When the doorbell rang, Kira smoothed down her blonde hair and checked her reflection in the toaster. Not that it really mattered what she looked like. This wasn’t a first date for God’s sake.
She headed out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Two long windows flanked the front door and she could see one tanned arm and hand through the right one. Her dentist had big hands.
You know what they say about big hands.
She flushed and tossed that errant thought out of her head before opening the door. She smiled at the dark-haired man standing on her front porch.
“Hello, Dr. MacMillan.”
“Hello, Ms. Walker,” he said.
There was a moment of awkward silence and then she stepped back. “Call me Kira. Please, come in.”
He stepped into the house and she shut the door before squeezing past him. “Would you like something to drink? I have water, iced tea and soda. Or I can make coffee.”
“An iced tea would be fine,” he said.
As he followed her toward the kitchen, she wondered if he was checking out her ass in her yoga pants. She knew she didn’t have a great body. She was on the thin side and she secretly coveted Grace’s full curves. She scoffed inwardly. Who was she kidding? Forget Grace’s curves, she’d take Addison’s very respectable C-cup boobs if given the chance. She was barely a B-cup and her cleavage was thanks to the miracle invention of the century – the push-up bra.
Why she even thought her dentist would check out her ass was ridiculous. It was flat and –
Hey, Kira? Maybe you should stop thinking about your own damn tits and ass and get the man his iced tea.
Dr. MacMillan was hovering in the doorway of the kitchen while she stood blankly next to the fridge and she gave him an embarrassed smile. “Sorry. Have a seat and I’ll get that iced tea.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She poured them both a glass of iced tea and perched on the edge of the chair across from him. He drank some iced tea before saying, “It’s good. Thanks.”
“I like it a little on the sweet side,” she said. “My brother says it’s way too sweet and that I’ll rot my teeth right out of my head but I, um, I guess that’s why I go to see you, right? To keep my teeth from rotting out of my head when I eat too much sweet stuff?”
Kira! Enough!
She shut her mouth with a snap. Fuck, what was wrong with her? Why was she so damn nervous? Sure, Dr. MacMillan was handsome enough, but he wasn’t Daniel. She closed her eyes for a moment and conjured up an image of Daniel. It calmed her a little and she took a deep breath. Daniel’s blond hair and dark blue eyes were what she wanted.
Dr. MacMillan’s eyes might be blue, but they were so light, they were almost clear. She could see none of the warmth and humour in them that Daniel’s gaze had. In fact, her dentist was currently staring at her like she was some new and interesting species of bug he had discovered crawling up his leg.
She cleared her throat. “Sorry, I babble when I’m nervous.”
He took another drink of iced tea. “You have a nice home.”
“Thank you. It was my childhood home. It belongs to my brother now, but he didn’t want to live here. My parents died a few years ago and being in the house brought on too many sad memories for him. I love living here though. It makes me feel closer to my mom and dad, you know?”
She closed her mouth again. Holy shit, she was making the worst first impression ever.
“I’m sorry about your parents.” His voice was a low rasp, and the sound of it sent the weirdest shiver down her spine.
“Thank you,” she replied. “So, um, Grace said that we could help each other with our problems.”
He nodded. “Possibly.”
She waited and tried not to sigh with frustration when he didn’t say anything else. His silence was beginning to unnerve her. Daniel was chatty and always the life of the party. She could barely get a word in edgewise when she was with him and she loved that. She loved his bold brashness and the way he lit up a room when he walked into it.
Her dentist hardly made an impact. Hell, she’d met him how many times in his office and she had no impression of him at all. He was just a masked guy who came in and checked her teeth at the end of the cleaning.
“So, you need a date for your cousin’s wedding?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “and you need a boyfriend to make Daniel Moore jealous.”
There was the slightest hint of derision in his voice and she immediately blushed. It was obvious that he thought she was an idiot.
“You know what? Never mind, Dr. MacMillan.” She stood and dumped her iced tea down the sink. “This isn’t going to work. I’ll show you out now.”
She stalked toward the front door. She could hear him behind her, but before she could open the door, he wrapped his long fingers around her wrist. The touch of his skin against hers made another one of those little shivers zip down her spinal cord. She froze and turned to stare up at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being an ass.”
“Yes, you are.”
He sighed and dropped her wrist before raking his hand through his dark hair. “I apologize. Also, if we’re going to fake date, you should call me Connor.”
“Why are you even here, Connor?” she asked. “It’s obvious you think this is a stupid idea.”
“It isn’t,” he said. “I’m just -”
He paused and rubbed at one temple. “What if this doesn’t work?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if us fake dating doesn’t make Daniel jealous? Will you still go with me to my cousin’s wedding? Still pretend to be my girlfriend?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What if it does work? Then what? You start dating Daniel and I’m headed to Willington alone.”
“Well, your cousin’s wedding is in a month, right?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have to start fake dating right away. We can give it a couple of weeks and use that time to learn more about each other. It’s probably a good idea if we know more than each other’s names. It’ll be more believable if we know, uh, personal stuff about each other. That leaves only two weeks until your cousin’s wedding. I think it’ll take more than a couple weeks to make Daniel jealous,” she said.
“Do I have your word that you’ll attend the wedding with me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be there, no matter what.”
Then we have an agreement,” Connor said. “You’ll pose as my girlfriend at my cousin’s wedding, and I’ll help you make Daniel seethe with jealousy and realize that you’re his soul mate.”
She gave him a dirty look. “You don’t have to make it sound so juvenile.”
He just shrugged and she reached for the front door. “Thank you. I’ll get your number from Grace and text you in the next few days about meeting to go over personal stuff.”
“There’s just one more thing,” Connor said.
“What?”
“This.” He gripped the back of her neck and pulled her forward. She made a decidedly stupid-sounding squeak when he bent his dark head and pressed his mouth against hers. She stood stock-still with her eyes wide and unblinking, as he slid his other arm around her waist and pulled her against his hard body.
When he sucked on her lower lip, a strange tingle went through her lower body and another small sound escaped her lips. This one, embarrassingly enough, sounded like a moan and she tried to step back. His hand tightened around her neck, holding her completely immobile. When his tongue slid across her upper lip, she heard another of those odd moan-like noises as her eyes drifted shut.
God, he smells so good, she thought bewilderedly as he tilted her head back. He kissed her again, his lips warm and weirdly persuasive, and it took her a minute to realize that she was returning his kiss.
Kira! Stop kissing your dentist!
It was solid advice, but her body was completely and blissfully betraying her. She pressed up against him and put her arms around his neck. He was so tall that it was a real stretch to do it, but she liked the way it forced her breasts against his chest.
His tongue licked the seam of her mouth. Her head whirling and her pussy suddenly throbbing, she parted her lips. He slid his tongue between them and tasted her with slow, long licks that made Kira shudder with pleasure. He tasted sweet like the iced tea he had been drinking. When she pushed her tongue into his mouth with a decided lack of finesse, he slid his fingers into her hair and tugged her back.
“Slow,” he whispered.
She blushed fiercely. For roughly a nanosecond, she thought about telling him to stop, but then his warm mouth returned to hers and he was urging her tongue back into his mouth with slow licks of his. She slowed down and mimicked the slow strokes of his tongue.
He groaned quietly. Other than his low whisper it was the first sound he had made since kissing her. It flamed the lust in her belly even higher. She had a feeling that the icy Dr. Connor MacMillan never lost control. The idea that kissing her could make that control slip, even a little, was deliciously intoxicating.
She arched her back and rubbed her abdomen against the hardness pressing into it. He was hard. He was hard for her, and that sent another flickering flame of excitement through her nerve endings. She rubbed her small breasts against him and wondered what she could do to get him to touch them. Her nipples were almost painfully hard and poking against her bra. A sudden vision of Connor sucking on them brought on a gush of liquid that soaked the crotch of her panties.
He pulled away abruptly, and she would have fallen in a boneless heap to the floor if he hadn’t steadied her. She stared dumbly at him before reaching up and touching her trembling, swollen lips.
“Why-why did you do that?” she whispered.
“If we’re posing as boyfriend and girlfriend, it’s going to require some physical touching and kissing,” he said.
She felt like she’d been through the wringer, but he wasn’t even out of breath. If it hadn’t been for the way his dick still strained at the front of his pants, she would have thought he was completely unaffected by the kiss between them.
“O-only when we’re around other people.” She couldn’t seem to stop stuttering or touching her swollen mouth.
He gave her an impatient look. “It won’t look very realistic if we kiss each other like it’s the first time we’ve ever kissed. And I wanted to see if we had chemistry.”
“Do we?” she asked like an idiot.
A brief smile crossed his face and it sent a weird little tingle down the base of her spine. “Yes. I think so, anyway.”
She didn’t reply and he patted her on the shoulder like she was his sister. “That’s a good thing, Kira. It will make it appear more real.”
“Uh, right,” she said.
He studied her. “How many men have you kissed before?”
“Why?”
“You’re not,” he paused, “great at kissing.”
Her face was so red she was nearly sweating, and she gave him a furious look. “That’s a really rude thing to say.”
“No, just honest. We’ll need to practice some more.”
She wanted to tell him to take his idea of practice kissing and stuff it up his piehole, but strangely the thought of kissing him again wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Besides, as much as it was a blow to her ego, he probably had a point. She’d kissed two men before him and neither of them had provoked the type of reaction that her dentist’s kiss did.
He opened the front door and asked, “What time do you work tomorrow?”
“Uh, I need to be at the office by nine.”
“I’ll stop by at eight and we’ll practice.” He left, shutting the door quietly behind him, and she sank against the wall, her fingers still tracing her lower lip. What the hell just happened?
* * *
Kira stared out the kitchen window and sipped at her second cup of coffee. It was just before eight and her insides were quaking with nerves and anticipation. She patted her hair a little self-consciously as she strained to hear a vehicle.
She was tired and on edge. It took her much longer than usual to fall asleep last night. Every time she closed her eyes, she relived the touch of Connor’s mouth against hers. The way his tongue had stroked and tasted, the feel of his erection against her belly.
She abruptly dumped her coffee down the sink and grabbed a mint from the jar in the cupboard. She crunched it down as she checked her phone for the time. Grace had texted her last night to see how it went with Connor. She couldn’t bring herself to tell her about the kissing, at least not over text, so she had simply said it went well and she would tell her more later. Now, she wished she’d mentioned the kiss if only to get Grace’s reaction about it. Maybe her dentist went around kissing random women all the time.
Idiot.
Yeah, she was.
The doorbell rang and she jerked wildly. She left her phone on the counter and hurried to the door. She took a moment to smooth her blue pencil skirt before opening the door.
“Hello, Dr. – I mean, Connor.” Her voice was too loud.
“Good morning, Kira.”
“Come in, please.”
He stepped into the house and she licked her lips. He was wearing a blue t-shirt with a pair of jeans and he smelled delicious.
“Do you always wear cologne?” she blurted out.
He gave her an odd look and she grimaced in embarrassment. “Sorry. You smell, uh, nice.”
“Thank you,” he said.
He didn’t say anything about the way she smelled, and she waited stupidly for him to tell her she smelled good. He didn’t say anything, and her embarrassment grew.
“Uh, why don’t we go into the kitchen.” She turned and walked away before he could reply. Her stomach was churning with nerves and her hand shook when she reached for a coffee mug.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” She turned, staggering back into the counter with a nervous squeak. Connor was standing directly behind her and she stared wide eyed at him.
“I have a root canal at nine and can’t stay very long. Let’s get started, shall we?” He plucked the coffee mug from her hand and set it on the counter.
Before she could even lick her lips in anticipation, his arm was around her waist, his other hand on the back of her neck, and his mouth on hers.
Don’t moan, she thought fiercely as he brushed his lips against hers in a light, gentle caress.
Be cool, Kira. It’s just a kiss, be cool.
She returned his kiss tentatively, once more mimicking the movement of his mouth, and tried to ignore the heat of his hand cupping her hip. He didn’t move his hands or his body at all, just kissed her repeatedly with those same gentle movements. After what felt like hours, she made a noise of impatience and parted her lips. She wanted his tongue in her mouth, wanted it so badly she was nearly shaking, and she couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t reading her signals.
She pulled back slightly and said, “Please.”
She was a little appalled at how needy and desperate she sounded.
“Please what, Kira?”
His low voice sent shivers of lust down her spine. Without stopping to think about why she should be this desperate for another man’s kisses when she was in love with Daniel, she said, “I want a real kiss.”
A small smile crossed his face and when he sucked on her bottom lip, she could no more stop the moan from escaping then she could stop the sun from rising. He sucked again and she put her arms around his waist, her hands digging into his firm back as he licked first her upper lip and then her bottom lip.
“Now you,” he said.
She licked his bottom lip with the tip of her tongue and then sucked on it. His soft moan made her pussy pulse with need and she pressed her lower body against his growing erection.
“Good,” he said.
Like a damn puppy eager to please, she traced his lips with her tongue before sucking on his lower lip again. It brought forth another low moan and tendrils of excitement wove in her belly.
A girl could get addicted to the sound of her dentist’s moans.
Before she could think about how stupid that was, his tongue was sliding into her mouth. She pushed her body against his, trying not to rub against him and remarkably succeeding, as he licked and tasted and flicked his tongue against hers. Feeling both bold and unsure, she sucked on his tongue. His hips jerked against hers - only a little - but her entire body tingled with delight at his reaction.
His hand tightened around the nape of her neck and he pulled her head back until she was staring up at him. He studied her mouth before nibbling on her lower lip. She gasped and moaned, her hands fisting into his shirt as he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply. He took control of her mouth, feasting on her lips and dipping his tongue between them repeatedly.
When he sucked on her tongue, it sent an answering pull of pleasure to her pussy. She rubbed herself frantically against him, trying to find some type of relief for the ache. He was too tall for his cock to fit where she needed it, and she was just considering hooking her legs around him and trying to worm her way up his body when he pulled away.
“Don’t stop!”
She blushed immediately at her begging and looked at the floor in confusion as Connor reached down and tugged at the crotch of his jeans. She stared at the bulge, feeling both stupidly proud of the reaction she had invoked and oddly ashamed that she would be so pleased by it.
She loved Daniel – seeing another man’s lust for her shouldn’t make her proud.
“I have to go.” There was a slight hoarseness to his voice.
“What? It’s only…” She glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was eight-thirty, they were kissing for a solid half hour and she’d had no idea.
He stepped back, adjusting the front of his jeans again. “Are you available to meet tomorrow night to go over personal information?”
“I – what?” she said.
“We need to get to know each other. I can drop by around seven if you’re available,” he said.
“Oh, right. Yes, that’s fine.”
“Good. Have a nice day, Kira.”
“You too,” she replied.
He left the kitchen without another word. When the front door slammed, she immediately headed upstairs to her bedroom. She needed to get to work but the crotch of her panties was soaking wet. Her face flaming, she peeled off the damp ones and slipped into a fresh pair.
* * *
Connor stared at his building. He was sitting in his car in the parking lot and even though it was nearly twenty minutes since he’d left Kira’s house, he was still as hard as a rock. He looked around and then adjusted the crotch of his jeans. Shit. Maybe he needed to go home and rub one out, then come back to the office.
Have you lost your mind? You have a root canal in ten minutes. Get your shit together!
He closed his eyes. It was a mistake. Immediately, an image of Kira rose in his mind. He could almost hear her sweet little moans and her begging for a real kiss. The way she was rubbing her tight little body against him this morning had tempted him to cancel his appointments and spend the day tasting and teasing every inch of Kira’s soft skin.
He groaned and stared fixedly at the steering wheel. He hadn’t expected to be so turned on by Kira. She wasn’t his usual type.
How do you know she isn’t your type? Because she doesn’t remind you of Lisa? That’s a good thing, you idiot. Besides, you don’t know anything about her. You’re too busy sticking your tongue down her throat.
Good point. He needed to focus. Making sure they looked and acted like a couple when they touched and kissed was important, but pointless if he didn’t know anything personal about her.
Kira was already much more natural at kissing him this morning, which meant they really didn’t need to practice anymore. It was more than obvious they had chemistry and it wasn’t like they’d be making out in public anyway. He was against PDAs in general, never mind that he didn’t want current or potential clients seeing him sucking tongues with or grinding away against Kira in a damn coffee shop or something.
His cell phone buzzed, and he grabbed it off the seat. Six minutes until his appointment. He considered letting the call go to voicemail before answering it.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, honey. How are you?’
Like always, his mother’s voice sent both warmth and guilt through him.
“Good. Just about to go into a root canal.” He climbed out of the car and locked it before walking toward the clinic. “What’s up?”
“I won’t keep you long. I’m having coffee with Mandy and she’s reminded me that you haven’t RSVP’d for the wedding yet. I told her you’ll be there and that you don’t have a plus one, but she’s insisting I confirm with you.”
There was a muffled sound and then his cousin’s voice squeaked into his ear. “Dude, you’re killing me over here. RSVP’s were due two weeks ago!”
“I’m sorry, Mandy.” He yanked open the door to the clinic and stepped inside. His client was already there but his gaze was fixed on his phone, and Connor hurried past him, giving Keisha the receptionist the five-minute signal. She nodded and he walked down the hallway toward his office.
“It’s fine,” Mandy sighed. “I know you’re busy, but I really need to give the caterer final numbers. I’ll put you down for one chicken, yeah?”
“Uh, actually,” he sank behind his desk, “I’ll be bringing my, uh, girlfriend.”
There was silence. Faintly, he could hear his mother talking to someone else in the coffee shop. Not surprising. She’d lived in Willington her entire life and she knew pretty much everyone by name.
“Girlfriend?” Mandy’s voice was even squeakier when it was surprised. “You have a girlfriend? That you’re bringing to my wedding?”
Before he could reply, his mother was back on the line. “Connor? Why is Mandy talking about a girlfriend?”
He should never have answered the phone.
“Because I have a girlfriend and I’m bringing her to the wedding.”
“But,” his mother’s voice lost some of its oomph, “honey, what about Lisa?”
“What about her?” Connor’s voice was harsher than he intended. “We aren’t together anymore and haven’t been for a very long time. I have a girlfriend, her name is Kira, I’m bringing her to the wedding. End of story.”
There was silence and a fresh wave of guilt washed over him. “Mom, I really have to go. Can you tell Mandy that I’ll text her this afternoon with Kira’s dinner choice?”
“Sure.” His mother disconnected the call before he could say anything else.
He tossed his phone into his desk and slammed the drawer shut before grabbing his lab coat and yanking it on. Grace stepped into his office and gave him a cheerful smile. “Good morning, Connor.”
“Morning.”
She checked behind her before lowering her voice. “So, I hear your wedding problem is solved.”
He stared blankly at her and she said, “Kira’s going to the wedding with you, right?”
“Uh, yeah, right. Yes.” Connor took a deep breath to clear his head. Disappointing his parents wasn’t anything new for him, so why was his guilt still clinging to him like a fine layer of dust he couldn’t shake off?
“Hey, you okay?” Grace asked.
“Fine. Just running late. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sure,” she said.