If she didn’t know better, she’d think it was a plot, this partner shuffling to get her with Sam. Kelly realized they’d played about three slow songs in a row.
Suddenly everyone started to clap. Now, that was too much. Someone flipped on a spotlight and craned it toward the piano. Kelly felt some relief. At least it wasn’t shining on them. Sam kept his arm around her waist
Much to Kelly’s surprise, Cora Barnes, owner of Cora’s Café stepped up to the microphone. She had on a long, simple, coral pink dress and wore a pink lily in her hair.
The bass picked up a deep beat, joined by the violin and piano for the opening bars. Cora’s voice came rolling out like a velvet carpet. She
sang an old standard love song, “I’m in the Mood for Love.” People started to dance again.
Sam swept her up in his arms. Kelly was amazed, confused and, most of all, wanting to be held by Sam Grayson. She felt like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole and Paradise was her own personal Wonderland. As she leaned her cheek against Sam’s shoulder, she felt fear come over her.
Why, now that she had what she’d wanted all her life being offered up to her, was she even hesitating?
She was tired of thinking. Tired of hiding and tired of being lonely. Being in Sam’s arms and listening to Cora’s magical voice was enough to make it all fade away.
Kelly sang “I’m in the Mood for Love” softly.
The full moon was shining through the trees as Sam pulled the truck to a stop by Paradise Park. “We used to skinny-dip in the pond here when I was in high school,” Sam said.
“Was that the plan tonight? I think I ate too much.”
Sam leaned forward in the seat of the truck and looked out of the windshield at the stars against the October night sky. It was crystal clear, and the chill crept in right away, as soon as the heat shut off.
“Plus, I’m sorry to tell you, Sam, but it’s bitchin’ cold out there,” Kelly continued.
“No skinny-dipping. We can just talk.” Talking was his thing. He was a lawyer. He could do this. Why had he brought her here?
“Your town puts on one hell of a church social.”
“Presbyterians take their Harvest Social very seriously.” Sam turned out the truck lights and grabbed a blanket from behind the seat. “Let’s get out and take a walk in the park.” Translation:
Let’s get the hell out of this truck before I forget my resolve to have complete control where my love life is concerned. Do I need to remind myself what kind of pain I went through with Chelsea?
It was a long translation.
“Okay, but you’ll have to loan me that blanket,” Kelly said. She got out on her own and danced around, rubbing her bare arms. “I can see my breath. Where I come from we don’t do cold, you know.”
“Here.” Sam came around and wrapped the car blanket around her. “Do you want my jacket?”
“Nah, this is fine. But let’s move.”
He wanted to keep her warm. More than that, he wanted to repair her past and let her have at least one night of Paradise magic before she ran off to some other town. She was like Cinderella
at the ball tonight. Too bad he wasn’t her Prince Charming, but at least he could be less of a toad before the clock struck midnight and she vanished.
He put his arm around her. They walked toward the slope of lawn. The grass was dewy and cool and soft as a carpet. Kelly stopped and took off her shoes. She let her tired feet sink into the grass. She ached from dancing and cleaning up and from being happy.
Sam took off his shoes and socks, too, not too gracefully though. He ended up hopping on one foot, until she laughed hard. She reached out to steady him. He took her hand and kissed it. “Don’t start with me, Grayson. If you start, I’ll start.”
“I’m not starting. I’m just being nice.”
“Will you stop being so damn nice?”
“What are my other choices?’
“God, I don’t know.”
“Okay, I’ll sing.”
“You wouldn’t, would you?”
Sam proceeded to sing “Bicycle Built for Two” very loudly in his deep baritone voice.
“You are the Corn King. King Corn.” Kelly laughed until she thought she would pee, then she joined in.
They reached a small pond with benches and tables scattered around the edges. The moon
gave everything a soft look. Sam zeroed in on one bench and as soon as she got close enough, pulled her into his lap. It was cold, and Kelly snuggled close. Because of the cold. Yes, that’s it, the cold, she told herself.
“So. Do we talk about this thing?” Sam asked.
“Let’s just not. Let’s watch the lake and bask in the glow of the Presbyterians’ harvest moon.”
She leaned close and her fragrance drifted into him. For someone who was cold, she felt like a wildfire against him. She leaned her head back and relaxed. He could feel her body in his arms, all warm and inviting.
“There’s only one problem with this idea,” he said softly in her ear.
“What, you feel compelled to verbally dissect something?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“What, then?” Kelly was getting slightly annoyed. She squirmed out of his grasp and twisted around to look in his face.
“I seem to be unable to resist kissing you.”
“Well, damn you, Grayson, just do it.”
Sam did. He pulled her to him and kissed her hard, right on the lips first off. A smoldering, knock-your-good-sense-to-the-wall kiss that made her forget any hint of chill she’d felt before. He ran his fingers gently over her temple, across her cheek, and down her neck. Then his mouth
followed every inch of the fingertip trail. Kelly slowly melted into his arms.
When his mouth moved back up and found hers full on, she knew she was in trouble. It was like someone had turned the heat up on the back burner
way
high. His kiss burned into her and made her ache—her breasts ached to be the next victim of that mouth of his, and so did the rest of her.
He kissed like a sensuous, hypnotic magician. Her pulse had reached her temples, and she could feel her body come alive in every hungry spot she had. The ache became intense. He kissed light, then deep, in a lingering way. Kelly made a tiny sound, a taste-of-heaven sound.
She touched his face, then looked into his dark blue eyes. The moon was reflected there. Kelly kissed him with all the emotion the night had given her. He responded to her with a tender, strong passion Kelly had never experienced before.
Kelly let the blanket drop as his mouth moved down her neck, kissed her shoulders, exploring the curve of her collarbone. His kisses drove her wilder than anything she’d ever experienced before.
She wanted him to take her right there in Paradise Park. She pushed him back against the bench and straddled his lap. Her arms wove
around him. He took a gasping breath as she tilted her head and kissed him.
She felt the heat from his body; felt him throbbing through his jeans. His hand brushed lightly against her breasts, just across her nipples. She arched her back and made some animal noise she had never heard herself make before.
He slowly untied the string of her blouse and let it fall off her shoulders. The strapless pushed out of the way, he leaned down and took her breast, his tongue like magic, like stars inside her. The stars were all around her then. She pressed herself against him and felt the heat shoot through her. She shuddered and cried out his name, aching with the desire he had released, letting herself throb against his hardness.
The distant headlights of a car passed over them for a second, bringing Kelly out of her dream.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Oh my
God
!” She squealed, sitting up suddenly. She climbed off of him, dizzy and hot and…still throbbing.
“It is a damn good thing there are no street-lights here. What are we,
nuts
? We have known each other like, what, one week? And we’re in the middle of a public park getting crazy?”
She tried for serious but felt too giddy to carry it off. She was necking in the park, for pity’s sake. She started laughing, and he laughed along
with her. She flopped back down on the bench, pulling the blanket over her again.
Sam gathered her back into his arms and turned her toward him. “You have a point there, but hey, we still have our clothes on,” he pulled up her blouse and retied its little drawstring, a pretty sexy act in itself. “Almost on anyway.”
“Obviously we are sexually attracted to each other.” Kelly tried to sound serious, but Sam kept grinning.
“Obviously.”
“You must think…” She pulled the blanket closer around her.
“I think you are a fantastic, sexy woman with normal needs. I’m glad you feel free with me.” Sam toyed with her disheveled hair. “So how long can we decently go without…you think? I’m just assuming we’re on the same page here?”
“Yep, same page.” She pulled him into a kiss. Same page, all right. She wanted him bad.
Then she shoved him away. She’d better get herself together. Where would a night of hot sex with the town’s favorite guy get her? Maybe tarred and feathered if they all thought she’d used him and thrown him away, because the chances of Sam’s going forward into an actual relationship with her were extremely slim. She’d better do something about that right now.
“Five dates, I think. That would be a reason
ably proper amount of time, wouldn’t it? Now that the initial edge is off,” Kelly offered, backing away from his tempting kiss an inch at a time on the bench. Brr, her end of the seat was cold.
“Whose edge is off?” He pulled her back, his mouth hot on her mouth, his tongue dancing with hers, until she agreed. The edge was definitely still there.
“Five dates. We have to do this right, because…”
“Because…” Sam said.
She kissed him back, mercilessly, then continued.
“Five dates, because we both live in this town now, and just because we’re both starved for sex doesn’t mean we should necessarily indulge ourselves. We should take some time to get to know each other, and we should get me a divorce.”
“We’ll look into that Monday. What are you doing for the next five days?” He asked.
“Very clever. I should say four weeks, then, because there’s a chance I’ll be completely free of…former stuff by then.”
“So, what you are looking for is an old-fashioned courtship ritual?” Sam asked.
“Yes, I think that’s it. Something befitting Paradise. Something in keeping with my delusions of small-town life. Are you up for that?”
“Oh, I’m up for it, all right. Four weeks it is,
then,” Sam agreed, and she sealed it with another kiss.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning,” he mumbled into her mouth.
Kelly sat at her Hawaiian dressing table wrapped in a towel. She pictured herself going wild with Sam in the middle of Paradise Park and slapped her hand against her forehead.
What in the hell was she doing? She was still a married woman, for pity’s sake. Of course, she’d given him a pretty good argument on that point. Three hours does not a marriage make. Its legality was a technicality she needed to repair.
Kelly thought about Raymond. One make-out session with Sexy Sam was hotter than her and Ray’s entire two-year sex life. She’d thought that a few times on the ride home, but felt guilty and had put it aside. It was true, though. She realized her reasons for marrying Raymond had very little to do with passion and more to do with the stability she thought he gave her.
She was too tired to sort it all out tonight. Kelly brushed her hair with the brush from a pretty set Myrtle had dug up for her. It looked like old ivory but was really Bakelite. Smooth edges. It made her feel elegant.
She slipped her silkiest nightgown over her head and slid between the cool sheets. Kelly
sank into the wonderful sensations of remembering Sam’s touches. How hungry she was for loving touches.
Her head was filled with Sam Grayson, and she drifted into dreams of waltzing with Sam. Waltzing naked.
Sam sat outside Myrtle’s in his Chevy for a very long time, his arms folded against the steering wheel, his head leaning on them. What the hell was he doing? He’d had it all worked out in his head to just leave things with Kelly, enjoy her company, then move on. Then his more
basic
instincts got in the way.
He saw how the Paradise ladies had worked hard to get them together tonight. I mean who sings “I’m in the Mood for Love” at a church social? So the town thought she was his match. So he’d have to tell every single one of them they were wrong. They didn’t know what
he
knew about her.
Sure, she was soft and smooth and wild, and it made his blood boil just thinking about the string on her blouse. So what? Damn, he was one confused man, and that was highly compounded by the fact he’d never had any woman turn him on like that before. The way she threw herself over him and let him take her all the way
to throbbing all over him was just too damn sexy even to think about right now.
On the other hand, she didn’t seem to scare off tonight. If she
were
on the edge of running, she wouldn’t have agreed to a month of dating. Would she? Was she actually looking for a home? Sam’s head told him she was an incredible flight risk. She was hiding out, not settling down.
But he did sense her strong desire to create some artificially perfect place. Paradise had that effect on lots of people. Maybe on him as well.
Sam whacked his head against his folded arms. She’d really put a wrench in his plans. He knew it wasn’t macho, but he had a powerful longing to march down the aisle in a tuxedo, to carry his bride over the threshold, and to have a couple of kids climb all over him when he got home. He wanted to show up at a family Thanksgiving with a wife. His parents would love that.
And how would his parents feel about
Kelly
at the holiday table? Hi, Mom and Dad, here’s my recently divorced, car-thief, tattooed, runaway wife.
Maybe Kelly was just a detour on his road to the altar. A test of his resolve. Attractions were one thing. Life mates were another. He had to
hang on to his visions of what he wanted in a marriage.
Men were supposed to run screaming from that kind of commitment, and here he was aching for it. He had enjoyed his single time, but at thirty-two, his biological clock must be ticking. Shit, did men even have those?