“I’m still dressed,” she offered a protest.
“So am I.” But he took them both into the warm spray of water anyway.
She giggled when he set her back on her feet.
He pushed her hair out of her face and tilted it so the spray could saturate each strand. And when she opened her eyes, Wyatt was staring with a hooded gaze that made her feel beautiful.
Melanie ran her hands up his chest and grasped the edges of his T-shirt. He ducked and helped her remove it. She allowed her hands to run over the smooth muscles of his chest. “Nice,” she mumbled.
“Your turn,” he said before reaching for the buttons of her shirt. The water made slipping the buttons through the holes difficult, but he managed and brushed the shirt away as if it were an annoyance. Strong hands cupped the sides of her breasts through her bra, and Wyatt’s lips replaced his gaze. The graze of his teeth made a path from the top of one breast to the other before he slipped one strap down her shoulder and kissed her there. She felt her knees give out just a little and Wyatt steadied her. “None of that,” he whispered.
“Can’t help it,” she said.
He lifted his kiss and turned her away from him.
He filled his palm with shampoo and ran his hands through her hair and followed the suds down her shoulders and back. He ran a finger between her bra and skin before snapping apart the clasp and tossing the garment over the top of the glass door.
She glanced at him over her shoulder with a smile. He found soap and lathered his hands before running them over her back and slipping around to follow the curve of her chest. Even in the heated water, her nipples tightened with his touch as she pushed into his palms. He didn’t linger there; instead he kept moving his soap filled palms over every inch of her exposed skin.
Her shorts proved a little difficult with wet denim, so she helped with the snap and the zipper and let him draw them down along with her panties, her back still to him.
Wyatt kept her from slipping as he brought one leg out of her shorts at a time. The two met her bra outside the shower. When he returned, his hands started at her thighs and explored. Slow movements cleaned the less private areas, leaving her breathless with only a touch.
He leaned into her, the feel of his jeans rough on her skin, and kissed the side of her neck. “I’ve thought about you in here, like this,” he told her.
Melanie rested the back of her head on his shoulder and let the water cascade over her. “I like your shower.”
He turned her around, captured her lips, and pressed her into the cool tiles. The heat, his kiss . . . the chill of the wall, all of it made her shiver and reach for him. When her hands slid past his waist, she fumbled with the button of his jeans and pulled.
They didn’t give. She tugged harder and failed.
Wyatt smiled through his kiss and helped her. Once the snap was off, the zipper was down; she pushed his hands away and broke their kiss for air. Instead of turning him around, she offered a sly smile and forced her palms between his ass and his jeans and slid them down his hips. Like him, she removed his underwear with his pants and tried not to stare at his erection when she knelt to help him safely remove one foot at a time. Taking his lead, she tossed the soggy clothes outside the shower and continued her exploration. She found soap, lathered her palms, and took her time scrubbing his tight muscles. From knee to hip, up his chest and over his shoulders she lathered and scrubbed. When her fingers slid over the globes of his ass, he hissed and she smiled.
His hands rested on both sides of her against the wall, his attempt, she knew, to keep this slow. When her hand rounded to the front of him and brushed against his erection, he broke.
Hands were everywhere, his lips took hers and weren’t letting go. Between the water and the pleasurable assault of his tongue, she was captured. He lifted her knee, pushed dangerously close.
Melanie felt herself slide and caught his shoulders to keep from falling.
“We’ve got to get out of here before someone gets hurt,” she told him.
He nodded. “And we need a condom.”
Her thoughts exactly.
He shut the water off, stepped out of the shower, and returned with a huge towel to wrap her in. When she attempted to take over the chore of removing the water from her skin, he moved faster, then lifted her in his arms and carried her into his bedroom. “I can walk,” she giggled.
“I’ve got you.”
He placed her on the bed and removed the towel. With a quick brush against his skin, he tossed it to the floor and crawled up beside her.
“Hi,” he said with a smile.
She ran her foot over his thigh. “Hi.”
The chill of the room didn’t last long. His kiss returned where it had left off, only without a threat of slipping and falling, and Melanie closed her eyes to enjoy it. All of it.
He moved down her body, gave her nipple a quick pinch before comforting the tiny sting with his lips and teeth. Had there been a time in her life when she’d been so sexually charged? She couldn’t remember.
She opened for him, felt his fingers spread between her thighs, and when he finally touched her, she moaned. Tiny stars floated in her head as she pushed against his hand. There was no shyness now, no insecurity of how she looked, of her being a mother . . . nothing. It was just her and Wyatt and this incredible moment.
“So wet,” he said before replacing his finger with his tongue.
“Oh, God.” She sighed, caught her breath, and ran a hand through his wet hair as he tasted his fill. And when she was close, so close she felt the rush of the wind on her thighs, he pulled away.
She whimpered.
When he returned, he was covering his erection and teasing her again.
A look in her eyes and a smile was apparently all the encouragement he needed. When he filled her, she wrapped her legs around his waist and met him with every push and pull. When he kissed her, she tasted herself and his smile. When she came for him, he eased his pace, rolled over, and kept going. She clenched every muscle she had and watched his face until she felt a second orgasm forcing her eyes closed.
Then there were stars and Wyatt was calling her name in his release.
They cooked eggs after only a handful of hours of sleep, and sipped coffee. All the while Wyatt kept a hand on her in some way. When they were eating, she rested her feet in his lap and he ate with one hand and rubbed her with the other.
It was incredibly sweet and comforting in a way that the actual act of making love wasn’t. He talked about his vision for his living room and what he wanted it to look like when he was finished.
He asked her about what she liked when it came to design. Melanie didn’t have too many strong opinions, based on the fact that she had never owned a place of her own to give it much thought. “I don’t even have my own bed, Wyatt.”
“It’s okay,” he told her. “You can share mine,” he said with a grin.
Sometime in the night Wyatt had put their clothes in the dryer, making the morning walk of shame a little less damp.
They piled into his truck, and once again he held her hand all the way back to the inn. It was after nine, but Melanie had already sent a text to Miss Gina making sure everything was okay with her absence that morning.
Miss Gina sent her a cartoonish picture of a pair of boots lying beside a bed with a caption saying everything was fine.
Wyatt walked her inside, pinched her butt as she walked up the stairs.
She batted his hand away. “You’re awful.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist and snuggled as they walked inside. It was quiet with only a faint hint of music coming from the back of the house.
“We have muffins,” Melanie said.
“I’d kill for a muffin.”
That had her rolling her eyes and smiling when she greeted Miss Gina in the kitchen.
“W
ell, well, well . . .”
Melanie kissed Miss Gina’s cheek. “Good morning.”
The older woman simply smiled.
Then Wyatt kissed her cheek. “Good morning, Miss Gina.”
She started to laugh. “Well, you two should get laid more often.”
Melanie’s jaw dropped. “Miss Gina!”
“What?” There wasn’t an ounce of remorse on the woman’s face.
The warmth Wyatt had placed inside her the night before refused to go away, and Melanie wasn’t going to let it go anytime soon.
Melanie found the muffins and put one on a plate before setting it in front of him. She moved to the coffee pot and lifted it in offering. When he nodded, she found two cups and poured them both a portion. “I see Mr. Lewis’s car is still here.”
“Yeah, he said he’d be leaving by noon.”
Melanie found the creamer, poured a generous portion inside her cup before letting the hot caffeine do its job. “Where’s Hope?”
Miss Gina glanced out the kitchen window. “Outside.”
When Melanie looked, she didn’t see any sign of her. With coffee cup in hand, Melanie slid beside Wyatt, took a bite of his muffin, and went in search of her daughter.
The screen door slapped against the back door with a familiar twang. The slightly cool morning felt good on her skin . . . or maybe it was the sex from the night before.
Melanie smiled as she walked off the back porch and around the house. The tire swing Wyatt had managed to place in the maple tree sat abandoned. It swayed slightly, as if her daughter had recently sat on it playing. The dirt pile, otherwise known as a garden, sat empty . . . no sign of Hope. Melanie called out her name with no reply. When she entered the house again, she set her coffee cup aside and climbed the stairs to their room. Hope’s nightgown was tossed to the side, a clothing drawer opened halfway in what looked like a typical haste to get on with her summer day.
Still no Hope.
A tiny bit of concern started to weaken the euphoria Wyatt had given her.
Melanie found Wyatt and Miss Gina in deep conversation when she walked back into the kitchen. “She’s not out there.”
Miss Gina tilted her head. “Hope?”
“Yeah, she’s not in her room either.”
“That’s strange, she was just in here not twenty, thirty minutes before you walked in.”
The three of them stopped what they were doing and all headed out back. “You check the garage,” Melanie instructed Wyatt. “I’ll see if she’s by the climbing tree.”
Even though she’d been given strict instructions to never climb a tree without another person with her, anything could have happened.
Melanie called Hope’s name several times en route to the tree the three of them had climbed only a few days before.
When there wasn’t any evidence of her there, that little tickle of worry started to blossom, and the hair on her neck stood on end.
Melanie ran the path back to the inn, fully expecting to find Hope standing beside Miss Gina and Wyatt.
Melanie’s feet faltered when she caught sight of Wyatt and Miss Gina walking in separate directions calling Hope’s name.
She started to tremble. “Hope!” Her voice lifted above the treetops, her cry anything but sane. “Hope!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
By the time Jo arrived, Melanie was a babbling mess.
Wyatt stood aside and watched as Jo jumped from her squad car and engulfed her friend.
“I can’t find her, Jo.”
Jo took Melanie’s head in her hands and stared her friend down. “We will find her.”
“But she was . . . damn it . . . where is she?” Melanie’s tears kept coming.
“Mel! Stop. Stop! Dry up those damn tears and focus. You’re no good to Hope like this.”
Jo’s words must have sunk in. Melanie visibly shook as she sucked in a quick breath and let it out slowly.
“Okay.”
A second squad car drove up, lights blazing.
Jo moved past Melanie and walked to Miss Gina’s side. “Tell me again, from the beginning. Where did you last see her?”
Wyatt heard the recall of Hope’s last known moments for the third time. The need to move, the need to stop talking and search the woods crawled under his skin. He held Melanie’s hand in a tight squeeze.
“And who are you?” Jo turned her attention to the one guest at the inn.
“Patrick Lewis.”
Jo stared at the man. “When was the last time you saw Hope?”
“She ran through when I was eating breakfast.”
Miss Gina placed a hand on Jo’s arm. “Mr. Lewis heard us yelling for Hope and came down from upstairs.”
Deputy Emery joined Jo on the porch.
“Why aren’t we looking for her?” Melanie asked Wyatt.
“We will, baby.” He kissed the top of her head.
Gravel kicked up again, this time with a cloud of smoke that indicated cavalry arriving.
Jo turned around. “What the . . .”
“I called in some help,” Wyatt told her.
Luke jumped off his bike; behind him his parents arrived in their truck. Josie arrived with her bartender and a couple of other employees. Sam and Brenda, Principal Mason, and half a dozen teachers.
Beside him, Melanie started to suck in tight breaths. “Keep it together, honey. We’ll find her.”
Mel could only nod and blink her eyes repeatedly to keep the tears from falling.
Wyatt left Melanie’s side when Josie came to take her in her arms. “She’s probably just turned around in the woods.”
“What’s going on?” Luke asked.
“We came home half an hour ago. Miss Gina said she saw Hope out in the backyard less than a half hour before. When we looked, Hope was gone.”
“No chance she’s just playing?”
Wyatt shook his head. “She doesn’t leave sight of the house unless someone is with her.”
Luke looked at the time on his phone. “So it’s been an hour?”
It sounded worse when Luke said it out loud. “Yeah.”
Deputy Emery walked into the inn with Mr. Lewis and Miss Gina as Jo joined them.
Jo tossed her hat on the bed of the truck. “Thank you all for coming.”
“What can we do, Jo?” Sam wasn’t a young man, but he seemed more than eager to move.
Wyatt and Luke flanked Melanie before Jo started giving instructions.
“We need to spread out until we have more people to help. Hope was wearing a pair of jeans, a purple shirt, and a white sweater. She likes to climb trees. She may have simply climbed too high and can’t get down.” Jo passed a glance to Melanie and added, “Or she might have fallen and can’t walk home.”
Melanie grasped Wyatt’s hand but didn’t cry. “I told her that if she was lost in the woods to find a tree and wait for help.”
Jo offered a smile. “That’s good, Mel . . . real good. She’s a smart girl.”
“She’s adventurous,” Jo told the others.
“And fearless,” Wyatt added.
Jo broke down their search party into groups of three and moved to the back of her squad car and popped the trunk. She removed two-way handheld radios and tuned them all in to the same channel before passing them out.
Wyatt took notice of Mr. Lewis shaking the hand of Deputy Emery as he closed the trunk of his car.
“I don’t have to tell you all that finding Hope before sunset is our priority.”
“We’ll find her, Jo,” Luke said.
As the search party broke apart, Wyatt caught Jo’s attention. “She’s never gone this long,” he said close to her ear.
“I know.”
He glanced at the retreating car of Mr. Lewis. “Where’s he going?”
“Has a flight to catch. I have his information, Wyatt.”
“This sucks.”
“Yeah. Keep Mel sane. I’m going to hold back and search the house.”
Wyatt glanced up at the three-story inn. “You think she might be in there?”
Jo’s words were hardly heard. “I hope not.”
“Jesus.” The memory of a high-profile case swam in his head . . . the outcome less than favorable for the missing child.
Melanie jogged up beside them. “Let’s go.”
Wyatt let himself be led away.
“I’m right behind you,” Jo told her.
Every five minutes felt like thirty.
Every ten felt like an hour.
And every hour felt like a lifetime.
While she choked back the tears, her fear was a tsunami inside her head. They were past the three-hour mark. Every ten minutes Melanie called back to the inn and asked the same question. “Anything?”
Deputy Emery stayed at the house with Miss Gina and instructed the new sets of volunteers on where to search. By now, River Bend was all but closed down and the townspeople combed the woods outside the inn in groups of five and ten.
“Hope!”
Her daughter’s name was called out continually.
Still nothing.
“Melanie, you there?”
Jo’s voice had her fumbling for the radio, her heart racing. She pressed the button and stopped walking as she talked. “Did you find her?”
“No. I need you back at the house.”
She tried not to feel the crushing disappointment of the call. “No. I’m staying out here until we find her.”
“Mel, I’ve called in reinforcements. K-9 units are here. I just need you to do a few things here and you can go back out.”
Wyatt saw her standing still and ran to her side. “Did they find her?”
Melanie shook her head, returned to the radio. “I’m on my way.”
She turned toward the inn and started to jog.
Wyatt kept pace beside her. “What’s going on?”
“Jo brought in the dogs.”
Sweat rolled down her back as she hit the inn’s deck completely out of breath.
Doing It Over (A Most Likely to Novel Book 1) Page 17
