Last Virgin In California

A nut.

In an instant, he saw the end of his career, or being transferred to some far-flung, ice-covered base, or being busted down to Private. There was no telling what she’d do once the shock wore off.

“I think my toes curled.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Seriously,” she said. “That was an amazing kiss, Gunnery Sergeant Rogan.”

“Thanks.” What else could he say? Hell, he should have known she wouldn’t react as he’d expected her to. Any sane woman would be either furious or—well, just furious. But then, he told himself, Lilah Forrest didn’t even dress sane.

“I mean to tell you,” she said, admiration clear in her voice, “you could give lessons.”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t trust himself to.

“Forget the Marines,” she added, “you could probably make a bundle being an escort.”

“What?”

“Just checking,” she said with a short laugh that sounded nearly as musical as the bells she wore on her wrist. “You were so quiet there for a minute, I thought maybe you were the first person to ever slip into a coma while standing up.”

“You’re out of your mind, you know that?” Big surprise there, he thought.

“Why?” she asked. “Because I didn’t kick you or run off to daddy to complain? Would you be happier if I was angry?”

“Well,” he said, “yeah. At least that I’d understand.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said and started walking toward home again.

He fell into step beside her.

Even without the fog, the air was damp and carried the scent of the ocean. Shadowy clouds scuttled across a black sky, covering and then displaying the stars as if some giant hand were playing hide-and-seek with diamonds.

“Not disappointed,” he said, weighing the words mentally before speaking them, “just…confused.”

“I don’t know why,” she said, drawing the edges of her sweater closer around her. “You kissed me, I kissed you and it was terrific.”

More than terrific, he thought, but didn’t say.

“And that’s it,” he said. “No big deal.”

She glanced up at him and in a snatch of moonlight, he saw the smile curving her delectable mouth. “If you want to run get a sword, I’ll fall on it for you.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said tightly and wondered why in the hell it bothered him so much that she wasn’t bothered.

“Just what did you mean then?” she asked as they came up on the low, three-foot-high brick wall that surrounded the backyard of the Colonel’s house.

He grabbed the regulation cover off his head and ran the flat of one hand across the top of his high and tight haircut. For the first time in too many years to think about, he almost wished his hair was longer. At least then, he’d have something to grab hold of and yank.

“I don’t know what I meant. All I’m sure of is, I don’t get you at all.”

“Ah,” she said and he heard the smile in her voice. “The mystery that is Lilah Forrest.”

“You are that.”

“Because I didn’t swoon or run off screaming into the fog because of one kiss?” Lilah shook her head and stared up at him. Her knees had quit shaking and she was pretty sure her heart wasn’t going to climb out of her throat. But her stomach was still pitching and quivering with excitement and it felt as though every one of her nerve endings was standing up and shouting, “Ooh-rah!”

She shook her head. “If that’s the case, then you think either very highly of yourself or very little of me.”

“Neither,” he said. “You’re just…surprising, is all.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Not sure about that, either.”

“You’ll let me know when you figure it out?”

“You’ll be the first,” he promised. “But don’t hold your breath. You’re only going to be here four weeks and something tells me it’d take years to understand you.”

“And sometimes,” she said softly, thinking now of her father, “not even then.”

A moment later though, she pushed those thoughts aside. They were old aches and there was no need to reexamine them again tonight. Besides, she’d much rather think about what had happened to her only a few minutes ago.

Granted, she wasn’t exactly the most experienced woman around, but Lilah had the distinct feeling that even if she had been, Kevin Rogan’s kiss would have stood out from the crowd. The man was an absolute master at lip manipulation. She ran her tongue across her bottom lip as if she could still taste him there and just the thought of that sent a shiver of expectation shooting down the length of her spine.

She wanted to kiss him again and even admitting that silently, she knew just how dangerous this was. After all, he was career military. A Marine, for pity’s sake. A man, for all intents and purposes, exactly like her father. The two of them were like peas in a pod as far as their views, their goals and no doubt, the kind of woman they approved of. And that kind of woman was definitely not her kind. She’d been the bane of her father’s existence for as long as she could remember. She had no reason to think that Kevin Rogan would be any different.

How could she be interested even slightly in a man hand-chosen by her father? This had never happened before. Every other time her dad had tossed a Marine in her path, she’d either frightened them off or been bored silly.

Wouldn’t you know that the one time she’d come prepared—armed with a pretend fiancé—that would be the time she’d meet a man who set off alarm bells throughout her body? The key word in that sentence being alarm. If she had any sense, she’d go inside and tell her father that she couldn’t stay after all. Then she’d pack up and go home to San Francisco. Back to the world where she felt comfortable and wanted and respected.

But she knew darn well that she wasn’t going anywhere.

Not after a kiss like that.

She wanted another one and then, maybe, another one after that.

And giving in to that thought, she looked up at him, went up on her toes and slanted her mouth against his. He went rigid, as if suddenly called to attention. But electricity hummed between them, lighting up Lilah’s insides and pushing her to go for more. She wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her head to one side, giving him more and silently asking him to return the favor.

Moments ticked past and still she waited for a response. When it finally came, it was more than she had hoped for. His arms went around her middle, his hands fisting at the small of her back, pulling her tightly to him. She felt his need pulsing through her as he parted her lips with his tongue and reclaimed her mouth.

Lilah sighed into him and she heard him swallow a groan that rumbled up from deep in his chest. He yanked her flush against him and instantly she became aware of the rock-hard proof of his desire for her. A flicker of something damp and hot and unbelievably exciting settled and pooled deep within her and Lilah wanted nothing more than to give in to it.

His breath puffed across her cheek, his warmth and strength surrounded her. The silence of the night crept close, making their rapid heartbeats and ragged breathing the only sounds she heard.

Then he tore his mouth from hers and stared down at her with wild-eyed, deep-rooted shock. But despite the denial she knew was coming, he couldn’t disguise the passion she saw in his gaze. Not to mention the fact that his body was telling her all she needed to know about whether or not he wanted her.

“Why’d you do that?” he demanded, sliding his hands from her back to her upper arms. His fingers pushed into her flesh, but in spite of his strength, or maybe because of it, his grip was still gentle. “Didn’t we just say that it would be better if we both forgot about that other kiss?”

“Actually no,” she said, and took a deep breath in a futile attempt to slow down her heartbeat. “You said that.”

“Whatever.”

“And,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken at all, “I figured if you’re going to forget something, might as well make it memorable.”

“Memorable? If it’s memorable, you don’t forget.”

“Good. I don’t want to.”

“What kind of game are you playing?” he asked, releasing her and taking a long step backward.

“Who’s playing?” she asked and locked her knees to keep them from liquefying.

“Look,” he ground out, “you’re here for a few weeks. You’re my Commanding Officer’s daughter and you’re engaged to some poor guy who probably thinks you’re missing him.”

She imagined Ray, no doubt at home, having dinner with Victor and not giving her a second thought. Ah, the old “tangled web” parable about deception had just risen up to bite her in the rear.

If she told him that she wanted him, then she was a cheating fiancée. If she told him the truth, that she wasn’t engaged to Ray, then she was a liar. Hmm. No way to win there.

Which was probably for the best, she told herself as her blood cooled and her brain cleared. No matter how good a kisser Kevin Rogan was, the plain fact was that there could be nothing between them. He was military and she just didn’t do military very well.

Nodding to herself, she said, “You’re right.”

“I am?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” she quipped. “Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly.

“So we’re agreed then?”

“On?”

“On the fact that there’s going to be no more kissing between us.”

He nodded shortly. “Yeah, we’re agreed.”

“Okay then.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” She looked up at him, then shifted her gaze to the house behind her. “I guess I’d better go inside.”

“Yeah, you probably should,” he said.

She was freezing on the outside and bubbling hot on the inside. It just didn’t seem fair. But then, this was probably just punishment for allowing herself to get so turned on in the first place.

After all, she should know better. She’d long ago accepted her unofficial title of the Last Virgin in California.

She sat down on the edge of the low wall, swung her legs over and stood up in the middle of her father’s rose bushes. A stray thorn or two tugged at the folds of her sweater, but she ignored them.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He took a step back from the wall. “I’ll be here.”

“All right then. Good night.” Lilah turned, paused, then looked over her shoulder at him. In the indistinct wash of moonlight, with the fog stretching out behind him, he looked impossibly gorgeous and as unreachable as the stars overhead. So she couldn’t resist saying, “Just for the record, you’re a great kisser.”

He scowled at her and she headed for the house. She could feel Kevin’s gaze locked on her. Heat blasted through her as surely as if she’d been standing with her back to a roaring fire. It was all she could do not to shiver again.

She was in some serious trouble, here.

So it was a good thing she didn’t hear Kevin mutter thickly, “You’re not a bad kisser yourself.”

One week.

She’d only been on base one lousy week and Kevin’s world was pretty much shot to hell. He wasn’t even getting any sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face, heard her voice, listened to the faint sound of those blasted bells that were as much a part of her as that long blond hair.

Scowling fiercely enough to keep all but the bravest souls at arm’s length, Kevin stepped into the PX. He nodded to the cashier, then walked straight to the back of the room. He opened the refrigerator door, pulled a soda off the shelf and turned to leave.

“Hello. Gunnery Sergeant Rogan, isn’t it?”

He froze, looked to his right and managed to give the older woman striding up to him a tight smile. If not for Lilah, Frances Holden wouldn’t have known him from Adam. But because the Colonel’s daughter had insisted on touring the child-care facility on base, he was now acquainted with the gray-haired woman in charge of the place.

She had a no-nonsense walk, a twinkle in her eyes and a short, square body that the base children seemed to love to cuddle up to.

“Ma’am,” he said, gripping the neck of his soda bottle in one tight fist, “it’s good to see you again.”

She laughed, a booming sound that he swore rattled some of the glassware on the nearby shelves. “Liar.” She held out her right hand and he took it in a firm grip. When she let him go again, she said, “Right now you’re thinking, ‘what does this old bag want and how long will it take.’”

“No, ma’am,” he argued quickly, though he was wondering if the nursery school teacher did a little mind reading on the side.

“I won’t keep you but a minute,” she said, lifting one hand to wave away his objections. “When I saw you, I just had to say something.”

“Ma’am?”

“The next time you see Lilah, will you thank her for me again?”

“Again?” he asked, before he could help himself.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I thanked her once, but it just isn’t enough, though she’ll argue with me on that point, I’m sure.”

Oh, he was pretty sure Lilah would argue with anyone about anything, but that wasn’t the point here, was it?

His grip tightened on the soda bottle until he wouldn’t have been surprised if the glass had shattered in his hand. Why was it women talked around something instead of simply spitting out what they wanted to say? Now a man would have stepped up to him, said what needed saying and been on his way.

Much simpler.

The woman in front of him was still talking and to dam up the flow of words, he held up a hand. When her voice trailed off, he asked one question. “What exactly are you thanking her for?”

The older woman blinked up at him. “She didn’t tell you? Isn’t that just like her? Such a sweet girl. The Colonel can be proud of that one, I’ll tell you. So thoughtful and she didn’t have to do it, frankly I don’t even know how she did it, though Lord knows—”

“Ma’am,” Kevin interrupted the flow again and smiled to take the sting out of his cutting her off. “Just what exactly did Lilah do?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, shaking her head, “didn’t I tell you? She went to a local children’s store and somehow convinced them to donate new winter jackets for the children. All of the children. Most of their parents are enlisted and don’t make much money.” The older woman beamed at him. “She really is a wonder, isn’t she?”

Before he could answer, Mrs. Holden was off, leaving him standing there wondering what else he didn’t know about Lilah Forrest.

Chapter Six

“Do you know I’ve never seen you out of that uniform?” Lilah said, giving him a quick look up and down while he stood on the front porch.

His eyebrows shot straight up and she realized just how that had sounded. And though she was intrigued by the notion, she had the feeling he was not.

“I meant,” she said, stepping out of the house and closing the door behind her, “I’ve never seen you in civvies.”

He took her arm and led her down the short flight of steps to the path leading to the driveway. “Yeah, well, I’m more comfortable in the uniform.”

Lilah shot him a look from the corner of her eye. She didn’t believe him one bit. She’d never met a Marine who didn’t wear civvies off the base if he could. A uniform always attracted attention and most Marines would rather blend in than stand out. So it wasn’t comfort Kevin was looking for, here.

It was a barrier.

A fabric wall standing between them.

He probably figured that if he wore that uniform, it would serve as a reminder that he wasn’t with her by choice, but because her father had asked him to be there. As if she needed reminding.

Heck, Lilah’d never exactly been at the top of the dating food chain. Even in high school, she’d been just a little too weird in a world where everyone else was trying to fit in. College had been no better. She’d actually gone to class rather than the latest fraternity bash, so she’d pretty much been on the outs there, too.

Which really explained the whole “virgin” issue.

Hard to lose something nobody wants.

A brisk wind shot across the base and tugged at the hem of her sapphire blue skirt, rippling it around her calves. She wore a knee-length blue sweater atop the white cotton blouse that was tucked into the waistband of her skirt. Pulling the edges of that sweater around her more tightly, she glanced at Kevin and asked, “Don’t you ever get cold?”

“Nope,” he said, his grip on her elbow firm, but gentle. “But if I ever do, you suppose you’ll be able to find me a jacket?”

“Huh?” she asked, watching him instead of where she was going. She didn’t see the rise in the sidewalk and the toe of her boot caught it just right. She stumbled and would have fallen except for the strength of his hold on her. Once she had her feet steady beneath her again, Lilah asked, “What are you talking about?”

He led her to the car, released her and opened the door. Then leaning both forearms atop it, he kept his gaze on her and said, “I just ran into Mrs. Holden at the PX.”

“Ah…”

“She said to say thank you again.”

Lilah smiled. “Tell her she’s welcome.” She gathered up her skirt, preparing to slide onto the front seat.

“Why’d you do it?” he asked.

She stopped and stared up at him. “Do what? Get the jackets for the kids?”

“No,” he said dryly. “Invent penicillin.”

“Funny.”

“Thanks. So…why?”

Lilah shrugged, trying, unsuccessfully, to make light of the situation. “The kids needed the jackets and it was a good deal for both sides. The store gets a tax write-off and is able to do something for the community and the kids get new winter jackets. Everybody wins. Why wouldn’t I do it?”

“Most people wouldn’t have gone out of their way to go and talk some department store into donating clothes.”

She smiled at him. “As you’ve already pointed out more than once, I’m not ‘most people.’”

“Point taken,” he said and watched her as she sat on the seat and swung her legs inside. He closed the door, walked to the driver’s side and got in himself before looking at her again and saying, “All I wanted to say was, it was a nice thing to do.”

Just a little uncomfortable, as she always was when being thanked for something, Lilah pulled her head back and stared at him in mock amazement. “Gee…is this a compliment I hear?”

“Could be.”

“And me without my journal again.”

“You keep surprising me,” he said.

“Good. I do hate being predictable.”

“I like predictable,” he said and fired up the engine.

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” she murmured. Quickly, she hooked the seat belt then turned her head to look out the side window. He put the car into gear and backed out of the drive onto the road.

Lilah barely paid attention to the passing scene. Instead, her mind rattled along at its own pace, dredging up one thought after another. She’d been happy to arrange for the new jackets for the kids. It hadn’t taken much effort—if there was one thing Lilah was good at, it was talking to people—and after all, it had worked out well for both sides.

But she never had been comfortable with compliments. She preferred doing her volunteering and then slipping away into the mist—like the Lone Ranger, she thought with an inward smile.

They drove through the main gate, and waited for a break in the cars to join the traffic. Once they were a part of the streaming line of lemmings, Kevin spoke up, breaking the silence in the car.

“At least Sea World shouldn’t be crowded. This time of year and all, there aren’t many tourists.”

Grateful that he’d apparently decided to drop their earlier conversational thread, Lilah looked at him and smiled.

He was right. When they pulled into the parking lot twenty minutes later, they had their choice of slots. The weather probably had something to do with that, she thought. Leaden skies and a cold, wintry wind would keep even the locals away from the park. It was almost as if they’d been given the place to themselves for the day.

Kevin watched her as she studied the pamphlet and decided what she wanted to see first. Something inside him shifted uncomfortably. She was just so damned…tempting.

She always had a rumpled, tousled look that made him think of rolling her around on silky sheets—and as that thought strolled through his mind, it was all he could do to keep from reaching for her. But it wasn’t just what she did for his body. He liked how her mind worked. Even when it frustrated him. Talking to her was like walking in circles and her sense of humor was a little unsettling at times, too. But the sound of her laughter was enough to set off sparklers in his bloodstream.

And now he knew that she was thoughtful enough to arrange for kids to get brand-new jackets. And that she was selfless enough to be embarrassed about it when he found out and faced her with it.

She couldn’t be more different from his ex-wife. Alanna couldn’t see further than her own reflection. She’d tossed him over without a thought, to get the one thing she’d wanted and wasn’t able to get without him.

Entrance to the United States.

Old hurts rippled through him, but he buried their memory into a dark hole in the corner of his heart and hoped they’d stay there for a while. It wasn’t often he thought about Alanna. And he liked that she was becoming more and more a part of his past. Though even he had to admit that she’d influenced his present and certainly his future. Never again would he trust that “head over heels” feeling. Never again would he believe a woman when she told him that she loved him more than life itself.

And most important, never again would he allow himself to be as vulnerable to pain. If that meant living alone, then that’s just how it would have to be.

Grumbling to himself, he pushed thoughts of Alanna aside and concentrated on the woman standing in front of him. Lilah tossed her head to one side, swinging that long, glorious fall of hair back over her shoulder and he studied the line of her throat, the delicate curve of her jaw. Air jammed up in his lungs and he had to fight for his next breath. Not a good sign, he told himself, but didn’t know how to keep from feeling that nearly electrical jolt of awareness.

Especially when memories of that kiss kept plaguing him.

She turned those big blue eyes on him and gave him one of her damn near nuclear smiles. And Kevin knew for sure that he wanted her more than his next breath. His entire body was practically humming with a kind of need he’d never experienced before. Not even with Alanna.

And that fact worried him.

“What time is it?” she asked.

Why wasn’t she wearing a watch? Crystals, yes. Silver bells, of course. But a simple watch? No way.

“Ten hundred,” he said with a quick glance at his left wrist.

“Ten o’clock,” she said and checked the pamphlet again. “Good.” She lifted her gaze to his and dazzled him with a smile bright enough to start a fire. Then she grabbed his hand and tugged at him. “We just have time to make it to the dolphin show.”

Obediently, he followed after, trying to keep his gaze from settling on the curve of her behind or the damn near delicious sway of her hips.

Dolphins.

And that’s how it went all day. They hurried from one show to another, stopping only for lunch. He’d never seen a woman so completely entranced by the little things. She loved cotton candy and hot chocolate. She dipped her French fries in ranch dressing and ordered a diet soda with an ice-cream sundae. She laughed easily and teased him mercilessly and he enjoyed it all.

By late afternoon, Kevin had seen enough fish and sea-going mammals to last him a lifetime. But Lilah showed no signs of slowing down. Damned if she wasn’t as fresh and enticing as she had been at the beginning of the day. With her endurance, she’d have made a helluva Marine.

And she wasn’t about to leave until she’d seen what she laughingly referred to as “The Big Guns.”

Shamu.

The arena was practically empty, but still she insisted on sitting down on the azure benches—despite the clearly painted warning that the first five rows might get wet.