runs in my family. My sister wanted to be a vet since she was eight, and my brother always wanted the law. I loved hotels, the drama, the puzzles, the people, the constancy and the flux. All of it. So my life plan was to manage a hotel. The right hotel, in the right spot. That was the Wickham. Jonathan was part of the Wickham, and as classy —so I thought—and elegant as it is.”
“That’d be your type.”
“Classy and elegant has its pull,” she qualified. “And he was charming, believe me. He knew art and music and wine and fashion. I learned, and I wanted to. He pursued me, and that was flattering and exciting. His family opened the doors for me, and that was heady. My life plan expanded. I’d manage the Wickham, marry Jonathan. We’d be one of D.C.’s power couples. I’d entertain, brilliantly, manage the hotel, again brilliantly, eventually have two children we’d both adore, and so on … I know exactly how shallow all that sounds.”
“I don’t know about that. It’s a plan.”
“I thought I loved him, so that’s a factor. But I didn’t.” Realizing that had been both comfort and pain. “He didn’t break my heart, and he should have. He broke my spirit, and that’s lowering. He shattered my pride, and that’s hard to come back from. But he didn’t break my heart, so in some ways I understand, now, I used him, too.”
“Bullshit.”
His instant and terse opinion surprised her. “Really?”
“Really. He pursued you, your term. His family went right along with it. You had reason to believe things were going according to that plan. And you thought you loved him. Maybe you were stupid, but you didn’t use him.”
She considered. “I think I like the idea of using him more than being stupid.”
“It’s finished anyway.”
“Yes, it is. So. You. You have two brothers who hold long-term affection from a young age. Any torches held?”
“Me?” The idea amused him a little. “No. I leave that to Owen and Beck.”
“No broken hearts or spirits?”
“Cameron Diaz. She doesn’t know I exist. It’s tough to take.”
He made her laugh again. “I have that same problem with Bradley Cooper. What’s wrong with them?”
“Got me. We’re as hot as they are.”
“Absolutely. Plus, you probably look more natural in a tool belt than Bradley. Tool belts are also hot,” she explained. “They’re like gun belts—Old West cowboy gun belts. When a man’s wearing one—naturally—a woman knows he can handle himself.”
“That’s a lot for a tool belt.”
She pointed at him. “You like my shoes.”
“The stilts?”
“Yes, the stilts. You mention them, often, which tells me you notice. And you notice what they do for my legs.” She shot one out, turned her foot at the ankle. “They’re good legs.” She angled her head and her smile. “Maybe not as long as Cameron’s, but they’re good legs.”
“You’re not lying.” He gripped her calf, swiveled her toward him. When his hand started its slide up, she swiveled back, rose quickly.
“We should eat. I thought I’d set up in The Dining Room.”
He simply reached around her, turned off the oven. Then pressed her back, moved in.
Not just his mouth this time, but his hands, quick, impatient, just on the edge of rough. Desire, never far below the surface when he was near, punched through and made her knees weak.
Some sane part of her thought of the impropriety if one of the guests walked in. But that part simply wasn’t loud enough, strong enough to drown out the primal pull.
“Stay there,” he ordered the dog, who sighed and settled again.
Hope was still reeling when he grabbed her hand, dragging her out of the room. “Ryder—”
“They’ve got wine, pizza, and sex. It’ll be a miracle if they come out before morning.” He paused briefly at her office. Not M&P, he thought, not with those two doubles. “Not down here. We’re going to need a bigger bed.”
“I can’t just—”
“Wanna bet?”
And not her apartment. Damned if he was hauling her up to the third floor. He grabbed the key to T&O, pulled her out and toward the stairs.
“But if they need something—”
“They’ve got what they need. It’s time we did.”
He turned her on the stairs, pressed her back to the wall, and kissed her until even the idea of protest seemed not only impossible but absurd.
If she didn’t have him, and now, she might just blow apart. Then nobody would have an innkeeper.
“Hurry,” she managed, and began pulling him.
Breathless from much more than a dash up a flight of stairs, she clung to him when they reached the second floor. Now her hands rushed and took, riding over his hips, up his back as they stumbled their way to the door.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry.” She chanted it, and fixed her teeth on his shoulder as he fought with the key.
His hand shook. He’d have thought it mortifying if he could think at all. He could only want, and want. When the key shot home, he pushed her into the room, barely had the presence of mind to lock the door behind them before they fell on the bed, into the canopied bower.
“Leave the stilts on,” he told her.
She managed a laugh, started to pull him to her. The laugh tumbled into a grateful gasp as he yanked the thin dress down to her waist.
His mouth, his hands, his weight, his scent. Everything she wanted, everything she so desperately needed. She wanted the thrust of him, hard, strong,
“Yes. Yes.” She turned her face into his throat. “Anything, everything, everywhere.”
The tidal wave swarmed over her, roared through her, at last. The heat, the pleasure, the quick spikes of panic and madness. Hard hands on her flesh; a hungry mouth on her breast. Taking, feeding, destroying.
More. More. More.
He felt her hands on his belt, working, tugging, and her breath hot on his throat, against his ear. Everything blurred, the feel of her—smooth as silk and soft as water, and hot as lava. Her voice on a cry of release when he shoved up her dress and found her. Movement, all movement, her hips, her hands, her legs.
Her mouth found his, fixed greedily as her hips rose, ground to him. Knives of need tore through his body when she shoved his jeans down and closed her hand around him.
And her legs locked around his waist. They took each other in a kind of madness, all speed and desperation breaking on pleasure so keen it sliced.
She clung to him while her body quaked, while the glory of those aftershocks trembled and shook. Then weak, her hands slid away. Spent, he collapsed onto her, and lay there waiting for his mind and body to make a connection.
She’d … annihilated him, he realized. And that was a first.
He understood, dimly, he still wore his boots, and his jeans were somewhere down around his ankles while her dress was a fragile bunch at her waist.
Not exactly the way he’d planned it. And a far, far cry from what he’d expected of her.
At length she let out something between a moan and a sigh. “God. God. Thank God.”
“Are you praying or thanking me?”
“Both.”
He managed to roll off her so they lay side by side as they were, still mostly dressed, dazed, and utterly satisfied.
“I was in a hurry,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
She sighed again, closed her eyes. “I’ve been in the desert where sex is concerned. It’s been more than a year.”
