HE ONLY BLIGHT ON HER HAPPINESS WAS THAT SPENCER HAD said he planned to stay at college over spring break, studying for final exams, and that he didn’t intend to be back in Houston until after he graduated in June.

Corey, who hadn’t had much interest in dating, decided to usethe months between January and June to broaden her knowledge of the workings of the male mind by going out regularly with a variety of boys. Spence was almost six years older than she, and a hundred times more worldly, and she was beginning to worry that her lack of dating experience would eventually embarrass him or somehow stop him from getting any more deeply involved with her.

She was popular at school andthere were a gratifying number of boys who were eager to take her out, but it was Doug Hayward who quickly became her favorite and most constant escort, as well as her confidant.

Doug was a senir at her high school, the captain of the debate team, and the quarterback of their football team, but his greatest attraction from Corey’s standpoint was that he, too, was hopelessly in love with someone else who lived far away. As a result, she could talk to him about Spence and get some male insight from and older boy who, like Spence, was smart and athletic and who also regarded her more as a sister than a real girlfriend.

It was Doug who tutored her on what “older men” liked in their girlfriends and who helped her come up with ideas to capture Spencer’s attention and then his heart. Some of Doug’s ideas were useful, some impractical, and some downright hilarious.

In May, just after Corey’s seventeenth birthday, they had a long discussion about kissing techniques – a subject in which Corey felt woefully inexperienced – but when Doug earnestly attempted to demonstrate some of the techniques they’d discussed, they ended up convulsed with laughter. When he told her to slide her hand around his nape, Corey made a comic, threatening face and slid her hand around his throat instead. When he attempted to lightly kiss her ear, she got the giggles and laughed so hard she bumped his nose.

They were still laughing as he walked her to her front door that night. “Do me a favor,” Doug joked, “if you ever tell Addison what we did tonight, don’t mention my name. I don’t want my right arm broken by some jealous running back before I ever get to play college football.”

They’d already discussed the possibility of making Spence jealous as a way of forcing him to notice Corey, but the methods Doug came up with had seemed trite and transparent to Corey, and the outcome far too uncertain. “I can’t see Spence getting jealous over anything connected with me,” she said with a sigh, “let alone having him get physical about it.”

“Don’t bet my life on it. There’s nothing like knowing your girl has been kissing someone else to make a sensible guy lose his mind. Believe me,” he added as he left, “I know from experience.”

Corey watched him walk down the sidewalk to his car in the driveway, her imagination running away with itself as his words revolved in her mind and an idea took shape.

She was still standing on the porch long after his taillights disappeared. By the time she finally went inside, she’d made a decision and was working out the fine details of the plan.

Ar soon as Spence came home in June, she had Diana suggest to their mother that Spence be invited to the house for dinner later in the week. Mrs. Foster readily complied. “Spence seemed delighted,” she announced to the family when she hung up the phone in the kitchen.

“That young man appreciates the benefits of healthy home cooking,” Rose said.

“He likes those father-son chats he and I have about business and making money,” Mr. Foster asserted. “I’ve missed them, too.”

“I’d better finish that project in the workshop,” Henry mused aloud. “Spencer has an eye for fine woodwork. He should have gotten his degree in architecture instead of finance. He’s fascinated with anything that has to do with building things.”

Corey and Diana looked at each other with a conspirational smile. They didn’t care why Spence came, so long as he came and stayed after dinner so that Corey could get him outside and execute her plan. Diana’s contribution was to get everyone else to go to the movies once they’d had dinner and a little time to visit with him. Diana had chosen a movie that Corey had already seen so that no one would think it odd when Corey decided to stay home.

By the time Spence finally rang the doorbell, Corey was a mass of quivering nerves,but she managed to look serenely composed as she smiled into his eyes and gave him a quick, welcoming hug. She sat across from him at dinner, surreptitiously studying the changes that a half year had made in his beloved face, while he talked about attending graduate school in the fall. His tawny hair seemed a little darker to Corey, and the masculine planes of his face harder, but that lazy, heart-stopping smile of his hadn’t changed a bit. Every time he grinned at some quip of hers, Corey’s heart melted, but when she smiled back at him, her expression was teasing, not worshipful. By her own count, she’d been out on forty-six dates with boys since he left her in the foyer at Christmas, and although the majority of them had been with Dough, her sixmonth crash course on dating, flirtation, and men in general had served her very well.

She was counting heavily on it as Diana herded the entire family into the car and Spence picked up his sport jacket, obviously intending to leave also. “Could you stay for a little while longer?” Corey asked, giving him what she hoped was a vaguely troubled look. “I – I need some advice.”

He nodded, his forehead furrowing with concern. “What sort of advice, Duchess?”

“I don’t want to talk about it here. Let’s go outside. It’s a beautiful evening, and I won’t have to worry about our housekeeper overhearing us.”

He walked beside her, his sport jacket slung over his shoulder and hooked on his thumb, and Corey wished she could feel one tenth as relaxed as he looked. The night was balmy, devoid for once of the awful humidity that made Houston summers into a steam bath. “Where do you want to sit?” he asked as she walked by two umbrellaed tables and headed toward the swimming pool further back on the lawn.

“Over here.” Corey gestured to a lounge chair next to the swimming pool, waited until he sat down on it, then she boldly sat down beside him. Tipping her head back, she gazed up through a canopy of blooming crape myrtles to the stars twinkling in the moonless sky while she fought desperately to recover her fleeing courage. She made herself think only of his Christmas kiss and of the tenderness in his eyes and voice afterward. He had felt something special for her that night. She was still positive he had. Now she needed to make him remember it and feel it again. Somehow.

“Corey, what did you bring me out here to ask me?”

“It’s a little difficult to explain,” she said with a nervous laugh that caught in her throat. “I can’t ask my mother because she’ll get all upset,” she added, deliberately eliminating what she knew would be his only escape routes from the discussion. “And I don’t want to talk about it with Diana. She’s all excited about starting college in the fall.”

She stole a glance at him and saw him watching her with narrowed eyes. Drawing a fortifying breath, she plunged in. “Spence, do you remember when you kissed me at Christmas?”

His answer seemed a long time in coming. “Yes.”

“At the time, you may have known I didn’t have much experience… Did you know – notice – that?” The last question hadn’t been in her rehearsed speech, and so she waited, wanting him to deny that he’d noticed. “Yes,” he said flatly.

Irrationally, Corey was crushed. “Well, I’ve gotten a lot more experience since then! Awhole lot more!” she informed him haughtily.

“Congratulation,” he said shorlty. “Now get to the point.”

His tone was so sharp and impatient that Corey’s head snapped around. Not once in all the times that she’d been with him had he ever spoken to her like that. “Never mind,” she said nervously rubbing her palms on her knees. “I’ll find someone else to ask,” she added, abruptly abandoning the whole scheme and starting to stand.

“Corey,” he snapped, “are you pregnant?”

Corey gave a shriek of horrified laughter and droped back to her seat, gaping at him. “From kissing?” she laughed, rolling her eyes. “What did you do, skip health and hygiene class in the sith grade?”

For the second time in moments, she saw Spencer Addison exhibit another unprecedented emotion – chagri. “I guess you aren’t pregnant,” he said wryly, shooting her a rueful smile.

Utterly delighted to have him off balance for a change, Corey continued to tease him, trying without success to contro her wobbly grin. “Don’t football players take biology at SMU? Listen, if that’s why you have to go to graduate school, save the tuition and talk to Teddy Morris in Long Valley, Texas. His dad’s a doctor, and when Teddy was only eight years old, he told us everything there is to know on the playground by the swings.” Spencer’s shoulders were shaking with laughter as Corey finished. “Of course, he used a pair of turtles for teaching tools. They may have mated by now.”

With traces of a grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth, he shifted position so that his shoulders were against the raised back of the chaise lounge and his left leg was bent at the knee, resting beside Corey’s hip. His right leg, which had been injured twice in games last year, was stretched out beside the chair, his heel resting on the flagstones. “Okay,” he said mildly, folding his arms over his chest and lifting his brows, “let’s hear it.”

“Is your right knee bothering you?”

“Your problem is bothering me.”

“You don’t know what it is yet.”

“That’s the part that’s bothering me.”

The banter was so endearingly familiar, and he looked so relaxed and powerful – as if he could carry the entire world’s problems on his wide shoulders – that Corey had a crazy impulse to simply curl up beside him and forget kissing. On the other hand, if she executed her plan successfully, she might end up stretched out beside him and being kissed. An infinitely preferable alternative, she decided as she paused for a quick mental check of her appearance to make certain she looked as desirable as possible. Something slinky and low-cut would have been preferable to the white shorts and sleeveless knit top she was wearing, but at least they showed off her tan well.

“Corey,” he said in a no-nonsense tone, “the problem?”

Corey drew a long, fortifying breath. “It’s about kissing…” she began haltingly.

“I already got that part. What do you want to know?”

“How can you tell when it’s time to stop?”

“How can you-?” he repeated in disbelief; then he recovered and said flatly and piously, “When you’re enjoying it too much, it’s time to stop.”

“Is that when you stop?” Corey countered.

He had the decency to look ashamed of his answer; then he looked annoyed. “This discussion is not about me.”

“Okay,” Corey said agreeably, rather enjoying his discomfiture, “then it’s about someone else. Let’s call him… Doug Johnson!”

“Let’s drop the pretense,” Spence said a little testily. “The fact is that you’re seeing someone named Johnson and he’s pushing for more than you want to give. If you want advice, I’ll give it to you: Tell him to pound sand!”

Since she hadn’t been certain what tactics Spence would use to evade her trap, Corey was ready with several variations of the same scheme, all of which were designed to maneuver him back onto the path. She tried out the first variation. “That won’t help, I’m seeing lots ofdifferent people, actually, but things seem to go too fast after the kissing gets started.”

“What are you asking me?” he said warily.

“I’d like to know how to tell when things are getting out of hand, and I’d like some specific guidelines.”

“Well, you aren’t going to get them from me.”

“Fine,” Corey said, defeated, but bluffing to save her pride. “But if I end up in a home for unwed mothers because you wouldn’t tell me what I need to know, then it’s going to be as much your fault as mine!”

She made a move to stand, but he caught her wrist and jerked her back down onto the seat. “Oh, no you don’t! You aren’t going to end this discussion with a remark like that.”

A moment ago, Corey thought she was defeated, but now she realized that victory was actually in her grasp. He was floundering. Uncertain. Retreating from his original position. Corey prepared to advance, but very cautiously.

“What – exactly – do you need to know?” he asked, looking sublimely uncomfortable.

“I’d like you to tell me how to know when a kiss is going to get out of hand. There has to be some sort of clue.”

Defeated by his own uncertainty, Spence leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “There are several clues,” he muttered, “and I think you already know damned well what they are.”

Corey widened her eyes and innocently said, “If I knew what they are, why would I be asking you about them?”

“Corey, it is impossible for me to sit here and give you a play-by-play description of the stages of a kiss.”

Corey opened the trapdoor and got ready to shove him in. “Could you demonstrate?”

“Absolutely not! But I can give you a good piece of advice: You’re dating the wrong bunch of people if they’re all pushing you for more than you want to give.”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t make myself clear. What I’m trying to say is that I think I might be the one who is giving the guys the wrong idea.” Mentally, she stood beside the open door and made a sweeping gesture to him. “I think the problem may be how I kiss them.”

Spence walked straight into her trap. “How the hell do you kiss?” he demanded, then he looked furious at his blunder. “Never mind,” he said, leaning forward suddenly.

Corey put her hands on his shoulders and gently forced him back. “Now, don’t get hysterical,” she said in a soothing voice. “Just relax.”

Beneath her palms his shoulders were still tensed, as if he wanted to bolt, and she had a fleeting image of him on the football field, only tonight he’d caught a pass he hadn’t expected and didn’t want, and now he couldn’t find anyone else to hand it off to.

The thought made her smile into his narrowed eyes; it made her feel as if she, not he, were calling the plays for a change. It gave her confidence. It made her absurdly happy. “Spence,” she said. “Just run the ball down the field. It’s very simple. Honest.”

Her ability to fin humor in his predicament only made him more irritable. “I cannot believe you seriously want me to do this!”

From beneath her lashes, Corey gave him a look of limpid appeal. “Who else can I possibly ask? I suppose I could ask Doug to show me what I do that-?”

“Let’s get on with it,” he interrupted shortly.

His knee was still beside her hip, preventing her from moving closer to him. “Could you move your knee?”

Wordlessly, he shifted his left leg out of the way without altering the position of his upper body. Corey scooted closer, turning so that she could look at him.

“Now what?” he demanded, his arms crossed obstinately over his chest.

Corey had a rehearsed answer in mind for exactly this moment. “Now you pretend you’re Doug – and I’ll be me.”

“I don’t want to be Johnson,” he said, sounding bitter about everything.

“Be anyone you like, but be a good sport, okay?”

“Fine,” he clipped. “Now I’m being a good sport.”

Corey waited for him to move, to reach for her, to do something. “You can start whenever you’re ready,” she said when he didn´t budge.

He looked resentful. “Why do I have to start?”

Corey looked at his balky expression and felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to burst out laughing. She had started out tonight hoping to fulfill the most cherished dream of her lifetime – to be kissed by him – really kissed – by him. As badly as she’d wanted that, the prospect of it had made her feel nervous and inadequate. Now it was a foregone conclusion that she was going to be kissed, but it was Spencer who was uneasy and off balance, and it was she who was amused and very relaxed. “You have to start,” she informed him, “because that’s the way things… start.” When he still didn’t seem able to move, she peered at him with sham concern. “Do you know how to start?”

“I think so,” he drawled.

“Because if you aren’t certain, I can give you a hint. Most guys-“

Corey broke off as the absurdity of her suggestion registered on him, banishing his annoyance over his assigned task and making his eyes gleam with amusement.

“Most guys do what?” he asked with a grin as he reached out and moved her closer to his chest. “Is this how Johnson starts?” He bent his head and Corey braced herself for some sort of wild kiss that would make her faint. What she got was a swift clumsy kiss that was slightly off center and made her shake her head in the negative.

“No?” he joked. He pulled her forweard into a bear hug and nipped her ear. “How was that?”

He was being playful, Corey realized, and she suddenly feared that this sort of kissing was all there was going to be. She resolved not to let all her carefully made plans lead only to this, but she couldn’t help laughing as he quickened his demonstration of how he pictured poor imaginary Doug Johnson treating her. “I’ll bet this technique is a real favorite of his,” he said, starting to kiss her and deliberately bumping her nose instead.

“Did I miss? He switched to the other side and bumped her nose again. “Did I miss again?”

Laughing, Corey leaned her forehead against the solid wall of his chest and nodded.

He caught her chin, turned her face aside, and rubbed his nose against the side of her neck like a playful puppy. “Let me know when I’m driving you out of your mind with passion,” he invited, and Corey laughed harder. “Am I great?” he asked, nuzzling the other side of her neck. “Or am I great?”

Her eyes swimming with mirth, Corey raised her gaze to his and nodded vigorously. “You’re completely great –“ she said, “but you just aren´t – Doug.”

He grinned back at her, sharing the joke, and in that prolonged moment of silent companionship, with his hands linked loosely behind her back and his eyes smiling into hers, Corey felt utterly content. Alive. At peace. So did he – she knew it with every beat of her heart. She knew it as surely as she knew he was about to kiss her again and that the joking was over.

His gaze holding hers, he tipped her chin up and slowly lowered his head. “It’s time,” he said softly, as his mouth descended, “for a more scientific approach to the problem.”

At the first touch of his lips on hers, Corey’s entire body stiffened with the shock of the contact. He obviously noticed her reaction, because he took his mouth away and touched it to her cheek, kissing her there as he continued in a throaty murmur, “In order for us to obtain reliable data…” His mouth slid slowly to her jaw. “… both parties have to…” His lips traced a warm path to her ear. “…collaborate in the…” He lifted his mouth slightly, his hand curving around her nape, tilting her face into better position. “… experiment.”

His mouth captured hers in a slow, insistent kiss that steadily increased in pressure, forcing Corey’s lips to part beneath his and setting off tremors of passin inside her that began to collide and combine with stunning force. With an inner moan of pleasure and need, Corey slid her hands up his chest and gave herself over to the kiss, letting him part her lips, yielding to the probing of his tongue, then welcoming it with mindless desperation.

His fingers shoved into the hair at her nape, loosening the pins that held her hair, and suddenly the mass of golden strands were pouring over them like a veil, and everything was out of control. She was kissing him back, falling forward into his arms while his tongue plunged into her mouth, breathlessly insistent, stroking and caressing.

His hands slid over her breasts, cupping them possessively, and Corey crushed her mouth to his, her nails digging into his arms, her body pressing intimately against his surging erection while his arm clamped around her hips, pressing her tighter to him, holding her as he rolled her onto her side.

Years of love and longing more than compensated for lack of experience, and Corey returned each endless, scorching kiss, her hands sliding over the bunched muscles of his back and shoulders, her parted lips surrendering to and then boldly conquering the man whose long fingers were caressing her breasts, tormenting her, tantalizing her with the same promise of pleasure her mouth was giving him. Time ceased to exist for her, obliterated by the turbulence of raging desire and a sensual mouth that was hungrily devouring hers with increasing urgency… and a knee that was nudging her legs apart while his hands… stopped.

He tore his mouth from hers and lifted off her so abruptly that Corey felt completely disoriented, and when she saw the awful expression on his face, she was afraid to breathe.

His brows were drawn together into a dark frown of utter disbelief as he stared down at their bodies, then he seemed to notice that his hand was still on her breast and he jerked it away, glaring at his own palm as if it had somehow offended him. His accusing gaze snapped from his hand to her face, and his expression slowly transformed from angry to utterly thunderstruck.

Understanding dawned, and Corey expelled her breath on a rush of joyous relief. He had lost control and he didn’t like it. He hadn’t imagined she would ever be able to do that to him, but she had done it. She had done that to him. Filled with pride and satisfaction and a world of love, Corey smiled slumberously at him, her hand still resting on his chest. “How’d I do?”

“That depends on what you were trying to do,” he said curtly.

She leaned up on her elbow, so happy that she had been able to make him want her that nothing he could have said would have spoiled her joy. “Now that you’ve had a demonstration,” she teased, “would you care to tell me at what point things got out of hand?”

“No,” he said, and sat up.

Corey sat up beside him, thoroughly enjoying the situation, her smile disarmingly innocent. “But you were supposed to notice and tell me if things got out of hand because of something I did. Do you ned another demonstration?”

“No more demonstrations.” He stood as he said it. “Your father would get out his shotgun if he knew what happened out here tonight, and he’d be justified.”

“Nothing happened.”

“If this is your idea of ‘nothing’, then that’s why the boys in your life are trying to take things too far.”

She walked beside him trying to look deeply concerned when she felt like laughing with delight. “Would you say, then, that things went too far between us?”

“They didn’t go too far. They could have gone too far.”