She landed sure-footed on a thick branch, then scrambled forward to hop to the next tree, and then the next, until she was able to leap down to the ground yards away from where Ken was, as he peered up into the branches trying to find her.
Laughing inwardly, she ran full-throttled out from their little thicket, ending up in a wide clearing.
She chanced a look over her shoulder—he must be following, but for some reason she just had to check.
And yes, there he was, pounding out of the forest with a gleam in his lion’s tawny eyes. Lynn froze, watching him—and then he pounced.
He landed on her, but must have broken the fall with his back paws on the ground, because it was a soft impact, not even knocking the wind out of her. They rolled over and over through the grass, crushing it beneath their bodies and sending sweet summer smells into the air.
Lynn didn’t struggle very hard, and they came to a halt with her on her back, Ken crouched over her. There was a long moment where they were scenting one another, breathing each other’s air—and then Ken’s form blurred and changed, and he was human again.
Lynn followed suit. When she came back into her human form, she was laughing.
Fun. It had been so fun. How had she forgotten what fun was?
Ken wasn’t laughing, though. He looked—happy, still, his eyes crinkled at the corners, the edges of his mouth tilted up. But he was watching her, rather than giving into laughter himself.
Lynn felt her laughter fade, until she was looking up at him, still feeling the swell
of joy in her chest. But it was changing, just like they had, from the rough, wild, animalistic happiness into something deeper, softer.
Lynn couldn’t help but notice, once again, how Ken’s eyes were exactly the same in his human form as they were in his lion form—warm and golden-soft, not clear and hard like her own topaz color always seemed to be. Right now, they seemed to burn with some kind of inner furnace, not just warm but hot.
The last chuckles had disappeared, and as they vanished, Ken leaned down and caught her smiling mouth with his.
Lynn melted under his kiss immediately. She hadn’t been expecting it, exactly…but somehow it still didn’t take her by surprise. As though the touch of his lips, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his stubble rasping against her cheek—as though there’d been no question that this was going to happen. No doubt in her mind at all.
Ken’s tongue teased at her lips, and Lynn opened her mouth without thinking. Or at least, not beyond the feeling of his mouth on hers, the way his body was held just barely hovering over hers. If he let his arms relax, he’d be fully stretched out on top of her, their bodies pressed together—
But right now they were just kissing. If just could describe the heat of the kiss, the way their mouths moved together, and how warmth flushed through Lynn’s entire body. He tasted her mouth, then pulled away just for a moment, until she lifted her chin for more, and he came right back to catch her lips with his again.
Lynn didn’t know how long the kiss went on, but it felt like it could’ve been an hour. When he finally pulled back, her lips were tingling and she was breathless. Her whole body felt hot, and just the feeling of her own clothes against her skin was almost too much.
“Wow,” he said, as he sat back on his heels. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while, and I knew it was going to be good, but I had no idea it would be that good.”
“Thanks,” Lynn said automatically, and then was struck by how awkward that sounded. What was she thanking him for—the praise, the kiss?
His grin quirked the corners of his mouth up. “No charge.”
Lynn tried to pull her brain together into something resembling normal thought. What came out of her mouth, though, was, “A while? We’ve only known each other for…” How many days was it? For some reason, she couldn’t remember. It seemed like so much longer than it actually was.
“Pretty much since the first moment I saw you in Cal’s office,” Ken admitted ruefully, though the little smile stayed on his mouth. Lynn found herself wondering how long it would be before she could taste that smile again.
Then she shook herself out of it with the realization, “I knew you were asking me on a date!”
“Guilty.” He bit his lip, which was unfairly cute. Men over forty shouldn’t even be able to be cute, she thought disgustedly. “I tried to disguise it as a work thing, but I guess I didn’t do that great of a job.”
“Definitely not. Not stealthy at all.” Then she hesitated, but finally plunged forward, because she wanted to hear what he said to this. “I thought you just asked out any woman in a new town. You know, just for a casual date.”
Now it was his turn to hesitate. Lynn’s heartbeat thundered in her ears as she waited to hear what he said—had this kiss just been the prelude to a fling? Was he about to say that he had a girlfriend or six in different cities all over North America?
“I’m used to casual relationships,” is what he came out with. “But that’s because I never meet women I connect with. I’m never so attracted that I…forget myself. You know? I’ll flirt and have a good time, go out on a few dates, but I always know where it’s going, and I always make sure that she does, too. And a while ago, even that started to seem like more trouble than it was worth.”
“But?” Lynn said, almost airlessly. There had to be a but coming, didn’t there? That sort of speech was practically designed to have a but come after it.
This time, the smile that spread over his face wasn’t that teasing grin. It was something else, something Lynn realized she’d started to get used to. When they’d first met, he’d grinned a lot, while he made his jokes, but over the last day or two, the grin had taken second place to this real smile.
“But,” he said, “the second I met you, that all went out the window.”