A Bride Until Midnight Read online

  She had no idea where he’d been tonight, but he tasted like whiskey and burned like moonshine. There was no question in her mind about whether she was making a mistake. Some things transcended logic. She’d known, not intellectually, but instinctively, this moment was coming since the night she’d met him. She just hadn’t known she’d known.

  She’d become a new woman in so many ways six-and-a-half years ago. In the process, she’d begun a new life, and painstakingly learned how to be an innkeeper. At first she’d had to do a lot of pretending. She pretended nothing in Kyle’s arms tonight. This was human nature in its purest form, and what she felt, felt right.

  His hands went to either side of her face, levering her there as his mouth covered hers again and again. His kiss was hard and a little reckless, seeking and insistent. It filled her with so much longing she lost all sensation of time and place and reality. When his hand went to her breast, she gasped once then promptly forgot to breathe. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he didn’t stop. All that mattered was that she didn’t either, that she returned his touch, pleasure for pleasure.

  “Help me out here,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “With what?” she asked, her head tipped back, her eyes closed, engrossed in the feel of his lips working their way down her neck.

  “Where’s the zipper?”

  Her laugh sounded provocative and breathless. “Allow me,” she whispered.

  But first, she took his hand and drew him with her toward her room. Once they were both inside, he kicked the door shut, and she turned the lock.

  Kyle had a hazy impression of a small suite of rooms with sloped ceilings and dark wood floors. She must have turned on the metal lamp on a table next to the bed across the room before she left. Beneath it was a black-and-white picture of three women, arm-in-arm. He was more interested in the picture Summer made, her mouth wet from his kiss, her lips full and lush, her color heightened by desire.

  She was a woman, with a woman’s wiles and a seductress’s smile. She demonstrated both as she lowered the sneaky zipper down the side of her dress.

  He whisked the lightweight fabric over her head, unbuttoned his shirt and peeled that off, too. He kicked off his shoes, but she was a step ahead of him. She was already barefoot, her body now covered only by the semi-transparent fabric of her bra and panties.

  She held his gaze as she reached behind her and unfastened the back closure of her bra. As the garment fell away, his gaze raked down her body. Her legs were long, her panties scant. Her naval was a dip he would get to later. The delicate lower ridges of her ribs were slightly visible through her skin. Her breasts were round and creamy white and perfect.

  He started there. He pressed his lips to the plump upper swells as he took them into his hands. They spilled over his palms, her nipples puckering instantly.

  Her arms came around his neck, her body arching so perfectly into his. He kissed her mouth, again and again, pressing her backwards, one step and then another.

  She didn’t simply fall onto the bed when the backs of her knees touched the mattress. Oh no, not Summer. She turned around, threw the spread back and climbed on. The sight of her momentarily bent over in those scanty panties sent his heart rate to stroke level. His chinos landed on the floor before he’d drawn another breath.

  Naked, he stretched out beside her and glided his hand along the entire length of her, his lips heating a path from her mouth to her breast and back again. Her moan of pleasure was the only music in the room, the wind against the window their only witness.

  Her eyes were half-closed, as if she were learning him by heart through touch. He loved her hands on him, loved touching her in return, loved exploring and discovering what she liked, what drove her crazy and what drove her wild. Pliant and eager, she drove him wild in return.

  He finally whisked her panties off. Both fully naked, they rolled across the bed, tangling the sheets and tearing out the covers as they went. He’d intended to take his time, but the blood pounding in his ears grew too insistent to be ignored, and he knew there was only so much he could do to slow this down.

  She made a sound in the back of her throat. It was part demand, part plea, a request for a favor he couldn’t help granting. Luckily she had the presence of mind to open a drawer in the beside table and remove a box of protection. Kyle took over from there.

  Summer had been told she was beautiful in the past. Kyle said nothing with words, and yet, beneath his gaze, she felt revered. She heard foil tear, a wrapper being discarded. Then he was with her again, and it was as if the bed rose up to meet her back, and he was easing on top of her, one knee straddling her legs, his chest pressed tight to hers, his mouth on her lips.

  She lost track of time then, of who moaned and who sighed. Nature had taken over, and instinct arose. He moved faster and faster, until she cried out lustily. He shuddered, and she whimpered again. It was a beautiful, noisy, raw act of possession, and it took both their breaths away.

  Gradually her thoughts cleared, and her breathing ceased to be ragged. When her eyes finally fluttered open, she found that Kyle was on his side next to her, his gaze on her face. He really had the most amazing green eyes. He had a nice nose, too, for a man, and a mouth that could inspire poetry. She would have liked to continue, but she was having trouble keeping her eyes open.

  She felt the mattress shift beside her, felt the sheet being drawn to her shoulders. Two nights with too little sleep had caught up with her at last.

  “You never answered my question,” he said after he stretched up on one elbow and reached for the chain on the lamp.

  “What question?” she asked.

  “Are you going to see the vet again?”

  Her answer seemed to come from a great distance. “Not unless I get a dog.”

  Kyle chuckled in the dark. By the time he laid his head back down on the pillow, Summer was fast asleep.

  He rolled over, listening to the wind and the river and the soft sound of Summer’s breathing. She wasn’t clingy or needy or demanding. She didn’t ask to be held, and she didn’t want to talk. Just the opposite, in fact. She lay on the other side of the bed, her head on her pillow, her bare thigh the same temperature as his.

  With a sigh of contentment, he did something he hadn’t done in more than a year. He closed his eyes and drifted slowly to sleep, too, a smile on his face.

  Once, a few years ago, Summer had caught a miserable strain of flu that had confined her to bed for two days. It wasn’t the flu that kept her here this morning. This was a fever of another sort.

  She and Kyle had awakened the first time as the sun was coming up. They’d made love, slept more, and made love again. Now rays of late morning sunlight were slanting through the slats in the blinds on her windows.

  Although she hadn’t been completely celibate these past six years, she’d never invited a man to spend the night. She liked sleeping alone. So why did the soft rumble of Kyle’s steady breathing as he slept next to her make her feel so full?

  He may have been the only guest staying in the inn this weekend, but she still had eight rooms to clean, eight beds to change, and that was just the beginning. There were breakfast menus to plan for the upcoming week, and she had accounting to work on and reservations to verify and emails to answer. She needed to get up and begin her tasks, or she would never be ready when the other guests returned tomorrow evening.

  Careful not to jostle him, she held in her sigh of contentment and eased to the edge of the mattress. The sheet fell away from her as her toes touched the floor.

  Before she got any further, a strong arm encircled her waist. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  She let out a little yelp as Kyle drew her with him to the center of the bed where he fit her back to his front.

  “I have an inn to run,” she said, but her argument was losing steam to what he was doing to her.

  He nuzzled the back of her neck with his lips, the stubble of a day-old beard making an already-sen
sitive area tingle. She couldn’t believe he was aroused again, for they’d already made love several times.

  When he’d run out of protection, she’d fumbled through a drawer until she found an unopened box. For some reason, he seemed pleased when she had to blow the dust off the top. Of course, everything she did seemed to please him.

  “Chelsea, Abby and I are meeting with Madeline and the caterer this afternoon,” she said. It might have made a stronger impact if her head hadn’t lolled back when his hand covered her breast.

  “What time?” he asked, nipping her shoulder with his teeth while his hand continued to work magic where he touched her.

  “Two o’clock.”

  “That’s four hours from now.” The deep rasp of his voice held a note of humor as he said, “We’ll be cutting it close.”

  With a speed and agility that surprised them both, she turned onto her right side so she was facing him. Going up on one elbow, she tilted her head and arched her eyebrows. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

  He began to show her just how sure he was. It was a long time before either of them said another word.

  This was one of those rare weekends when Summer didn’t have to be careful not to use all the inn’s hot water. And yet she didn’t linger in the shower.

  She had no reason to hurry. She had the entire place to herself, no one to answer to, two days to prepare for the coming week.

  Why did she feel compelled to rush?

  Kyle and Riley were meeting with Riley’s tailor, and then the two of them were taking Riley’s dog, Gulliver, for a run. Summer was officially off fill-in bride duty. Kyle was officially finished filling in for the groom, not that there had been a lot for Kyle to do. It was wonderful to know that Madeline was back on her feet and happy and ready to manage her remaining wedding plans. Riley Merrick had a strong woman on his hands, and, while Summer had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t always going to make his life easy, it was exactly the kind of life he wanted.

  As she dried her hair, smoothed on lotion and applied a single coat of mascara and lip gloss, a similar question played through her mind. What did she want?

  She’d invited Kyle to her bed. It had seemed so natural while she’d been in his arms. Today reality was setting in.

  She’d only been twenty-three when she’d arrived in Orchard Hill, and although people here saw her as worldly, she’d never been one to settle for casual sex. Though there had been nothing casual about making love with Kyle. Wild, yes, consuming and uncontrollable, definitely, but not casual.

  Summer was accustomed to steering her life; she’d had no one to rely on for so long. This sensual experience was uncharted territory for her.

  She doubted that was true for Kyle.

  The realization gave her pause, and, in some bizarre way, it calmed her anxiety. Kyle was one of those men who exuded sex appeal. He traveled the world, and probably had exotic women slipping their room keys into his pocket on a regular basis. Surely he knew his way in and out of encounters of all kinds. Since she was out of date regarding the protocol for this kind of thing, she decided to take her cue from him.

  If all they’d had was one night, so be it.

  In fact, that would be best. He was a reporter who traveled the world, and she was an innkeeper who had no intention of leaving Orchard Hill. She knew better than to romanticize this. She’d stopped believing in fairy-tale endings a long time ago.

  As she left the bathroom, she automatically catalogued her surroundings. The shoes she’d been wearing last night were still where she’d toed out of them. The bed was rumpled, the sheet pulled out, one pillow on the floor.

  Her gaze went to the framed photograph on the dresser. She saw that it was turned slightly, as if it had been picked up and put back down. Kyle must have looked at it.

  Summer went to her dresser. Lifting the frame closer, she stared into the faces of her beloved mother and sister. She recalled her surprise upon discovering the list in Kyle’s room. If he was looking for something about her past, he wouldn’t find it here, for her mom and sister had died before Summer moved to Orchard Hill. Looking at their images brought a smile and left an ache. Both girls resembled their kind-natured and trusting mother, but Claire, the oldest, had been most like her. The photo had been snapped just before their mom’s diagnosis. She was gone three months later. A year later Claire died, too.

  Summer was glad her sister hadn’t known that their father considered them pawns to be used in his business deals. At least she hoped Claire hadn’t known before she’d died so suddenly of a brain aneurysm a year after their mom died from cancer. That day in a two-hundred-year-old cathedral in front of God and some of the most influential and wealthy people on the east coast, Summer had shown her father just how like him she could be. He wouldn’t underestimate her again.

  The media had turned her runaway bride act into a circus sideshow. It was only after she’d started over in Orchard Hill that she’d been able to mourn her mom and sister and the life they’d shared.

  Feeling melancholy, she set the photo back on the dresser and wandered from her room. She started a load of laundry then decided to work on upcoming reservations. She hadn’t gotten far when her gaze homed in on a small piece of yellow paper lying on the registration desk.

  How about dinner tonight?

  Just so there’s no confusion, now I’m officially interested.

  A warm glow went through her, and a smile played across her mouth. Despite the warning bells clanging in her head, she couldn’t tamp down her exhilaration. With a shake of her head and quiet chuckle, she thought, now he was officially interested?

  If the residents of Orchard Hill wanted fine dining, they drove across the river to Dusty’s English Cellar, by far the nicest restaurant in town. If it was gossip, good food, laughter and lunch they were looking for, The Hill was the perfect choice.

  Summer had been meeting her three closest friends for lunch at The Hill every Saturday for six years. The décor was Americana Diner, the tables were square, the service was good, and, as usual, the place was packed.

  Madeline looked radiant. Everyone who stopped by the table she was sharing with Summer, Chelsea and Abby said so. Orchard Hill’s darling beamed at each and every well-wisher.

  After the last one shuffled away, Madeline whispered, “Do you think people know?”

  Chelsea shook her head. Abby shrugged.

  And Summer said, “I think they’ll be counting backwards when the baby’s born, but even then they won’t know for sure. Do you care?”

  Madeline beamed again. “I have morning sickness every day until eleven and the rest of the time I can’t get enough to eat. I’m spilling out of my bra. Seriously, I don’t even recognize my own body. I cry when it’s inappropriate and I can’t remember my own phone number. And yet just this morning I pinched myself because I didn’t dream I could ever be this happy. I’d like to broadcast it to the world. Now, who wants dessert?”

  The other three couldn’t believe their ears.

  “Dessert,” Abby quipped. She looked good in red, her short, wispy blond hair in adorable disarray. “Are you the same person who, not twenty-five minutes ago, polished off the beef Wellington, the stroganoff and the stuffed chicken breast at the caterer’s? Does anybody else remember hearing her say she couldn’t eat another bite?”

  Madeline giggled. Summer did, too. She’d been laughing a lot today. She couldn’t believe the other three hadn’t mentioned that. Chelsea, however, was having trouble forcing even a semblance of a smile. The reason was sitting across the room wearing a torn black T-shirt and faded jeans. Summer wondered what Sam Ralston was doing back in Orchard Hill.

  Chelsea adjusted her necklace and smoothed her wrinkle-free collar, her equivalent of fidgeting. Pasting on a happy face, she signaled to the waitress to bring them all a slice of pie.

  “So, Summer,” Madeline said, resting her elbows on the table directly opposite Summer. “What did you and Riley talk about?”
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br />   Madeline either had cameras hidden all over town, or she really did have a sixth sense about matters of the heart. How else could she have known that her fiancé had taken Summer aside two hours ago and spoken of his concern for Madeline?

  Looking into Madeline’s blue eyes, Summer said, “I told him the truth. I said you’re resilient and stubborn, caring and hormonal. I advised him to keep his appointment with his tailor. After all, he needs to look good for his wedding, too. I told him to enjoy a few hours away and not to worry because I’ve got you. Chelsea, Abby and I all do.”

  Emotion brimmed in Madeline’s eyes all over again. Before the tears spilled over, the waitress arrived with dessert. Summer moved slightly to make room. The action must have bared the side of her neck formerly covered by her hair, because Chelsea placed a gentle fingertip over the abrasion there and quietly said, “Your date with Jake must have gone well.”

  Four slices of pie were forgotten as three sets of eyes narrowed speculatively.

  “Dinner with Jake was okay.” Summer looked at Abby, for she knew whom Summer had been kissing first.

  It was Madeline who said, “Okay didn’t leave whisker burn on your neck.”

  “That happened later, after Jake dropped me back at the inn and left.”

  Since they all knew there was only one guest spending the weekend at the inn, it didn’t take any of them long to react. Abby covered her mouth with one hand. Chelsea’s eyes widened, and Madeline put down her fork.

  “Do you mean you and Kyle?” she asked.

  Summer lifted one shoulder and nodded at the same time. “Riley’s brother, Kyle?” Madeline persisted.

  “I didn’t plan it, but, yes, that Kyle. Do you mind?”

  The imp in Madeline had come out of hiding since she’d returned to Orchard Hill after her quest to find Riley Merrick. Summer had been surprised when her angelic friend had cut her long blond hair a few weeks ago. Yes, she was eating for two, but inside she was still the same caring girl who’d taken one look into Summer’s eyes six years ago. She’d often told Summer that she’d found the sister she’d never had that day.