Thanks Nan, LabRat, Kathy, Hazel and Merry for comments and clarification!
Nan: I think CJ is beginning to come round to your way of thinking, but it is a very gradual process, as you will see.
I've done some tweaking, and this is what I came up with. (I've changed by 'master' but I haven't changed the version posted here.)
Lois could feel the warmth of CJ's body through his shirt as she leaned against him. It reminded her of basking in the sun on a summer's day. It was soothing, in a way, as were the arm he'd wrapped around her and the gentle huskiness of his voice as they unhurriedly talked. Right now she needed soothing because the kisses they had shared had had the power to shake her to her very core, which was odd, she thought, because she'd always associated the kinds of turbulent emotions she was feeling now with passion, and the kisses hadn't been passionate so much as gentle and tender – a hint of what perhaps could be. They had been chaste – almost tentative, uncertain, shy – but at the same time, wonderful, arousing in her feelings of greater depth than she could ever remember feeling before. She'd already realised that she was attracted to CJ. What she *hadn't* realised was just how deep that attraction ran.
She needed time now to get used to the idea that he was, apparently, just as attracted to her as she was to him. But she'd been attracted to men before, and things hadn't worked out, just as she knew things hadn't worked out for him in the past, either. Who was to say that it would work out for either of them now?
And yet... There was something about him – about *them* – that her intuition was insisting was different. The attraction wasn't about lust, about two good-looking people lying together – at least not entirely. There was something about it that called to her soul, that told her this was as much about a meeting of hearts and minds as of bodies.
She snuggled closer, enjoying the feel of his body against hers. She smiled as she listened to the steady beat of his heart, and let the sound soothe the rampaging thoughts that were drifting around her head and easing her excitement and nervousness into a calmer acceptance.
Chris
