Free The Last First Kiss (Harlequin Special Edition) by Marie Ferrarella Page B

surprised Kara. But the fact that, within less than a heartbeat, Ryan shifted his assault and threw his arms around her waist, crying, “Thank you, Aunt Kara!” surprised her even more.
    She assumed that Ryan called Dave “Uncle” as a term of endearment and because there was no official title to describe their actual relationship. But calling her “Aunt” had a whole different meaning in this context. It bound her to Dave. Her natural reaction was quick and firm: deny.
    “I’m not—” she began to protest, but her voice was partially drowned out by the excited squeals of Ryan’s friends, who were dying to try out the game with Ryan, and partially cut off because, for such a little guy, Ryan squeezed as tightly as any metal-shop vise. He completely stole her breath away.
    “Ryan, there’s more,” Dave coaxed, peeling back the boy’s arms from around Kara’s waist.
    Kara tried not to be too obvious as she sucked in her first lungful of air. Dave’s grin didn’t help matters too much.
    “Not as super as this!” the boy cried with the unabashed certainty of the very young.
    “I wouldn’t go betting on that, big guy,” Dave warned him, a secretive smile on his face.
    She looked at Dave, puzzled. Leaning into him so he could hear her, she asked Dave, “How do you know that he’ll think they’re cool? I mean, I know, but you don’t even know what I brought,” she pointed out.
    He looked at her as if he was just humoring her by answering. “You work for Dynamic Video Games, don’t you?” It was a rhetorical question. Or at least, it would have been, had it come from anyone but Dave.
    “Yes, but how would you know if he’ll even like the video games I picked for him? I mean, like I said, I know,” she repeated with a casual certainty, “but isn’t this a little out of your sphere of knowledge?”
    Not in her wildest dreams would she have ever imagined Dave even knowing how to take a video game out of its box, much less playing one or knowing which game was the current rage. Not without help.
    “Why?” he wanted to know. “Doctors play video games, too, Kara.” He saw the dubious look on her face. “What, you think all I do is go to the hospital and then come home? I work in the E.R., which means that my shift can either be incredibly boring or so tense and frantic I don’t get a chance to draw two breaths in succession and hope to God I made the right judgment call in a time frame where most people just have lunch.” A smile played on his lips. “After a day like that, how do you think I unwind?”
    “By lying in your crypt and having electrodes recharge you?” she asked innocently, keeping a straight face.
    He disregarded her sarcastic reply. “I play video games.”
    He was serious. This was going to require a little bit of mental readjusting on her part, she decided. Kara looked at him as if she’d never met him before. Because, she thought as she took the first bite of the birthday cake he’d handed her previously, maybe she really hadn’t. Apparently some people could change if they wanted to.
    He could feel her eyes scrutinizing him. Delving into him as if to burrow down beneath his top layers. “Something wrong?” he wanted to know.
    She shook her head, lowering her eyes back to the quickly disappearing piece of cake. “Nothing’s wrong. Just trying to figure out if you’re pulling my leg or not.”
    He took his time responding, choosing instead to let his eyes do the initial talking for him. He knew that silence, that pretending to study her, would drive her crazy.
    Finally he said, “Don’t worry, when I’m misaligning any part of your body, I promise that you’ll be the first to know it.” And then his smile widened. “Or maybe the second, but definitely one of those two numbers.”
    Why did that sound more like foreshadowing than a glib comment? she wondered. And why did she feel as if she’d just been placed on notice? Something hot jumped over her spine. She