A Gift of Love Read online

“Congratulation,” he said shortly. “Now get to the point.”

  His tone was so sharp and impatient that Corey’s head snapped around. Not once in all the times that she’d been with him had he ever spoken to her like that. “Never mind,” she said nervously rubbing her palms on her knees. “I’ll find someone else to ask,” she added, abruptly abandoning the whole scheme and starting to stand.

  “Corey,” he snapped, “are you pregnant?”

  Corey gave a shriek of horrified laughter and dropped back to her seat, gaping at him. “From kissing?” she laughed, rolling her eyes. “What did you do, skip health and hygiene class in the sixth grade?”

  For the second time in moments, she saw Spencer Addison exhibit another unprecedented emotion – chagrin. “I guess you aren’t pregnant,” he said wryly, shooting her a rueful smile.

  Utterly delighted to have him off balance for a change, Corey continued to tease him, trying without success to control her wobbly grin. “Don’t football players take biology at SMU? Listen, if that’s why you have to go to graduate school, save the tuition and talk to Teddy Morris in Long Valley, Texas. His dad’s a doctor, and when Teddy was only eight years old, he told us everything there is to know on the playground by the swings.” Spencer’s shoulders were shaking with laughter as Corey finished. “Of course, he used a pair of turtles for teaching tools. They may have mated by now.”

  With traces of a grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth, he shifted position so that his shoulders were against the raised back of the chaise lounge and his left leg was bent at the knee, resting beside Corey’s hip. His right leg, which had been injured twice in games last year, was stretched out beside the chair, his heel resting on the flagstones. “Okay,” he said mildly, folding his arms over his chest and lifting his brows, “let’s hear it.”

  “Is your right knee bothering you?”

  “Your problem is bothering me.”

  “You don’t know what it is yet.”

  “That’s the part that’s bothering me.”

  The banter was so endearingly familiar, and he looked so relaxed and powerful – as if he could carry the entire world’s problems on his wide shoulders – that Corey had a crazy impulse to simply curl up beside him and forget kissing. On the other hand, if she executed her plan successfully, she might end up stretched out beside him and being kissed. An infinitely preferable alternative, she decided as she paused for a quick mental check of her appearance to make certain she looked as desirable as possible. Something slinky and low-cut would have been preferable to the white shorts and sleeveless knit top she was wearing, but at least they showed off her tan well.

  “Corey,” he said in a no-nonsense tone, “the problem?”

  Corey drew a long, fortifying breath. “It’s about kissing…” she began haltingly.

  “I already got that part. What do you want to know?”

  “How can you tell when it’s time to stop?”

  “How can you-?” he repeated in disbelief; then he recovered and said flatly and piously, “When you’re enjoying it too much, it’s time to stop.”

  “Is that when you stop?” Corey countered.

  He had the decency to look ashamed of his answer; then he looked annoyed. “This discussion is not about me.”

  “Okay,” Corey said agreeably, rather enjoying his discomfiture, “then it’s about someone else. Let’s call him… Doug Johnson!”

  “Let’s drop the pretense,” Spence said a little testily. “The fact is that you’re seeing someone named Johnson and he’s pushing for more than you want to give. If you want advice, I’ll give it to you: Tell him to pound sand!”

  Since she hadn’t been certain what tactics Spence would use to evade her trap, Corey was ready with several variations of the same scheme, all of which were designed to maneuver him back onto the path. She tried out the first variation. “That won’t help, I’m seeing lots of different people, actually, but things seem to go too fast after the kissing gets started.”

  “What are you asking me?” he said warily.

  “I’d like to know how to tell when things are getting out of hand, and I’d like some specific guidelines.”

  “Well, you aren’t going to get them from me.”

  “Fine,” Corey said, defeated, but bluffing to save her pride. “But if I end up in a home for unwed mothers because you wouldn’t tell me what I need to know, then it’s going to be as much your fault as mine!”

  She made a move to stand, but he caught her wrist and jerked her back down onto the seat. “Oh, no you don’t! You aren’t going to end this discussion with a remark like that.”

  A moment ago, Corey thought she was defeated, but now she realized that victory was actually in her grasp. He was floundering. Uncertain. Retreating from his original position. Corey prepared to advance, but very cautiously.

  “What – exactly – do you need to know?” he asked, looking sublimely uncomfortable.

  “I’d like you to tell me how to know when a kiss is going to get out of hand. There has to be some sort of clue.”

  Defeated by his own uncertainty, Spence leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “There are several clues,” he muttered, “and I think you already know damned well what they are.”

  Corey widened her eyes and innocently said, “If I knew what they are, why would I be asking you about them?”

  “Corey, it is impossible for me to sit here and give you a play-by-play description of the stages of a kiss.”

  Corey opened the trapdoor and got ready to shove him in. “Could you demonstrate?”

  “Absolutely not! But I can give you a good piece of advice: You’re dating the wrong bunch of people if they’re all pushing you for more than you want to give.”

  “Oh, I guess I didn’t make myself clear. What I’m trying to say is that I think I might be the one who is giving the guys the wrong idea.” Mentally, she stood beside the open door and made a sweeping gesture to him. “I think the problem may be how I kiss them.”

  Spence walked straight into her trap. “How the hell do you kiss?” he demanded, then he looked furious at his blunder. “Never mind,” he said, leaning forward suddenly.

  Corey put her hands on his shoulders and gently forced him back. “Now, don’t get hysterical,” she said in a soothing voice. “Just relax.”

  Beneath her palms his shoulders were still tensed, as if he wanted to bolt, and she had a fleeting image of him on the football field, only tonight he’d caught a pass he hadn’t expected and didn’t want, and now he couldn’t find anyone else to hand it off to.

  The thought made her smile into his narrowed eyes; it made her feel as if she, not he, were calling the plays for a change. It gave her confidence. It made her absurdly happy. “Spence,” she said. “Just run the ball down the field. It’s very simple. Honest.”

  Her ability to fin humor in his predicament only made him more irritable. “I cannot believe you seriously want me to do this!”

  From beneath her lashes, Corey gave him a look of limpid appeal. “Who else can I possibly ask? I suppose I could ask Doug to show me what I do that-?”

  “Let’s get on with it,” he interrupted shortly.

  His knee was still beside her hip, preventing her from moving closer to him. “Could you move your knee?”

  Wordlessly, he shifted his left leg out of the way without altering the position of his upper body. Corey scooted closer, turning so that she could look at him.

  “Now what?” he demanded, his arms crossed obstinately over his chest.

  Corey had a rehearsed answer in mind for exactly this moment. “Now you pretend you’re Doug – and I’ll be me.”

  “I don’t want to be Johnson,” he said, sounding bitter about everything.

  “Be anyone you like, but be a good sport, okay?”

  “Fine,” he clipped. “Now I’m being a good sport.”

  Corey waited for him to move, to reach for her, to do something. “You can start whenever you’re
ready,” she said when he didn't budge.

  He looked resentful. “Why do I have to start?”

  Corey looked at his balky expression and felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to burst out laughing. She had started out tonight hoping to fulfill the most cherished dream of her lifetime – to be kissed by him – really kissed – by him. As badly as she’d wanted that, the prospect of it had made her feel nervous and inadequate. Now it was a foregone conclusion that she was going to be kissed, but it was Spencer who was uneasy and off balance, and it was she who was amused and very relaxed. “You have to start,” she informed him, “because that’s the way things… start.” When he still didn’t seem able to move, she peered at him with sham concern. “Do you know how to start?”

  “I think so,” he drawled.

  “Because if you aren’t certain, I can give you a hint. Most guys-“

  Corey broke off as the absurdity of her suggestion registered on him, banishing his annoyance over his assigned task and making his eyes gleam with amusement.

  “Most guys do what?” he asked with a grin as he reached out and moved her closer to his chest. “Is this how Johnson starts?” He bent his head and Corey braced herself for some sort of wild kiss that would make her faint. What she got was a swift clumsy kiss that was slightly off center and made her shake her head in the negative.

  “No?” he joked. He pulled her forward into a bear hug and nipped her ear. “How was that?”

  He was being playful, Corey realized, and she suddenly feared that this sort of kissing was all there was going to be. She resolved not to let all her carefully made plans lead only to this, but she couldn’t help laughing as he quickened his demonstration of how he pictured poor imaginary Doug Johnson treating her. “I’ll bet this technique is a real favorite of his,” he said, starting to kiss her and deliberately bumping her nose instead.

  “Did I miss? He switched to the other side and bumped her nose again. “Did I miss again?”

  Laughing, Corey leaned her forehead against the solid wall of his chest and nodded.

  He caught her chin, turned her face aside, and rubbed his nose against the side of her neck like a playful puppy. “Let me know when I’m driving you out of your mind with passion,” he invited, and Corey laughed harder. “Am I great?” he asked, nuzzling the other side of her neck. “Or am I great?”

  Her eyes swimming with mirth, Corey raised her gaze to his and nodded vigorously. “You’re completely great –“ she said, “but you just aren't – Doug.”

  He grinned back at her, sharing the joke, and in that prolonged moment of silent companionship, with his hands linked loosely behind her back and his eyes smiling into hers, Corey felt utterly content. Alive. At peace. So did he – she knew it with every beat of her heart. She knew it as surely as she knew he was about to kiss her again and that the joking was over.

  His gaze holding hers, he tipped her chin up and slowly lowered his head. “It’s time,” he said softly, as his mouth descended, “for a more scientific approach to the problem.”

  At the first touch of his lips on hers, Corey’s entire body stiffened with the shock of the contact. He obviously noticed her reaction, because he took his mouth away and touched it to her cheek, kissing her there as he continued in a throaty murmur, “In order for us to obtain reliable data…” His mouth slid slowly to her jaw. “… both parties have to…” His lips traced a warm path to her ear. “…collaborate in the…” He lifted his mouth slightly, his hand curving around her nape, tilting her face into better position. “… experiment.”

  His mouth captured hers in a slow, insistent kiss that steadily increased in pressure, forcing Corey’s lips to part beneath his and setting off tremors of passion inside her that began to collide and combine with stunning force. With an inner moan of pleasure and need, Corey slid her hands up his chest and gave herself over to the kiss, letting him part her lips, yielding to the probing of his tongue, then welcoming it with mindless desperation.

  His fingers shoved into the hair at her nape, loosening the pins that held her hair, and suddenly the mass of golden strands were pouring over them like a veil, and everything was out of control. She was kissing him back, falling forward into his arms while his tongue plunged into her mouth, breathlessly insistent, stroking and caressing.

  His hands slid over her breasts, cupping them possessively, and Corey crushed her mouth to his, her nails digging into his arms, her body pressing intimately against his surging erection while his arm clamped around her hips, pressing her tighter to him, holding her as he rolled her onto her side.

  Years of love and longing more than compensated for lack of experience, and Corey returned each endless, scorching kiss, her hands sliding over the bunched muscles of his back and shoulders, her parted lips surrendering to and then boldly conquering the man whose long fingers were caressing her breasts, tormenting her, tantalizing her with the same promise of pleasure her mouth was giving him. Time ceased to exist for her, obliterated by the turbulence of raging desire and a sensual mouth that was hungrily devouring hers with increasing urgency… and a knee that was nudging her legs apart while his hands… stopped.

  He tore his mouth from hers and lifted off her so abruptly that Corey felt completely disoriented, and when she saw the awful expression on his face, she was afraid to breathe.

  His brows were drawn together into a dark frown of utter disbelief as he stared down at their bodies, then he seemed to notice that his hand was still on her breast and he jerked it away, glaring at his own palm as if it had somehow offended him. His accusing gaze snapped from his hand to her face, and his expression slowly transformed from angry to utterly thunderstruck.

  Understanding dawned, and Corey expelled her breath on a rush of joyous relief. He had lost control and he didn’t like it. He hadn’t imagined she would ever be able to do that to him, but she had done it. She had done that to him. Filled with pride and satisfaction and a world of love, Corey smiled slumberously at him, her hand still resting on his chest. “How’d I do?”

  “That depends on what you were trying to do,” he said curtly.

  She leaned up on her elbow, so happy that she had been able to make him want her that nothing he could have said would have spoiled her joy. “Now that you’ve had a demonstration,” she teased, “would you care to tell me at what point things got out of hand?”

  “No,” he said, and sat up.

  Corey sat up beside him, thoroughly enjoying the situation, her smile disarmingly innocent. “But you were supposed to notice and tell me if things got out of hand because of something I did. Do you need another demonstration?”

  “No more demonstrations.” He stood as he said it. “Your father would get out his shotgun if he knew what happened out here tonight, and he’d be justified.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “If this is your idea of ‘nothing’, then that’s why the boys in your life are trying to take things too far.”

  She walked beside him trying to look deeply concerned when she felt like laughing with delight. “Would you say, then, that things went too far between us?”

  “They didn’t go too far. They could have gone too far.”

  Six

  HE LEFT, AND COREY DIDN’T SEE HIM AGAIN UNTIL THE following Thanksgiving. When he finally came over to the house, Corey had the feeling that she couldn’t have gotten him off to a solitary spot if her life depended upon it, and she told herself that if the kiss hadn’t affected him, he wouldn’t be so wary.

  Diana was inclined to agree, and Corey again enlisted her aid in helping to accomplish her dream, a dream she’d cherished for years. She wanted it to come true so fiercely, so completely, that she couldn’t believe fate would ever prevent it. In order to accomplish her goal, she was careful toward the end of Spence’s visit to seem a little distracted and just a touch sad. Once she’d made certain he couldn’t help but notice, Corey left him alone in the living room with Diana, then she hid around the corner to see how thi
ngs went. “Poor Corey,” Diana said – as they’d rehearsed.

  “What’s wrong?” Spence asked quickly, and Diana’s heart soared at how concerned he sounded.

  “She’s been looking forward to the Christmas dance at school all semester. She’s on the decorations committee and everything. She’s had the dress she’s going to wear for months.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that Doug Johnson was going to take her – he’s on Baylor’s football team – but he phoned this morning to tell her that his family had decided to go to Bermuda for Christmas, and they won’t even consider letting him stay behind. I feel terrible for Corey.”

  “She’s better off not going out with jocks, anyway. You know what they’re like and what they think they’re entitled to from any girl they honor with a few hour of their time.”

  “You were a jock,” Diana said with a laugh.

  “And that’s how I know what I know.”

  “The point is, she’s not going to be able to go. The dance is a big thing, especially for graduating seniors.”

  “Why doesn’t she ask someone else to take her?” he suggested, sounding puzzled that Diana was bringing the problem to him.

  “Corey has lots of friends, but they already have their own dates.”

  To Corey it seemed like hours before he said, “Are you suggesting I take her?”

  “That’s entirely up to you.” Diana got up then and headed out of the room, and as she passed Corey in the dining room, they exchanged a silent “high five”. Corey was halfway into the living room before she remembered to wipe the grin off her face and replace it with a more woebegone expression, but Spencer didn’t notice; he was putting on his jacket to leave.

  “My mother is coming home for Christmas,” he said.

  “That will be nice.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing her,” he admitted, looking a little embarrassed by his sentimentality. “The point is,” he continued abruptly, “I haven’t seen her in three years. Diana explained that you don’t have a date for the Christmas dance. I’ll be in Houston, so if you don’t mind having an old man take you to your dance, and you can’t find anyone else, then I will.”