The Moonglow Sisters

by Lori Wilde

  “Sexy? What do you mean?”

  “I watched you all day from the pop-up store. Teaching those kids how to fly kites, you lit up like a Christmas morning. Your passion is exciting. Tell me about kiteflying.”

  “Another kiss first,” Gia negotiated and puckered up. “And make it a good one.”

  He kissed her, pressing a quick light brushing of his lips against Gia that left her wanting more. So much more if she played her cards right. She tried to deepen the kiss, but he said, “Not yet. Tell me about kitemaking.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t use this line of seduction with your regular dates.”

  “Nope, just you.” He lightly flicked her nipple with his thumb and it got hard all the way through her bra.

  She wriggled, desperate for him. “What do you want me to say?”

  “What’s your favorite material to use? Not the most practical, but the one that feels the best beneath your fingers?”

  “Is this getting you hard?” She touched the waistband of his jeans.

  “No, you get me hard. Which is why I want you to talk about the things that please you. So what is your favorite material to make kites out of?”

  “Silk,” she said, hissing the S sound against the back of her teeth. “Pippa wanted me to use silk.”

  “You’d like to do it, wouldn’t you? Make those one hundred kites for Pippa Grandon’s wedding.”

  “There’s nothing I’d like to do more . . . oops . . . except you, right now.”

  He laughed. “So why don’t you?”

  “Grammy.” Gia shook her head. “There’s no telling how long she has left. I can’t afford to lose time with her.”

  “That’s a tough one.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I knew it was the silk,” he said.

  “You’re Mr. Know-It-All?”

  “Nah. I just remember one time when you wanted to make a silk quilt.”

  “Grammy said silk was too hard to work with.”

  “And you came storming over here to complain about it.”

  “I did?”

  “You used to talk to me a lot,” he said. “You were a cool kid.”

  “So were you. Putting up with a little tagalong.”

  “I wish I had silk sheets for you.”

  “No, you don’t. You slide right off them.”

  “Slipping and sliding is part of the fun.”

  “You’re weird . . .” She paused, grinned. “But I like it.”

  He dropped fresh kisses on her mouth, a rapid-fire tease. She wrapped her arms around his neck and wriggled around on the couch until his back was against the cushions and she was straddling him.

  Passion mounted. Blood strummed. Bodies heated. Yum.

  Fingers dealt with belts, zippers, and buttons. Their clothes fell away, and she got to see his rock-hard muscles again. Yum, yum.

  “So what is the favorite kite you ever made?”

  “Your fish kite.” Gia licked her lips. Sent her gaze over his body.

  “Why is that?”

  “The whole time I was working on it, I thought of you. How you gave me my love of kiteflying. My career.”

  “You give me too much credit.”

  “You underestimate yourself.”

  “Tell me how to fly a kite,” he said. “The way you were telling the people on the beach.”

  “You know how to fly a kite.”

  “But I want to hear it from you.”

  “Ahh,” she said. “You want my spiel.”

  “Yeah, now we’re getting somewhere.” He was rubbing her in all the right places and all the right ways.

  “There are four forces of flight,” she said breathlessly as he did amazing things to her with his fingers. “Lift . . .”

  “Lift?” He stroked her cheek with his knuckle and stole another kiss.

  “Lift is the upward force that pushes the kite into the air.”

  “Like this?” He lifted his hips, pushing himself deep inside of her. He tugged her head down and sucked her bottom lip up between his teeth.

  She gasped, closed her eyes, gripped his shoulders. He tasted so damn good.

  “Don’t stop.” He ran his tongue over her lip. “More.”

  “Differences in air pressure generate lift created by air as it flows over the body of the kite.”

  “Pressure.” He groaned.

  “Kitemakers angle and shape the kites so that the air moving over the top goes faster than the air moving over the bottom.” She quickened her speed, outpacing him. “And ta-da, you have lift.”

  He shuddered beneath her. “Do. Not. Stop. What else is important besides lift?”

  “Weight.”

  “How does that work?” His mouth was in all kinds of places, exploring. He was an inquisitive sort. She’d give him that.

  “Weight is the force created by the attraction of gravity pulling on the kite.”

  “Attraction, huh?”

  “The downward force tugs the kite toward the center of the earth.”

  “I see. So, lift is taking it up, while weight drags it down.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Tension. That’s what causes the thrust.”

  “Hmm, thrust is my favorite part.”

  “Mine too.”

  He flipped her over onto her back and showed her what thrust was really all about. Their eyes locked as they stared into each other’s eyes, their bodies moving in union. Feelings assaulted Gia from every direction—pleasure, delight, joy, excitement, ecstasy. Here she was making love to her lifelong friend. The friend who’d always had her back like a steady prevailing wind, lifting her up to lofty heights.

  Here, now, with Mike she felt completely at peace. No conflict or problems. She was tuned in. To him. To her own body. To their joined movements. It seemed so natural, as if they’d just been waiting all this time to slide into each other.

  She was so glad for him, her hopes sweetly grateful. She had fallen in love before, and things had not worked out the way she’d foreseen, but she believed in the foundation she was building with Mike. The growing tenderness, the compatibility of their bodies, the certainty of her fate.

  “There’s lift.” He panted. “Weight and thrust. What’s left?”

  Her gaze cemented to his, and she gasped at the sensations rippling through her center.

  “Gia?”

  “Drag,” she managed.

  “Tell me about drag.” His hand trailed over her waist as he pinned her in place against the leather of his couch.

  “Drag originates . . .” Gosh, she was having so much trouble talking.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Drag . . .” She was panting now too. “Is the backward force in opposition to the forward motion.”

  “Mmm.”

  “T-to launch a kite . . .” Her body shivered from head to toe, consumed with pleasure. “The force of lift must be greater than the force of weight.”

  “Like this?” He did a miraculous move with her body, which quickened and deepened the quivers quaking her.

  “Exactly like that.”

  “I see.”

  “To keep the kite in the air, all four forces must stay in balance. Lift equal to weight and thrust equal to drag.”

  “Everything smooth and fluid.”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Flying higher and higher until—”

  “You reach the end of your string.”

  “What happens then?”

  “Then you’ve come to the highest moment of tension.” She lowered her voice, injected extra husk into it. “And . . .”

  “Yes? Yes?” He was panting.

  “You linger at the apex for as long as you can. As long as the lift, weight, thrust, and drag are in perfect balance.”

  “And, and, and?” He was barely breathing now. Every part of his body tensed rigid against her.

  So was Gia.

  “You move your fingers to see how the kite will respond . . .” She tickled him in a spot that ha
d him wriggling hard.

  “Oh, God.” He groaned.

  “Then before you lose control . . .” Just like when she was out on the beach flying a kite, Gia was dazzled and dazed and delighted. Her eyes always on the prize.

  “And the kite is ready to, ready to, ready to . . .” He closed his eyes, his body moving faster, throwing the forces out of balance. Thrust without lift and weight and drag led to an inevitable fall.

  “Come . . .” She meant to add crashing to the earth, but she couldn’t get any more words out. One syllable was all she could manage.

  “Down?” He palmed her breasts.

  “Oh yeah.” She writhed underneath him. “You betcha.”

  “Drag it right down.” He exhaled long and slow.

  “You got it.”

  “It’s falling?”

  “Tumbling. Spiraling.” She strapped her legs around his waist and pulled him more deeply into her.

  “Diving.”

  “Oooh,” she whispered.

  “Aah.” He moaned.

  She wriggled.

  He thrashed.

  They gasped.

  And right there on Mike’s couch, they flew their own special kite all the way to the stars.

  Chapter Twenty

  Madison

  REPEAT: Repetitions of a pattern or design in a fabric, or repetition of a quilting design or motif.

  MADISON HAD ACCOMPLISHED what she’d come home to Moonglow Cove to do. She’d fixed things. Her grandmother was on the mend. She’d saved the inn—okay, credit where credit was due, they’d saved the inn—and things between her and Shelley, while not tension-free, were certainly much better.

  They were communicating. A huge improvement.

  On the beach that morning following the Fourth of July weekend pop-up event, Madison watched the sunrise proud, happy, and warmly nostalgic. She’d treated herself to a raspberry Danish and espresso from the Moonglow Bakery and experienced a blissful caffeine and sugar rush as she strolled the sand.

  The only thing holding her back from returning to New York was the wedding quilt she’d promised Gia she’d finish.

  A week.

  They had a week to finish the quilt. A week until Grammy was released from the hospital. A week to get the business side of the inn straightened out so she could turn the reins over to Shelley and Gia and return to her life in Manhattan.

  A week didn’t seem like nearly long enough.

  Overcome by inexplicable loneliness, she slipped off her sandals, carried them hooked between the fingers of one hand, dug her warm toes in the wet sand, and took a deep breath.

  Madison felt so different now than when she’d arrived six weeks ago. Then she’d been harried and hurried, battling frequent migraines and near-constant anxiety.

  But with the slower pace of life in Moonglow Cove, the rhythm of the ocean, and the nearness of family, her frantic symptoms had slowly dissipated, and along with them the wounded anger she’d once clung to so tightly.

  For the first time in five years, she felt as if she could fully breathe.

  She took a deep inhale, filling her lungs with the smell of home, and hugged herself. She was starting to heal, too, from losing Claire Estelle, although that was a bone-deep pain only time could fully ease.

  Soon, she’d be back in New York and the days would whiz by in a flurry of activity.

  She paused, realizing for the first time why she pushed herself so hard to achieve, her primary driver—she was afraid to be alone with herself and her thoughts. Staying busy kept the demons at bay.

  The demons had dogged her since her parents’ death, when she’d taken on adult responsibilities. Even though Grammy had been there for them, Madison had never been able to shake the role of dutiful oldest daughter, the one who took care of everything whether anyone wanted her to or not.

  “Face it. You like playing the hero,” she mumbled to herself.

  Okay, she did. Was that so terrible?

  If you get too bossy, it is.

  Madison bent down to pick up a seashell, raised her head, and spied a handsome man striding across the sand toward her.

  She knew him.

  Madison froze in place, unable to breathe.

  The man was her ex-fiancé, Raoul Chalifour.

  “Madison,” Raoul called out to her in that French accent of his that once upon a time melted her like butter in the hot sun. She’d heard he moved to Houston after their breakup and thought she was safe from seeing him here. What was he doing back in Moonglow Cove?

  She jammed on her sandals and started trotting toward the Moonglow Inn as fast as she could without breaking into a full-on sprint.

  “Please don’t run away,” he called.

  Ignoring every instinct in her body to get away from him, Madison forced herself to stop and turn around.

  If he was determined to speak to her, he’d just follow her anyway. Better to do this on an empty beach than at the Moonglow Inn.

  “What do you want, Raoul?” She kept her voice cool, detached, and ignored the hard thumping of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. Not because she wanted him—she most certainly did not—but because she was still angry.

  And here she thought she’d been making progress.

  Unclenching her jaw at the things she could not control, Madison studied her ex.

  He wore chinos and a crisp, white long-sleeved shirt, like some guy from a cologne commercial. Swarthy skin, straight white teeth, a thatch of thick black hair, a devastating dimple in his right cheek. Ocean waves rolled in behind him. He pushed up his shirtsleeves, jammed his hands in his pockets in that boyish way of his, and gave her a lopsided smile that begged Don’t be mad at me.

  Once upon a time, she’d been unable to resist that smile. “What are you doing here? I thought you moved to Houston.”

  “I did.”

  He still owned the car dealership in Moonglow Cove, she’d noticed when she drove past the car lot on her way to the hospital. But it seemed a bit early in the morning for him to be checking in on the dealership.

  “Can we talk?”

  Madison held up both hands. “Look, I gotta go.”

  “I came to see you.”

  “I have nothing to say to you, Raoul.” She turned away again.

  “Wait.” He hopped across the sand, snagged her wrist.

  She shot him her best quelling stare, the one Shelley said could dry oil paint in under sixty seconds. “Do not touch me.”

  He dropped his hands. “You are right. I should not touch you.”

  “What is it, Raoul?” she asked, feeling off-kilter. “What do you want from me?”

  “You look beautiful, Madison,” he murmured.

  “What do you want?”

  “I heard about your grandmother. That you were back in Moonglow Cove, and I came looking for you—”

  “Why?” she asked, hearing the desperation in her own voice. Did he not understand he was an ugly reminder of the past she wanted to forget?

  “I’m sorry about your grandmother. She was a great woman.”

  “Is a great woman.”

  “I always liked her.”

  “What. Do. You. Want?” She gritted her teeth.

  “To ask for your forgiveness.”

  “Why?”

  “I treated you badly.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

  “Forget it.” She waved a hand. “I’m so over it . . . over you.”

  “I’m in SAA.” His tone was light.

  “SAA? What’s that?”

  He ran a palm over his nape, looked sheepish. “Sex Addicts Anonymous.”

  “Ahh.” She leveled him a hard glance, trying to decide if he was serious or not. A sex addiction explained a lot.

  “It’s a twelve-step program. I’m on step nine.”

  “Which is?”

  Raoul’s eyes seared into hers. “Make direct amends to the people you’ve hurt except where doing so would
injure them.”

  This was an unexpected turn of events. She paused, ready to hear him out. “Don’t try to charm me, please. Just say what you need to say.” She folded her arms over her chest, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in the wide-open space.

  The sky seemed too blue, the beach too sandy. She could hardly catch her breath and she had a bizarre sensation of falling. She rooted her feet into the ground and took a deep breath.

  Do not pass out.

  “I have a sexual addiction,” he explained.

  “So I gathered.” Her tone came out drier than she’d intended. “That’s your problem, not mine.”

  “I know, I know, but you need to understand that what I did to you was never personal. My cheating was not your fault. Nor was it an intentional slight on you. I simply couldn’t control myself. Cheating is not something I willingly choose. I’m an addict.”

  “I’m sorry you have a problem, Raoul.” She softened her voice, understanding him now. “And I’m sorry that you’re struggling, but I’m not feeling sorry for you.”

  “No,” he said. “I do not want your pity. I screwed up my own life. I get that.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “To make amends for the way I treated you.”

  “It’s not necessary. That was five years ago. I’ve moved on. I have a great life in New York—”

  “I heard,” he said. “Madison’s Mark. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” She bobbed her head. “I’m going to go now.” If I can move. She’d anchored her feet so firmly into the sand her legs felt heavy as barbells.

  “Please, don’t go.” He started to reach for her. “Not yet.”

  She jerked back.

  He tucked his hands into his armpits, looked sheepish. “I need to make amends to you, Madison. For my own healing.” He paused. “And yours.”

  “Since when did you ever care about how your actions affected me?”

  “Always. Forever.”

  “You had a funny way of showing it.”

  “As I said, my cheating was never about you.”

  “Oh, well, that makes it okay then.”

  “I know it does not make it okay.” He tugged at his collar with casual fingers, looking devastatingly insouciant.

  The man was still drop-dead gorgeous, but Madison had learned to see past the handsome and she’d vowed never to be lured in by looks again.