Free The Healing by Frances Pergamo Page A

it, highly aware of how his fingers squeezed hers as he pulled her to him. Their smiles faded as they moved close together for the first time, and Karen savored every detail. Just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to breathe, Mike’s arm went around her back and drew her even closer, pressing her against the hard wall of his body. She almost gasped with the surge of new sensations.
    Her face was half buried in his shoulder, and she inhaled the heady combination of freshly laundered, sun-dried cotton and moist male skin. She closed her eyes, allowing her other senses to take their pleasure, and heard him breathing in her ear, inhaling the scent of her hair. When Mike let go of her hand to hold her in both his arms, she clasped her hands around his neck. Now they were simply rocking back and forth in a full embrace.
    Karen could feel his heart thumping wildly in stark contrast to the slow rhythm of the music. Her own heart was keeping pace, beating against her breastbone and making her light-headed. On her bare midriff she could feel the tight bumps of his abdominal muscles, and against her legs she was keenly aware of the movement of his lean thighs as he stepped from one foot to the other. In his jeans she could feel something happening to his body that she had only heard about . . . something she probably wasn’t supposed to feel on a dance floor in a public place. At first she naively thought he might not want her to know, but he only held her tighter.
    As her legs trembled, she held on to his neck for dear life. As her insides churned with a need she didn’t recognize, her hips stayed boldly pressed to his.
    Karen listened to the words of the song. It provided the perfect score for their first dance because it expressed how she felt. She only needed the air she breathed, and to be with Mike.
    Her nose found its way to the exposed part of his neck, and she reveled in its clean, natural scent. Mike wore no cologne and used no fancy spiced soaps. If anything, he smelled a little bit like the beach . . . salt and fresh air and sun-warmed skin. To Karen it was like an opiate, and she was instantly addicted.
    The music stopped, and they peeled away from each other. Karen slowly opened her eyes, which felt heavy and unfocused, and Mike’s eyes looked the same. He blinked at her as though he were suddenly drunk. And she understood.
    Mike led Karen outside by the hand, weaving through the crowd without a word and striding toward the overlook. Once he found a place under the maples where they would only be shadows in the moonlight, he stopped short, whirled her around, and kissed her until she thought she would faint. Karen’s hands explored—innocently and indulgently—reveling in every new discovery along the hardness of his arms, across the expanse of his shoulders, down the bumps of his spine, and up the nape of his neck.
    â€œYou taste so good,” Mike said against her mouth, and he went back to kissing her like he wanted to devour her.
    Maybe it was the sweet strawberry lip gloss.
    Finally, he broke away and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked at her like he had never seen her before. And then he laughed.
    Out of breath and off balance, so did Karen. She had never felt more alive.
    The next kiss was slower, more deliberate.
    Karen knew that even if she never saw Mike Donnelly again, she would remember this night for the rest of her life.

chapter nine
    June 2004
    Karen sat at the picnic table just a few yards from where that first kiss took place. The backdrop was the same. Like an observer in a dream, she watched the whole scene unfold under the maples as though it were happening in the present. She couldn’t believe it had been almost thirty years ago. How could it be so easy to remember every detail of that night at the dance on the wharf when she couldn’t remember how she had managed to lift Mike off the floor that morning?
    She had not allowed