By Proxy(50)

“Safer than it was in Chicago,” she said, getting the better of him.

He chuckled beside her and she sensed how much he was enjoying their banter. “Phew! Okay. That’s a relief. Yes, I will come watch a Christmas movie with you. But you better keep your hands to yourself, Jenny. I mean it.”

She shook her head back and forth smiling as they made their way across the bridge. “You are an ass.”

He gasped in mock indignation. “Jenny Lindstrom! A swearword!”

She giggled merrily beside him. “An animal.”

“The back end of one.”

“As you said.”

“Do you kiss your father with that mouth?”

“I kissed you with that mouth.”

He stopped walking beside her, but their hands connected them and she had to drop his hand or stop and turn back to him. She stopped and turned. He was standing beside the last lamppost on the bridge, leaning against it with his arm outstretched to her. As she approached him in the dim light, she could see his eyes sparkling.

“No, Jen. I kissed you.” He pulled her closer. “But I’m open to a do-over if you’d like to substantiate that claim.”

He tugged her toward him and pinned the hand he was holding behind her back, eliminating any real distance between them. With her arm held behind her back, her chest was forced forward and she gasped lightly when his other arm snaked around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest. Trapped in his arms, she tilted her head back to see him. She raised her free hand and waggled it at him, smiling. “What was that about keeping my hands to myself?”

He grabbed it and pinned it with the other behind her back, holding her wrists gently. His voice was thick and soft. “You won’t need your hands.”

He leaned his head down toward her, then stopped deliberately, his lips a breath away from hers, closing his eyes, waiting. Her heart was racing and her breathing was so fast and so ragged she knew he could feel it hot on his lips every time she exhaled. She could feel his, too, see the puffs of white between them as he exhaled.

Her heart drummed in her chest, making her breathless and hot as she stared at his face. There was nothing she wanted more in the world than to kiss him, but she was scared too. She felt herself falling for him, unable to keep herself from thinking about him, fantasizing about him. She worried about her heart when he was finally gone, for how much she would miss him.

“Jenny,” he whispered.

She was so deep in thought, she was almost startled to hear his voice. His eyes were still closed and she twisted her neck slightly so that her ear was beside his lips to better hear him.

“Y-yes?”

“Stop thinking,” he said, his warmth breath on her ear making her shudder in his arms.

She couldn’t have stopped herself even if she wanted. She closed her eyes, and her lips brushed against his as she turned toward him. Soft and pliant, his lower lip she took between hers, gently caressing it, kissing it, loving the feeling of being in his arms, of being in control of what was happening between them. He released her hands, moving his to the small of her back, and she raised hers to the nape of his neck where her cold fingers ran gingerly through the short hairs that curled behind his ears. He groaned and his lips finally moved then, like he couldn’t help himself anymore, intensifying their kiss, pulling at her upper lip, moving her closer to his body.

His tongue pushed gently between her lips, and she sighed into his mouth, touching her tongue to his and marveling at the heat, the satiny heat, of his tongue stroking hers. His hands slid from her back to her hips, his fingers pressing through her coat, and she wished there weren’t so many layers between them. She wished his hands were pulling and pushing her clothes away, finding her skin, spanning the soft, untouched skin of her belly. She wished his hands would slide up from her tummy to her breasts, cover them, cup them, touch them as she’d never been touched before in her life. The intensely erotic thought made Jenny’s nipples pucker and she felt a sharp burst of sensation fan out from her chest, making her breathless, making her want more of Sam, more, more, more…

She ran her fingers through his hair with more pressure, and he pulled her closer until she felt the hard bulge behind the zipper of his jeans pressing into her. Her mind exploded with a hundred wanton wishes, and she instinctively stepped closer to him this time, wanting him to know that she felt him, wanting him to know that despite her innocence, her body wanted him as badly as he wanted her.

He pulled back from her, whispering her name, a note of warning in his tone. “Jenny.”

She dropped her hands and turned her head away gently, resting her forehead on his shoulder, feeling relieved and deprived at once. She knew she wasn’t ready for more, but being with Sam felt so good, so right, she was confused and overwhelmed by feelings and sensations she’d never experienced before. She kept her eyes closed, savoring the shivers of pleasure along her spine. Her insides were in riot; her whole body was electric, like it was suddenly wired for touch, and every nerve ending begged for more.