Free Summer with a Star (Second Chances Book 1) by Merry Farmer Page B

he mumbled.
    “—throughout which I should have known better. He did not buy me a ring or make a promise, ever, and one day in April, I dropped by his apartment unexpectedly and found him tangled up with a red-head.”
    “Ouch.” He winced in sympathy.
    She replied with a bitter laugh. “She wasn’t the first either. I found out all sorts of stuff—stuff I should have known about, stuff my friends had been trying to tell me for ages.”
    “So he was that guy, was he?”
    “And then some.” She sighed, hugging her cooling coffee close. “It’s such a typical story. The kind of thing that happens in movies.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “The worst part is, I put so much faith in him for so long, that when it all came crumbling down, I didn’t feel hurt. Not at all. I didn’t ache like my heart had been broken, I felt stupid. I feel stupid.”
    She lowered her eyes, not bothering to fight off the ache of that stupidity as it welled up in her. She was an idiot, one who ran away from her problems, thinking a summer in an expensive house all alone could cure her. Well, the alone part hadn’t worked out. The rest of it probably wouldn’t either.
    She was halfway through sliding down into even deeper despair when Spence inched closer to her. He set his coffee down, plucked her mug out of her hands and deposited it beside his, then cupped her jaw with his free hand, turning her head toward him. As she met his eyes, he brought his mouth down against hers.
    The sensation of lips against lips, warm skin pressing so close, took her by surprise. He was gentle, yet confident. She could smell the salt of the sea on his skin. He teased his tongue along the line of her lips until she opened to him. He tasted of coffee and dinner, and the promise of starlit summer nights. She could float away on a kiss like that.
    Instead she leaned into him, resting her fingertips against his side. He tensed, caught his breath—so subtly she could have imagined it—then redoubled the passion as he explored her mouth with his own. Every delicious instinct she had pushed her to snuggle closer to him, to dance her tongue alongside his, to drink him in. She could get lost in a dream like this. Her, clueless teacher, Tasha Pike, making out with Spencer Ellis.
    Reality slammed back into her with the force of a train. She gasped and pulled back.
    “Wow,” she breathed, struggling to pull herself together. “What was that?”
    “A kiss,” he answered. If she wasn’t mistaken, his composure had slipped a little. Warm patches of color spilled across his cheeks.
    “That much I got.” She grinned, still not quite believing it. “Why?”
    “Why kiss you?”
    She nodded.
    He shrugged. “Can’t a man just feel like kissing a woman?”
    “Sure,” she said, though what she thought was, not Spencer Ellis, not kissing me .
    “Besides.” He brushed the back of his fingers along the line of her jaw, drawing her closer before letting go and sitting straight. “You looked like you could use a kiss.”
    That was a good thing, right?
    “So, do you usually go around kissing women who look like they need it?” She did her best to act cool, as if he hadn’t just raised the temperature in the entire state of Maine by ten degrees.
    His sheepish laugh only made things worse. “No. Not really. I am glad you let me, though.”
    “You are?”
    He nodded. “I’ve been trying to break down the wall you put up for five days now. Looks like I finally did it.”
    “Looks like,” she answered. She didn’t know whether to laugh or brush the whole thing off, or lunge at him for a repeat performance.
    The problem was solved for her when Spence retrieved both of their coffee mugs, handing hers over.
    “Thanks,” he said with a smile before taking a sip.
    “Any time,” she answered. A second later, she realized what that implied.
    He lifted his brow as if accepting her challenge.
    She hid the swirl of butterflies that followed by drinking her coffee.