With This Kiss

by Bella Riley

  Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that. “If it’s so simple then how come I’m not following?”

  “You know, like the beauty and the beast fable. Not that I’m all that much of a beauty—”

  “You are.”

  “I’m giving a point to you for saying that,” she said with a small smile. “But, see, I’ve spent way too many years finding broken men and trying to heal them.” She shrugged again, but he didn’t buy that there was anything that didn’t matter to her in what she was saying. “Instead, I end up broken, too.”

  Wait a minute. “You think I’m broken?”

  She met his eyes head on in the moonlight. “Aren’t you? You barely speak to your mother. Your father is desperate for a relationship with you. And your brother has been keeping a secret from all of you his whole life. Did I miss anything?”

  Damn, she made it impossible for him to say anything but “Sounds like you’ve got it just about covered.”

  “So,” she finally said, “what do you think we should do about all of this?” She pressed a finger to his lips and he couldn’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to it before he covered her hand with his and moved it away from his face.

  “Sleep on it, probably.”

  She thought about it for a second. “You mean separately, don’t you?”

  Jesus, that mouth—and the way she looked more than a little disappointed as she said separately—was definitely going to get her into trouble one day.

  “You do know you’re not supposed to say things like that out loud, don’t you?”

  “Only because you’re always telling me so.”

  He shouldn’t have broken out into laughter. But he’d never been able to help himself where Rebecca was concerned. And even though nothing had been settled, despite things between them being as confusing as ever, he couldn’t help himself now, either.

  She looked utterly delighted by him. “It’s even better than I thought it would be.”

  No one had ever confused him as much as this woman. “What’s better?”

  “Your laughter. I’ve been wanting to hear it for so long.”

  “Come here and give me a kiss good night before we go back to our separate rooms.”

  “See, what did I tell you?” she whispered as she raised herself up on her tippy-toes and held her mouth a breath away from his.

  Telling himself he was going to make sure this was the last kiss of the night even if it killed him to do the honorable thing, he was so dizzy with the desire to taste her sweet lips again that he could barely string two words together.

  “What did you tell me, Rebecca?”

  He felt her smile against his lips without needing to see it.

  “You are a good man.”

  And then she kissed him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Sean and Rebecca lingered over the night’s last kiss, neither of them saw the lone figure standing in the shadows.

  Elizabeth had never spied on her kids before. She wasn’t one of those overprotective parents who hovered and asked too many questions. And she certainly hadn’t dropped by the inn tonight to catch her oldest son and her youngest son’s ex-fiancée together. She’d simply come by to see if she could make some peace with her son, knowing too well that she’d done nothing but drive him even further away since he’d returned to Emerald Lake.

  She desperately wanted to get back into her car and drive away, but if she so much as moved she was certain they would hear her.

  She knew what it felt like to be caught. And even though she knew that Sean and Rebecca weren’t actually doing anything wrong—when she’d cooled down the previous night, she’d had to admit that Bill was right and she should butt out of Sean’s budding love life—she also knew they wouldn’t appreciate knowing she was there watching them.

  How, she wondered, as they finally made a move to go inside, could they not hear her heart beating? It had never sounded so loud to her own ears.

  So many things were racing through her head, she didn’t know what to focus on first.

  Stu was gay. And that was okay. Of course it was. But why had he felt that he had to hide the truth from all of them? Why did he think it would break her and Bill? Of course, they’d made their fair share of mistakes—every parent did, she knew that—but had they really done such an awful job that he felt he couldn’t trust them?

  Unfortunately, Elizabeth was afraid she already had her answer in the list Rebecca had given Sean of the reasons she should steer clear of dating him. A list he’d agreed was accurate: You barely speak to your mother. Your father is desperate for a relationship with you. And your brother has been keeping a secret from all of you his whole life.

  Elizabeth had failed both of her sons.

  When she deemed it safe to move, she ran to her car and quickly drove away. Bill was waiting for her on the porch when she got home.

  “I was wondering where you went,” he said, and then, “Elizabeth, are you crying?”

  “I went to the inn to talk to Sean. But he and Rebecca—”

  Frustration flew across Bill’s face. “I don’t want to hear it. Whatever they’re doing is their business.”

  It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t going to tell her husband about the kisses she’d witnessed. About how they’d taken her back to the first kisses the two of them had shared. Back to a time when neither of them had wanted to say good night either. Now they couldn’t even be bothered to sleep in the same bed.

  But where had her pride—and her mistakes—gotten her so far?

  She forced herself to say, “You were right. Their relationship is their business.”

  Bill’s eyes widened with clear surprise. “Then why are you crying?”

  “Stu is gay.” Realizing what it sounded like, that she was crying over her son’s sexual orientation, she quickly clarified: “I accidentally overheard Sean and Rebecca talking about Stu and she finally told him why Stu left. He was afraid to tell all of us. He swore Rebecca to secrecy because he thought the truth would break us.”

  “My god, Elizabeth.” Bill sat down hard on one of the porch rockers. “How could he have thought that?”

  She wanted to say she didn’t know, but snippets had been coming to her during the short drive home from the inn. Little signs, like the ones Sean and Rebecca had spoken of, things neither she nor Bill should have ignored.

  “Didn’t we always say that Stu was so different from Sean? That he reminded us of my brother?”

  James passed away unexpectedly nearly twenty years ago from pneumonia. But the man they’d seen crying at her brother’s funeral had clearly been more than a friend. He’d been her brother’s partner. Only, her brother had never come out to her, either.

  “I was such a wreck after James died. Stu must have thought he had to try and marry Rebecca to please us.”

  “And when he couldn’t do it, he ran,” Bill confirmed.

  “I’ve ruined so many things.” Her legs were shaking and she could feel them about to give way.

  Bill was there before she could fall. Just like he always had been before.

  “You’re freezing cold. We need to go inside and sit near the fire.”

  She was grateful for her husband’s warmth, for the way he cared for her even when she didn’t deserve such caring.

  And he was right. She was cold. But it was a cold that had hardly anything to do with the temperature.

  Secrets were ripping her family apart. First, Sean had pulled away from her. And then, Stu had run.

  Elizabeth needed to come clean about everything. Now. Tonight. Before the secrets ruined anything else.

  Before the secrets ripped her husband away, too.

  But as Bill continued to hold her by the fire and she reveled in his warmth and touch for the first time in far too long, fear of actually losing him kept the truth of what had happened twenty years ago locked up tight inside her heart.

  Even though she could feel the barbs around that truth making them both blee
d.

  Rebecca had never been promiscuous. She wasn’t a virgin by any means, but she’d never slept with anyone until they’d been dating for a while. Not because she was a tease, not because she was frigid, but because she’d never been able to let herself go, physically, without emotion tying her to someone.

  Sean had changed everything, it seemed. Because even though he’d left her at her door like the perfect gentleman, even though she knew sleeping on their ridiculously hot kisses was the right thing—especially in light of all she’d revealed about Stu—it was taking every ounce of self-control she possessed not to grab her master key and unlock his door and offer herself to him, naked and more than willing.

  Even stranger than the desire she couldn’t seem to control—when there had never, frankly, been anything all that uncontrollable about her desire for any other man—was the way her bedroom had started out warm and now that she was done getting changed for bed was as frigid as it had ever been.

  Almost as if it was trying to kick her out of it… or get her to invite Sean back in to see if his presence would warm it up again.

  “I don’t have the energy for you tonight,” she found herself saying to the room at large.

  Because if there was, in fact, a ghost lurking somewhere, she wanted it to know that she really needed to get some sleep tonight.

  Thump!

  In retrospect, she should have known better than to issue up a challenge like that. Because the sounds that started coming from the walls were less like the sad wails they’d been before… this time they sounded impatient.

  Okay, so she was almost willing to believe that there was a ghost. Or at least some sort of spirit that hadn’t been able to move on for some reason. But—and this was way too crazy for her to be willing to believe—did this spirit expect her to solve its problems? More specifically, had this bedroom been waiting sixty years for true love to set it straight after Celeste’s honeymoon had ended in such tragedy?

  Rebecca snorted at the thought. “If you’re in here,” she said to her bedroom walls, “and you’re waiting for my love life to turn things around for you, I’ll have you know you’re going to be in for a much longer wait.”

  Thump!

  Okay, that was weird. She could have sworn the wall was talking back to her, a loud banging that was akin to a foot stomping in frustration.

  “Yes, I’m as frustrated about it as you are,” she replied, even though she knew this conversation she was having with the walls of her bedroom was taking weird to a brand-new level.

  Whatever. She was tired. Sean had kissed her senseless tonight. She was allowed a few minutes of weird.

  “If I were you, I’d look toward one of the couples getting married at the inn. Trust me, you’re bound to have better luck there. Besides, you’ve had decades to deal with this. Why now? Why me?”

  And why did it have to be when she was so tired?

  Not that she’d been too tired to stand out in the inn’s parking lot and kiss Sean for ages, of course.

  In any case, as soon as she could get away from the front desk for a few minutes tomorrow, she was going to hunt down Celeste and keep the tea pouring until she got the rest of the story out of Sean’s grandmother. Maybe if she had some clues as to what had happened after Charlie left, then she could make whatever was going wrong in this bedroom stop.

  Reaching into her bedside table, she pulled out two earplugs and jammed them into her ears. But less than sixty seconds later, she knew it was pointless. The knocking had gotten even louder—a thump, thump, thump that was sure to make that headache that had been forming in the back of her head come to full fruition.

  And then she realized it wasn’t the walls knocking.

  It was someone at the door.

  Sean had tried to do the right thing. He’d intended to say good night to Rebecca with one final kiss. But then he heard those sounds coming from her bedroom and how could he have possibly stayed away?

  Now here he was, standing in front of her door again. He’d knocked once, then twice. The master keys were still on the coffee table in his room. He wouldn’t barge in on her again, even if it meant catching another glimpse of her in her sinfully sweet pajamas.

  Sean ran his hand through his hair as he waited in the hallway. Rebecca hadn’t come to the door yet, possibly hadn’t even heard him knock. He should get the hell back to his room. He should do everything he could to keep things from going from complicated to ridiculously messy with his most important employee.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d think there was some outside force pushing the two of them together. But even though Rebecca had spoken of a ghost, he still couldn’t believe in anything he couldn’t see and touch.

  Which brought him right back around to where he was right now.

  Dying to see her.

  Dying to kiss her again.

  Finally, he thought he heard footsteps and then the door opened.

  “Hi.”

  Her smile had him smiling back. He simply couldn’t help it. “Hi.”

  “You heard the sounds?”

  “I did.”

  Her eyes were sparkling and if he’d seen any fear in them, he would have turned. Left her alone for good this time. Instead, there was excitement there and the same desire he knew he’d see in his eyes if he looked in a mirror.

  “Want to hear it close up?”

  He knew what she was asking him. And it had nothing to do with the strange sounds.

  “More than you know.”

  “Oh, trust me,” she said with another gorgeous smile that had his feet moving him all the way through the door, “I know.”

  “One day you’re going to stop surprising me.”

  “I hope not,” she replied. “You seem like the kind of man who likes to be surprised.”

  She was wrong. He hated surprises.

  Or used to, anyway.

  But there really was something so incredibly engaging about the way he couldn’t predict what she was going to say next. Or do, apparently, because a moment later, she was cupping his jaw and moving to her tippy-toes to kiss him.

  Sweet lord, the things she could do with that mouth of hers should be illegal. He tried to let her stay in the lead on their kiss, but he wanted her too much to follow through with that plan. Seconds later, he had his hands threaded through her hair, was wrapping his fingers around all of her soft hair so that he could tilt her head back and move his mouth from hers to the hollow beneath her chin.

  She shivered as he began the decadent task of learning the taste of her skin, one inch at a time. And when their eyes met again, hers were a deeper, richer green than he’d ever seen them. He even thought he saw flecks of gold in them that he hadn’t noticed before, almost as if her body was giving him proof of a too-long-latent heat of desire brought to life inside of her.

  “Listen,” she said softly.

  Working to hear beyond the rush of blood in his ears and his overly loud heartbeat, it took him a few seconds to realize what she was saying.

  “The sound stopped.”

  “I think our kissing is making the ghost happy.”

  He wasn’t a man who kissed and laughed at the same time. Hell, he wasn’t a man who laughed much period. But he couldn’t contain it.

  “Forget about the ghost. Kissing you makes me very happy.”

  “I like making you happy,” she said, before proving it with another sweet, soft kiss.

  But although he wanted nothing more than to pick her up and carry her into her bedroom, her sweet words hit way too close to home.

  “I want you to be happy, too, Rebecca. But I don’t think I’m the man who can do that for you. Maybe here, tonight, we can make each other happy. But not in the long run.” Because he could never make the mistake of ever trusting anyone completely. Not even Rebecca.

  She stroked her fingers down from his face to his shoulders and chest as if she couldn’t resist touching him now that she finally had the chance. Through his thin T-shirt
he could feel the heat of her.

  He wanted to feel so much more, wanted to get so much closer, with nothing between them, but he didn’t want it to happen with a lie. With deception.

  He could tell she was thinking, knew that look, the way her brows moved together slightly and her eyes focused on an imaginary point. For all that it seemed she was just blurting things out all the time, he knew she could be extremely thoughtful. She simply hated to hide the truth of her feelings from people.

  He’d never known anyone like her. Suddenly, he had to wonder, if he had, would he be married with a family right now instead of resolutely single?

  “It keeps occurring to me that a smart woman would be playing games to try and keep your interest.”

  She gave a small smile at his obvious surprise, the way his eyebrow went up at her blunt statement.

  “I’ve never had the heart for games.”

  “I don’t either.” He tipped her chin up with his hand and held her gaze. “But I’m worried about your getting hurt, Rebecca. I would hate myself for causing your tears.”

  “Aren’t you worried about yourself, too?”

  There was no choice for them but to be painfully blunt at this point. They were way past the point of games.

  “I’m not the one looking for someone to love me, Rebecca.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Her whispered question shouldn’t have made his chest clench. He’d thought she might flinch at the way he was throwing her earlier words about looking for love back at her. Instead, he was the one trying to hold steady.

  “You were right in the parking lot,” he forced himself to say. “This, you and me, we aren’t going to end up like one of those fairy tales. You’re beautiful, but your love isn’t going to make me a new man.”

  Now she’d have to back down. Give up. She’d tell him to go. And he’d make himself leave her warmth.

  Instead, she remained in his arms. “You don’t need to become a new man, Sean.”

  He couldn’t have been any blunter. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he didn’t see how he had any other choice. It was either hurt them a bit now, or crush them later.