“Would’ve been worth it to see old Mitch get riled up,” Rich mused. “Half the time he walks around actin’ like he knows something the rest of us don’t. No...” He shook his head. “I’m happier holdin’ down the fort right here.”
“Well, it’s quite a place.” Davia scanned the environment with an appreciative eye. “We’re staying at the Waverly inn and Estelle Waverly said she had the best coffee here. Loved it so, she now has it stocked at the inn.”
“True, true.” Rich nodded enthusiastically. “We take pride in providing our patrons with a variety of items to whet their whistles.”
“Even locally brewed beer?”
Rich Ayers eyed Davia then with a mix of interest and male appreciation. “Beer connoisseur, huh?”
“I’m a partner in a local brewery out of California,” Davia shared.
“No kidding?” Ayers sighed. “I was already impressed. Now you’ve just got me stunned.”
Kale had remained quiet, enjoying the log-cabin style of the interior design. Gradually, he tuned in to the little repartee between Davia and Rich Ayers. Kale fixed on the bar owner and the way the man’s eyes roamed Davia. While the need to break the guy’s jaw didn’t immediately spike through him, Kale decided he’d probably have to hate the man on principle.
Whatever the case, it all took a backseat when Davia took Kale’s hand to lead him along to a cozy spot Rich Ayers had picked out for them to wait on Barry and Estelle. It was no chore at all for Kale to forget everything but her warm hand against his.
Chapter 9
“That sounds like a product we’d definitely want here,” Troy Ayers said sometime later as he stroked his whiskered jaw. “I’m ashamed to say we don’t already have it. We pride ourselves on keeping a lookout for quality craft brews.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Davia said. “It took me and my partners a lot of time to convince our earliest clients that folks from Cali could make more than wine.”
There was laughter and then Rich Ayers was instructing one of the servers to fix up the group with another round of whatever drinks they’d been enjoying.
“I think I want a new flavor of coffee,” Estelle directed.
“Ha! Gotta give our best customer what she wants,” Troy told the server. “And we should talk about arranging a tasting with your partners,” he said to Davia while Estelle gave her new coffee request.
“We can make that happen.” Davia raised her coffee mug in an obliging fashion and smiled.
“We got a habit of carrying all our Des Moines beers on tap,” Rich was telling Davia. “We’d most likely do the same for you, especially if there’s a chance we could get you to put down stakes in our neck of the woods.”
“Ah, that’s a shame, Rich. I’m a Cali girl born and raised.”
Davia’s words drew laughter from everyone except Kale. He merely smiled.
“You may surprise yourself, Davia,” Estelle taunted. “I never thought I’d be anything but a Seattle girl, but being out here...it’s been quite a life.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing that could ever make you give up that fast pace?” Rich teased as he probed.
Davia laughed. “You’d be surprised how many opportunities I’ve had to slow things down out there. I guess I’d consider it if there was something that was worth it—something I just had to have, couldn’t live without.”
Troy laughed. “Well, let’s hope it’s our soon-to-be movie theater.”
Glasses and mugs were lifted in toast. Everyone took a moment to enjoy their respective beverages.
“You guys think everyone might eventually get on the same page with this?” Davia queried. “Kale gave a great speech at the meeting, but I’ve got the feeling that Mitch Barns and his friends might take a little more convincing if he’s as against it as he seems.”
“They’ll take more than a little convincing, darlin’,” Rich predicted.
Rich, Kale and Davia had chatted a little over twenty minutes before the front doorbell chimed to announce the arrival of new customers. The council meeting had adjourned shortly after Kale and Davia’s departures. Rich had contacted his brother by mobile and asked him to tell the Waverlys where they could find their guests. A while later the group was sitting down to their first round of drinks.
“Mitch has got no good reason to be so against the theater other than the fact that his grandfather was so against it,” Rich was saying.
“You guys think we’ll have any issues once building gets under way—if it gets under way?” Kale asked the brothers.
The question grabbed Barrett Waverly’s attention. He was fixed on Rich and Troy’s pending responses as he accepted a fresh brandy from the server.
“I’m sure Mitch wouldn’t risk the attention,” Troy said. “Causing that kind of trouble would bring him a lot of it.”
“Hell—” Kale grimaced “—is the guy that obsessed with upholding his grandfather’s philosophy?”
“If he’s not, he puts on a good show.” Barry fiddled with the stem of his snifter. “It’s a damn shame, too. Mitch’s dad used to help my uncle after school, just like my own dad did. Before they all turned their backs on him over bigotry. It’s gotta end.”
Rich raised his beer bottle. “Amen,” he said.
Everyone else mirrored him in word and action.
* * *
“Our apologies for the day going downhill, guys,” Barry was saying as he and Estelle walked into the inn with Kale and Davia.
“Would it be okay with everyone if we push back dinner a couple of hours since we had that big meal at Ayers?” Estelle suggested while she hung coats in the front closet.
“Sounds good to me,” Kale called. “We can play it by ear. I doubt I’ll be in the mood for another big meal today.”
“Agreed.” Barry and Davia spoke at once.
“Then it’s settled,” Estelle said. “If no one has any objections, I’m gonna turn in early.”
“Another good idea,” Davia championed.
The Waverlys headed off to their bedroom suite. Kale offered his arm to Davia and together they ascended the stairway.
Reaching their floor, the two silently, albeit mutually, agreed to stop by the guest lounge. Both dropped to the first sofa they approached and rested back against it.
“Still want in?” Davia slyly queried.
“Yep.” Kale chuckled lazily. “Am I an idiot or what?”
Eyes closed, Davia smiled. “Guess we both are since I still want in, too.” She grunted laughter then and pushed up on the sofa. Leaning forward, she studied the red accordion folder lying on the coffee table.
“Looks like Estelle left us those news clippings,” she said as she thumbed through some pages.
Kale, still relaxing back on the sofa, opened an eye to a narrow slit. “Lot of work for a small-town paper in the forties.”
“Maybe it’ll give us some ideas for the project.”
“True,” Kale said, but he made no move to sit up and take a closer look at the big file. “I’ll have to put it off till later, though. I don’t think my eyes are capable of focusing. Estelle had the right idea about turning in early.”
“Agreed.” Davia sighed. Forgetting the folder, she leaned back against the sofa. “Now all we have to do is make it to bed.”
“Mmm...good luck with that. I’m good right here.”
Drowsiness renewed, Davia shut her eyes. “So much for the gentleman carrying the lady to her bed.”
Kale’s lazy chuckle returned. “Trust me, if I carried you to bed, there’d be nothing gentlemanly about it.”
Davia chuckled then, too, but the need for deep sleep had all but consumed her. Soon, both she and Kale had tumbled into a deep slumber, oblivious to the fresh snow that fell against the windows
emitting the waning beams of sunlight.
* * *
Davia woke feeling a little off-kilter despite being well rested. Languidly, she assessed her surroundings. Slowly, she raised her head toward the windows to find that night had fallen.
She was tucked inside the crisp, warm sheets of her bed, with no memory of how she’d gotten there. Her thoughts went to Kale, but sadly he was nowhere to be found.
Davia turned onto her back and repeated the words in her head. Sadly, he was nowhere to be found... Did she want him there next to her? She believed that went without saying, but was that for the obvious and shallow reasons or was there more motivating them?
Deciding she was still too groggy to ponder such ideas, Davia threw back the covers and got out of bed. Aside from the jacket and hiking boots she’d worn that day, she was otherwise dressed. Whew!
Smiling over the fact, she went to pull more comfortable attire from a drawer. After a quick shower, she dressed in a flannel sleep set consisting of a waist shirt and shorts. Barefoot, she left her suite. She spared a quick look inside the guest lounge on her way past. She only half expected to find Kale there. With a deep, slow exhale, she steeled herself to continue toward the only other door on the hall.
“Knock twice and then go,” she told herself.
What exactly was the plan once she got to his room? With any luck he’d be asleep. Otherwise, she’d launch a conversation on their true purpose for being there.
Davia was at the door and knocking when she realized she should’ve grabbed the folder from the guest lounge. There was no time to make a run for it. Not long after she knocked, the door was opening and her jaw was dropping.
Kale had answered decked in only a pair of PJ bottoms that hung dangerously low on his lean hips. Irresistibly sleep-sexy, he rested his head against the side of the door and gave her a drowsy smile.
“I, uh, I’m sorry.” She saw that he’d been just as conked out as she was.
Kale’s molten-brown stare took a slow, undeniably meaningful scan of her body. One corner of his mouth tilted up and he eventually brought his eyes back to her face. “There’s no reason for you to apologize,” he assured her and stepped back from the door. “Wanna come in?”
“I can’t.” She wanted to, though. Oh, how she wanted to. “I, um, I only came to thank you.”
“And of course staying in the hall is the only way you can do that properly?”
Ignoring the suggestion in his words, she smiled. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted to thank you for putting me to bed. I guess I must’ve dozed off on the sofa.”
“We both did.” He leaned on the door again. “Guess the day was longer than we realized.”
Davia nodded. “Well, I’ll let you get back to sleep.”
“Are you serious?” Though he didn’t explain his comment, she saw it in his eyes. He was awake now. And feasting on the sight of her. He rose to his full height and gave her a curious smile before opening the door wider. “Come in, Davia.”
Again, her hazel gaze fell to his chest. Creamy brown, sleek and broad, it called out to her and she could almost feel her fingertips tingle from their desire to crawl across it.
“Kale, I can’t.” She closed her eyes as if to fight an inner war with herself.
Once more, he resumed his leaning stance on the door. “You want to, though.”
Davia leaned in, too, taking up residence on the doorjamb.
“Don’t worry, Davia. I get it.”
“Do you?”
He shrugged. “This has all got to be confusing as hell. All the mess we’ve got between us. Tella and now this project on your aunt’s and my uncle’s behalf.”
“It’s not about Tella, Kale,” she argued, looking down at the deep carpet peeking between her bare toes. “I believed what you said about what happened, but you’re right. Now we’ve got this new business between us and—”
“And it goes without saying that business and pleasure are the last things we should be mixing.”
She raised a shoulder to acknowledge the truth. “You know it can get messy.”
“It can, but sometimes it can be worth it.”
“But often it can be messy. Too messy.”
Kale reached out to toy with the hem of her sleep shirt. “Sometimes the mess is what makes it worthwhile.”
“Sometimes,” Davia agreed warily.
Kale gave her shirt another tug. “You obviously know where I sleep. I don’t believe in locked doors.”
“You lead a very risky life,” she teased.
Kale grinned, offering a languid half shrug. “The risk can make it all worth it, too.” His expression was sober. Even though his words held a lightness, his demeanor gave off an opposing emotion.
“It wouldn’t be wise for us to start this, Kale.”
“Why?”
Smiling, she nodded as though unsurprised by his comeback. “It wouldn’t be wise for me. Besides this project, our lives are very different and...very distant. Even though the promise of a few days of supreme sex is beyond tempting—” it was why she’d come knocking on his door, after all “—I try to go into these things hoping for something more.”
Kale suddenly crowded her against the doorjamb. “And you think I can’t feel the same?”
She met his stormy gaze full-on. “I believe you’re capable of it, but it has nothing to do with us and why we’re together here.”
He closed what remained of the distance between them. “What things become is rarely what they start off as and the outcome is not always so obvious.”
“And if it doesn’t become anything, how’s that going to affect what we’re trying to do here?”
“I’ve got no clue.” He dipped his head to skim his nose across her jaw. “But right now do you really care?”
Chapter 10
Davia’s thoughts blurred. She couldn’t think straight, not when she was pummeled by the powerful sensation of Kale’s mouth devouring hers and the stirring in her stomach as his fingers disappeared beneath the hem of her shirt and into the waistband of her sleep shorts.
She took advantage of easing her curiosity about what his bare chest would feel like against her fingertips. She walked them across the taut plane, until she was linking her arms around his neck and playing in the smattering of baby-fine curls along his nape.
Kale’s fingers weren’t still, either. Once he found her nude beneath the shorts, his fingers slid inside her, parting her, giving him room to arouse her clit. She found it as pleasurable as he did, no doubt. Her mouth went slack as she emitted a moan around his tongue. Dragging his mouth from hers, Kale traded hard, hot kisses to her lips for soft, wet ones along her jaw and neckline.
Davia began to ease her body up and down along his fingers as they claimed her two at a time. They stood against the jamb, wound in a sultry lock. Davia’s second thoughts had long since fled. Her thoughts now were fixed on a single ideal—pleasure. She found Kale’s mouth again and launched another kiss, taking his tongue with the same neediness as she accepted his touch at the part of her that ached for all of his attention.
Kale timed the thrust of his tongue to that of his fingers. They lunged and rotated inside the deep, warm well of Davia’s sex. He ended the kiss when he felt her inner muscles seize and allowed himself the pleasure of watching her beautiful face as she climaxed. When it was over, he felt aftershocks continue to claim her body.
Kale refused to relent, even when she turned a pleading gaze his way. Thumb still stroking its treasure, he leaned close to nuzzle her ear with his nose. “Would you like to come in now?” he asked.
* * *
His lips were smooth as they skimmed the elegant line of her clavicle. They were just inside the door with Davia’s back flush against it. She smiled, inhaling the fresh scent
of soap that clung to his skin and hair still damp from a shower, she assumed.
“You didn’t sleep long,” she noted, her tone drugged, mellowed. She threaded her fingers through his curls while making the observation.
“I got enough, don’t worry.” His voice carried on a guttural chord.
There was soft laughter on Davia’s part that curbed on a gasp when Kale began a slow suckle of her earlobe. His fingers found their way beneath the hem of her shorts and set about reclaiming her.
Davia went to her toes and then draped a leg over his hip in a desperate attempt to offer as much depth to the caress as possible. Kale was turning to her for another kiss, his hand smothering her nape as he held her close to accept it.
His free hand went to work on her sleep shirt, the buttons of which he freed with skill. Davia gave a weak shimmy of her shoulders and the garment fell away. It was swiftly followed by the shorts that matched it.
A single lamp emitted soft glowing light across the otherwise darkened room. The illumination drew attention to their bodies and the effect for Davia was overwhelming. “Kale,” she whispered.
“Please don’t ask me to stop,” he countered.
Davia’s laughter was enveloped in a gasp when Kale used the tip of his tongue to outline the shell of her ear before he rotated it inside the canal.
“My legs are about to stop working,” she warned him, and found herself hoisted against his chest shortly after.
Kissing resumed with ravenous intensity. Davia could feel herself floating, but she didn’t dare open her eyes to investigate. Instead, she gave more of herself to the kiss, emitting quiet, provocative sighs with every tilt and arch of her head.
Kale didn’t break the kiss. He simply scooped up Davia and carried her into his bedroom. His palms were cupped firmly around her derriere, his fingers positioned so that they just grazed her feminine folds.
Davia shuddered when the tip of one of those fingers took possession. She couldn’t resist offering herself for a deeper claiming. She had no idea how long it took to reach the bed. She was far too wrapped up in the sensations from his lips and fingertips. Still, she celebrated the feel of soothing linens on her skin when Kale put her on her back and followed her down. He spent a few more enjoyable moments with her mouth before making his way along the soft curve of her jaw.
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