasn’t fair, especially when he knew zilch about her. But no
matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise, Gideon knew it was the
worst kind of stupid to pretend Sara Savitch was the source of all his
problems. He was the source, damn it.
And if he didn’t get his head screwed on straight he’d not only make a dangerous
situation even worse, he’d alienate her right out of his existence.
Isn’t that the point?
Gideon
scowled as the thought surfaced. It was true; a day ago that was exactly what
he’d wanted. More than anything he’d wanted to be alone for the rest of his
foreseeable life. Even now the thought of the ugliness that was his soul
spilling out to contaminate the people around him filled him with bleak despair.
It was better to push her away before he became addicted to having her in his
life.
Except…
Pushing
her away was feeling more and more like running away. And God help him, he was
sick of feeling like a coward.
“Gideon.”
As
if his thoughts had conjured her out of thin air, Gideon turned to find Sara
standing a few feet away in the near-dark, and he was amazed yet again that such
a tall woman could move so silently. He was also amazed at how luminescent her
skin was, even in the encroaching gloom. Her slanted dark brows and wide,
too-kissable mouth stood out against the starkness of her pale skin, her eyes
great, dark pools of fathomless mystery. She seemed almost unreal as she stood
there in the light that was neither night nor day, as if even the slightest
wrong move would make her vanish forever.
No more wrong moves, dumbass.
She
held out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s a copy of all the new security codes,
as well as a list of my team’s cell phone numbers that you can call at any
time. Your father has a copy of this list as well. I would like to encourage
you both to memorize the codes as quickly as possible and input the phone numbers
into your personal phones, then destroy that list.”
He
took the paper without looking at it, far more interested in the dark gray of
her eyes. “Understood.”
“Please
keep all security-sensitive texts, cell phone calls and emails down to the
barest minimum. If you have any pertinent security questions, issues with Lynchpin
procedure or personnel, or unexpected schedule changes for either yourself or
your father, my team and I would appreciate it if you’d write them down or meet
with us face-to-face, rather than share this sensitive information
electronically. Do you have any questions?”
She
was at parade-rest, looking so unreachable it struck a hollow chord somewhere deep
inside him. But it was better for her to avoid him like the plague. Better… “How
badly have I screwed things up with you?”
The
surprise that bloomed in her exotic face mirrored his own. That wasn’t what
he’d planned on asking at all. Then the impassive mask she seemed to be in the
habit of wearing clamped down tight. “There’s nothing for you to be concerned
with, I assure you. Whatever unfortunate history we share is meaningless in the
face of my duty to protect your father. Nothing will distract me from—”
“Sara.”
It
was like someone had hit her internal pause button. Or maybe the longing he
could hear vibrating in his tone had somehow severed her ability to move. Whatever
it was, she stilled with a thoroughly uncharacteristic deer-in-the-headlights
look, and that rare flash of vulnerability unraveled his resistance. He wasn’t
good enough to be around a class act like Sara and never would be. He knew
that. But…
His
hand raised on its own volition to her cheek, following that same instinct to
touch her that had overwhelmed him when they were in his kitchen. Admittedly that
hadn’t ended well for him. She’d moved so fast and with such precision that
about the time his hand was making acquaintance with his shoulder blade, it
occurred to him that he might not know what he was dealing with when it came to
Sara Savitch. But he didn’t care. She fascinated him in a way no other woman
ever had, and made him harder than any woman ever could. It didn’t matter that
he wasn’t good enough for her, or that she should run a country mile to get
away from him. He didn’t want her to run away, any more than he wanted to let
her go.
She
turned her head away from his hand with a swish of her glossy ponytail, her steely
gaze glued to the darkened horizon. If snubbing were an Olympic event, this one
would have earned her the gold.
“I
see.” Gideon’s voice was rougher than he’d intended. Small wonder. The longing
to touch her, taste her, was rising like a rogue wave to drown out the dead
certainty that this could only be bad for her. “I guess I should thank you for
giving me an honest answer.”
A
muscle in her jaw jumped as she kept her face averted. With the greatest
care—because pulling back a bloody stump was a real possibility—he traced the
taut muscle with curious fingers before palming it. “I… You’re imagining
things. I know I’m not good in dealing with people, but even I can figure out
when I’m not communicating with them. And right now I’m choosing not to
communicate with you.”
He
had to smile at that. “But you are. Sort of.”
She
turned her head further away. If she went any further she’d give herself a
crick in the neck. “No.”
“Right
now you’re letting me know you’ve just about had it with me. Just about…but not
quite.”
“Oh,
really?” Her tone was as remote as the moon. “Pray tell, how am I telling you
that?”
“Body
language.” With a tenderness he’d believed he was no longer capable of, Gideon caressed
a thumb over her cheek to rest at the corner of her wide, made-for-kissing
mouth. “You’re not moving away from me, and you’re not knocking my ass to the
ground like we both know I deserve.”
“Don’t
tempt me.” There was a bite in her tone, but it was as weak as a kitten’s. That
rallied him enough to inch closer, until he could breathe in the ginger-spicy
scent she favored as his body rubbed, feather-light, against hers.
Feather-light
or not, where there was friction there was a danger of igniting a spark. A tiny
intake of breath whispered from her, telling him in no uncertain terms she
wasn’t immune to the allure of the flame. With a compulsion that should have
worried him if he’d slowed down long enough to think about it, he devoted
himself to the task of wringing that fluttery sound of arousal from her again.
His
free arm curled around her waist to press against the small of her back. It
didn’t come as a surprise to find her stiff and unyielding. But miracle of
miracles, she wasn’t blasting him into the next zip code. His eyes closed,
savoring the moment before his lips glided a tentative caress against the
arched line of her neck. When he’d been overseas he’d spent countless hours
lying awake in his bunk, fighting the devouring darkness inside him with hardcore
daydreams about Sara. They’d been filled with exploring her silken skin in ways
he’d been too greedy to do when he’d raced to bury himself inside her on their
first meeting. His desperation then had been understandable; the most knock-’em-dead
woman he’d ever met was suddenly smack in the middle of his path mere hours
before he was to be shipped off to the world’s foremost hellhole. With that
kind of pressure hanging over him like an axe about to fall, it wasn’t any
wonder he’d hastened things along.
But
the rush to lose himself in mindless, hot sex with Sara—a living goddess if
there ever was one—had an unforeseen and debilitating side effect. He’d had an
entire year to lament how he hadn’t taken the time to savor the taste of her,
or embed the feel of her porcelain-pale skin into his nervous system. He had no
clue what her statuesque body looked like beneath the rigid, unflattering black
and white uniform she wore while on the job, and he could only imagine what her
straight fall of hair would feel like sifting through his fingers.
Transplanted
a world away from her, this lack of knowledge had grown from a wistful desire
to an all-consuming obsession. She was better off not knowing a man like him,
he knew that. But he also knew he’d go nuts if he didn’t find out these
mysteries that made up Sara Savitch.
When
she didn’t resist him—or at least break his jaw—Gideon grew bolder, taking a
velvety soft earlobe into his mouth while tangling his fingers in the cool
tresses of her ponytail.
Ah. Heaven.
Her
hands landed on his waist, neither pulling him close nor pushing him away. She
couldn’t have made it any plainer that she didn’t know what the hell to do with
him. “Wait. I’m ticklish there.”
“I
remember.” He considered telling her the memory of her had kept him sane when
he’d needed it the most, and alive when he didn’t necessarily want to be. The
words wouldn’t come, because they were too close to a festering darkness he
wasn’t ready to vent. Instead he palmed the back of her head and guided her
mouth to his. With any luck, she’d be able to figure out what she’d meant to
him through touch alone.
The
moment his mouth captured hers, a floodgate of dazzling rightness opened up to
swamp his senses. Her spicy scent filled him until he didn’t want to breathe
anything else. Her lips molded against his like hot wax, scorching him with a
heat he yearned to bathe in forever. And her taste…
When
her mouth opened under his, Gideon shuddered as the primitive force of desire
slammed him senseless, a deep and edgy hunger unfurling in the pit of his gut
to make the sensitized flesh behind his zipper throb. Her taste was stormy and
hot and so addictive he wanted to stay this way for the next century or two. There
was no way he could want anything else, when the staggering flavor that was
Sara enslaved him and the sinuous dance of her tongue made the world melt away.
If the memory of her had gotten him through the worst kind of hell, the reality
of her was enough to convince him there must be a heaven, if only to be found
in her arms.
Arms
that were pushing him away.
Arms
that were turning him out of heaven on earth.
***
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