With This Kiss (22 page)

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 bleed.

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.

“Your love isn’t going to turn the Murphys into one big happy family.”

He watched for a flinch. It never came. Instead, her eyes flashed. With determination and something that looked—strangely—like humor.

“Darn it. And here I was thinking that sleeping with you tonight would do just that.”

“Rebecca.”

Her name was a warning on his lips. Here he was trying to be careful with her, and she was bound and determined to foil him at every turn. Didn’t she know just the words
sleeping with you
were the proverbial straw that was going to break his vow to do right by her?

“Sean.”

She mimicked his warning tone well. Too well. Well enough that some of that humor in her eyes almost seeped into his.

“I know what you want me to say,” she told him. “You want me to say that I’m going into tonight with my eyes wide open. That making love with you won’t change anything. That I won’t hold you to more than a few sinful hours between the sheets when morning comes.” She bit her lip. “See, this is where the games would be a really good thing. If I knew how to play them then I could just stand here and tell you a dozen different lies I know you want to hear.”

“No.”
God no, he didn’t want to hear lies. Not tonight.

“Okay, then, here it is: I can’t promise you I’m not going to get hurt. And I can’t promise you I’m not going to fall head over heels in love with you, even if you never let yourself love me back.”

No other woman had ever talked to him like this. No one had ever had the courage to be so honest with her emotions. So up-front about the mistakes she might make.

He wanted to stop her from saying anything more, but she put one finger over his lips to keep him quiet.

“Right now, I’m sure of only one thing: I want you.” She paused, lifted her mouth to his, slowly sliding her finger out from between their lips. “I’m absolutely certain that I want to make love with you tonight, Sean. Please stay.”

On a groan, he captured her mouth with his and lifted her into his arms. Seconds later she was lying on her bed beneath him.

Their “last kiss” from the parking lot had nothing on this one, not now that he knew he wasn’t going to leave, that he wasn’t going to have to work like hell to tear himself away from her.

Part of him wanted to get right to it and try to quench his thirst for her right away, a thirst that had grown impossibly big and fast from that first moment he’d seen her. But the other part of him wanted to make this first time last, wanted to draw it out so that both of them were delirious with pleasure by the time they came together.