by Gina Wilkins
Smiling, Alexis moved back out of the doorway. She knew quite well the dog’s grumbly rumble was merely his unique way of greeting people he liked, his own version of a cat’s purr. “Ninja is always welcome here,” she said, motioning for them to come inside. “Fiona, you have a visitor.”
Ninja headed straight for the gray cat, who leaped onto the couch to better greet the big dog. Alexis was no longer even bemused when her pet rubbed affectionately against Ninja’s head, triggering a new spate of rumbling from the dog’s broad chest and a frantic wagging of his tail. Someone had forgotten to tell the silly creatures that they were supposed to be sworn enemies. They had become great pals instead over the past five months. Odd, yes, but Alexis figured it was no more surprising than her own very private friendship with Logan.
Logan closed the door, shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over a chair. He reached out then to wrap his hand around the back of her head and tug her closer, his hazel eyes glinting with a rare, slow smile. “Is Ninja the only one welcome here?”
She rested her right hand on his solid chest, feeling his heart beating a bit rapidly beneath her palm and relishing the knowledge that she elicited that response from him. Slipping off her glasses with her left hand, she smiled up at him through her lashes, openly flirting, comfortable with touching him and yet highly stimulated by the contact. “I suppose it’s okay if you accompany him occasionally.”
He chuckled, his warm breath brushing her lips as he lowered his head. “I appreciate that gracious invitation,” he said, just before taking her mouth in a hungry kiss that effectively changed their banter into passion.
She didn’t bother to ask him to take a seat, or to politely offer refreshments. Instead, when the long, thorough kiss finally broke off, she moved a step back and took his hand. Turning, she led him to her bedroom, a path he knew well already, having visited there an average of three times a month since late October.
She didn’t turn on the overhead light. The stained-glass lamp beside her antique four-poster bed was on, the dimmed light filtered through red, purple and gold tinted glass. The white duvet was already turned back to reveal white sheets and soft, fluffy pillows. She had considered lighting one or more of the thick white candles scattered around the room, but she’d decided not to. She and Logan had a mutually satisfying relationship uncluttered by the traditional and potentially painful trappings of “romance.” They were friends. Good friends. Friends with benefits, in somewhat dated slang. But neither had expectations for a permanent commitment.
Which didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy every minute with him while it lasted, she thought, melting into his work-toned arms.
Their lovemaking began slowly, both taking their time as they shed clothing and caressed the skin revealed. Alexis never tired of tracing his impressive abs and biceps with her fingertips and lips. Despite the old scars on his left leg that he had attributed without elaboration to an old college injury, Logan was in the best physical condition of anyone she knew. Solid, strong, tanned and fit, a combination of hard work and healthy living. And, oh, did he know how to put that amazing body to good use.
They communicated with appreciative murmurs and throaty sighs, with soft laughter and quiet moans. As had happened each time before, the kisses and embraces rapidly escalated into a desperate need that made it impossible for them to take their time and savor. The tidy bedclothes were tangled, shoved aside, pillows tossed to the floor.
Logan donned protection swiftly, then returned to her. Clearing her mind of any thoughts but that moment, she welcomed him eagerly.
* * *
It took quite a while for Logan to decide that his limbs would support him if he tried to rise. Some ten minutes after he and Alexis had reached explosive orgasms, he lay on his back in her tumbled bed, his breathing still a little ragged, his heart rate just returning to a somewhat steady rhythm. How could it keep getting better with her, when each time he was convinced he’d never felt that good before?
Alexis lay against his side, so still and quiet he wasn’t even certain she was awake. He slanted a glance down at her, but her hair fell over her face, hiding her eyes. He would tuck it back for her, but he wasn’t sure he could move his arm yet.
She sighed then and raised her head. The diffused glow from the stained-glass lamp glinted in her dark brown hair when she shoved it back with a slightly unsteady hand. Her smoke-gray eyes reflected the multicolored light. Her cheeks were a little flushed, and her full lips were still darkened from his kisses. She looked as though she had just had a round of hot, energetic, very satisfying lovemaking. Sex, he corrected himself quickly. Great sex.
He liked seeing her like this, all tousled and sleepy-eyed, so different from the tidy, tailored appearance she presented when on the job. Of course, he liked looking at her then, too, knowing what lay beneath her tastefully modest professional wardrobe, picturing her with her usually pinned-up dark hair tangled around her bare shoulders and remembering the taste of her soft mouth beneath his.
“Wow,” she said.
He chuckled. “Seconded.”
That was something else he liked about her. She wasn’t shy or coy about her enjoyment of sex, though he was aware that she was very selective about satisfying her needs. The first night they were together, she’d admitted that she hadn’t been with anyone else recently. He’d replied just as candidly that he’d been in the midst of a dry spell himself, though he hadn’t elaborated. It wasn’t lack of opportunity that had made him live a rather monklike existence for the past couple of years. He’d simply been very careful not to get involved in any potentially messy entanglements, and he wasn’t the type to particularly enjoy a series of one-night stands with strangers.
Alexis had been the first woman in quite a while who’d drawn him out of his self-imposed solitude. In addition to being strongly attracted to her physically, he genuinely liked her. He admired her intelligence, her competence, her quick wit, her directness. She’d told him flat-out that weddings were her business, not her aspiration, and on that they could fervently agree. He had his reasons for being commitment-shy—good reasons, in his opinion. Obviously, Alexis had her own. They didn’t discuss their past relationships, but they had a lot in common when it came to what they wanted for now.
No one else knew they were seeing each other. They had agreed there was no need to complicate their easy friendship with outside expectations from friends and family. It was no one else’s business, in Logan’s opinion. He wasn’t seeing anyone else, and neither was Alexis, but they were both free to do so. He simply wasn’t interested in dating others at the moment. And he rather hoped she felt the same way. At least for now.
Rising to her elbow, she propped her head on her hand and gazed down at him. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way—”
He laughed softly, amused by her wording.
“—can I get you anything? I made tea for myself, but I suspect it’s cold now. I could brew fresh for both of us.”
“Sounds good, but I can’t stay much longer. Have to get an early start tomorrow working on a raised herb bed Bonnie wants me to put in this year. She had a little garden last year, but she’s decided it’s too small. Curtis and I are going to start on the bigger one in the morning.”
Though he and Alexis didn’t talk much about their pasts, they chatted quite a bit about work. She shared funny, just-between-them anecdotes about some of her events, probably because she knew he’d keep her confidences. He told her about the plans his sisters concocted for the inn and its grounds, most of which they expected him to handle, of course. During the past winter, he’d overseen construction of two easily accessible restroom/dressing room facilities beneath the inn’s back deck for use by wedding parties and their guests. Kinley and Bonnie had a sizable list of other improvements they wanted to make as time and finances allowed.
It would take several years
to complete everything on their list—assuming, of course, they didn’t add to it, which they surely would—but he wasn’t complaining. All part of the job he’d taken on when he’d agreed to go into business with them. And that didn’t even include the part-time software consultation he performed on the side. Kinley maintained her real estate sales license and showed homes to prospective buyers during quite a few of her evenings away from the inn. Neither of them would completely give up their side jobs until they were certain the inn was entirely solvent.
Alexis didn’t bother dressing after climbing out of the bed, but wrapped herself in a soft red robe that set off her dark hair and gray eyes quite nicely. While she went to the kitchen to put on the kettle for tea, he washed and dressed again in the jeans and T-shirt he’d worn for this casual visit. He took a moment to straighten the bed before joining her. Even so soon after being thoroughly sated, he felt his blood heat in response to the images that flooded his mind when he smoothed the sheets.
She had the tea ready when he joined her. The earthy scent of chamomile wafted through her kitchen, all stainless steel and white with a few splashes of red as accents. Alexis had decorated primarily with white fabrics, light woods and clear glass, very clean, streamlined and non-fussy. Typical of her, he mused, taking a white-cushioned seat at the glass-topped table.
Ninja wandered into the room and sat at Logan’s feet, looking at Alexis expectantly. With a laugh, she pulled out a doggy treat from her pantry and tossed it to him. Not to be ignored, Fiona wound around Alexis’s ankles, meowing until Alexis gave in and slipped her a tuna-flavored kitty snack. It made Logan frown to realize that she had gotten into the habit of having both cat and dog treats on hand, but he brushed off that thought, telling himself it didn’t mean anything. He didn’t want to ruin the evening by overthinking things.
Setting the tea in front of him, she smiled. “What about you, Logan? Should I toss you a treat? I think I have some cookies.”
He shook his head. “I’m good with the tea, thanks.”
She took the chair closest to him and lifted her cup to her lips, smiling at him over the rim. Her robe parted a bit with the movement, giving him a fleeting glimpse of creamy breast. He gulped tea fast enough to scald his mouth, then chided himself for acting like a randy teenager around her, even though they had just climbed out of her bed. How did she keep doing that to him, despite his best efforts to remain in complete control around her?
To distract himself, he stuck with the one topic always guaranteed to keep their conversations flowing comfortably. Their work.
“You haven’t mentioned how your big wedding went this past weekend,” he said, trying to hide the fact that his tongue felt as though he’d burned off a layer.
She groaned heartily at the mention of one of the biggest events she’d coordinated since taking over her business. “It was exhausting. If all my brides were as difficult as that one, I’d get out of the business tomorrow.”
He knew the wedding had been held at one of the biggest churches in Southwest Virginia and had been one of the social events of the late-winter season for that particular crowd. There had been a carriage and white horses, doves and chamber musicians, with an obscenely expensive dinner and reception afterward at a nearby country club. Bride Mountain Inn had never even been in the running as a venue for that fancy event, but it sounded to him as though he should be grateful for that. “Did you manage to meet all her demands?”
“She even promised to recommend me to her friends,” Alexis replied with a weary but satisfied smile. “And by the way? I give the marriage a year. Maybe two, though that’s stretching it.”
Logan winced. “Problems getting along?”
“The groom hit on me half an hour before the wedding.”
Logan’s teacup hit the table with a thump. “He what?”
Ninja sat beside Alexis’s chair and rested his head on her knee. She rubbed his ears affectionately. Fiona jumped into Logan’s lap, as if to prove that she, too, could claim human attention if she desired. Still scowling, Logan absently stroked the cat’s back, eliciting a butt-up response that begged for more. “How did he hit on you? Are you sure that’s what it was?”
“He caught me in a corner, stood entirely too close and said maybe he and I could get together sometime—to plan an event, he added with a wink. What does that sound like to you?”
“Like he was hitting on you,” Logan muttered.
“Thank you.”
“You, uh, didn’t mention it to the bride, I assume?”
“Of course not. Not only would he have accused me of totally misinterpreting it, making me look like an idiot, but it really wasn’t any of my business. Besides, the bride was busy flirting with the cellist in the chamber quartet. Like I said, I give them a year.”
Logan shook his head in distaste. “We’ve had a few of those at the inn—you know, weddings that seem doomed to failure almost from the start. Kind of leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth, doesn’t it?”
She nodded. “I much prefer completing a job with at least a modicum of hope that the couple will somehow make it work despite the odds against them.”
“High odds,” he agreed.
“Very high odds.”
Figuring they’d made their point, he let it go at that.
“Did I ever mention my parents were divorced?” she asked nonchalantly, looking down at Ninja. “Twice for my dad. He was married briefly after he and Mom split. He was engaged again when he died of a blood infection two years ago. Mom’s third marriage has lasted almost a decade so far, though she and my stepfather sort of go their own ways.”
He wasn’t quite sure what to say. He’d known her father was dead and her mother remarried, but not the rest. He and Alexis didn’t talk about their family lives, though, because she worked often with his sisters, she was somewhat more aware of his. She knew, for example, that his parents had split up when he was just a kid, that he and his sisters had been raised by their single mom in Tennessee, that his mother had died almost five years ago and that his dad was a footloose world traveler who had rarely seen his son and daughters since the divorce. Alexis had even met his father in passing when she’d visited the inn one winter morning for a meeting with Kinley about an upcoming event.
Making the long trip from his latest temporary home in New Zealand, Robert Carmichael had come to Virginia in December to see his daughters married. Arranging their plans around their father’s rare visit, Kinley and Bonnie had shared an intimate double wedding in front of the fireplace in the inn parlor with only close family members in attendance.
Logan had told Alexis a little about the wedding when he’d slipped off to visit her the next night, but he’d been careful to avoid any discussion about his emotions at seeing his father for the first time in two years, or any analysis of his feelings about growing up with an absentee dad. Nor had she asked any such personal questions. That wasn’t the sort of relationship he had with her, by mutual unspoken agreement.
“My brother’s been married twice, too,” she said, breaking into his wandering thoughts. “Neither one lasted. He’s only twenty-seven.”
He was getting a clearer understanding of Alexis’s distrust of marriage vows. With her family history, she had good reason to be cynical about those “till death do us part” promises. Had she been met with disappointments of her own that had only reinforced her early, disillusioning experiences? “Started young, didn’t he?”
She shrugged. “He’s the impulsive type.”
“Kinley’s first marriage didn’t take, but I think she and Dan have the potential to make it work,” he commented, scratching her cat’s ears when she head-butted his hand in a less-than-subtle hint. “And Bonnie and Paul have as good a chance as anyone, I think. My sisters are nothing if not determined.”
Though his parents had divorced, he’d seen examp
les of successful lifelong unions—his maternal grandparents, and his great-uncle Leo and great-aunt Helen, who’d been committed to each other until her untimely death. Leo had been faithful to those vows even for the eighteen years he outlived his beloved wife. So Logan knew it was possible for others—he just didn’t know if it was for him. His own record of betrayals and disappointments had left him with a romantic cynicism he wasn’t sure he could ever overcome, or even wanted to, at this point.
“Your brothers-in-law seem very nice. You like them, don’t you?”
“Yeah, they’re great guys. We’re becoming friends as well as family.”
Propping her chin on her hand, she studied him with a faint smile, her tone lightening the mood. “Any concerns about their butting into your business at the inn?”
Even to him, his answering smile felt a little arrogant, which he hadn’t exactly intended. But still, he said, “That’s not going to happen. For one thing, we made sure both guys signed prenups, making it clear they have no claims on the inn in case the marriages break up.”
He’d said “we,” but the truth was that he alone had made sure of that precaution. His experience with a less-than-ethical business partner had left him wary of putting his trust in anyone other than his sisters when it came to business, even the likable, upstanding citizens they had married.
“Wise move. But maybe your sisters will make their marriages last. Some people do. And the fact that eternal optimists keep trying means more business for us, huh?” Alexis added with a wink.
He smiled, pleased to be back on comfortable footing, conversationwise. “You’ve got that right.”
It was the most they’d talked about their families in the almost five months since they’d crossed paths at a local coffee shop late one restless autumn evening. They hadn’t known each other very well at that point, having met only a few times through their work, but there’d been a strong attraction. They’d struck up a casual, surprisingly enjoyable conversation that had gone on for more than an hour, and he’d ended up following her home after her refreshingly straightforward invitation. Twenty minutes after they’d walked through her front door they’d been in her bed. And it had been the best experience of his life. Until the next time they’d gotten together, anyway. And then the time after that...