Return to Rose Cottage

by Sherryl Woods

  His heart kicked up a notch. “Not that I recall.”

  “You have very sensual lips.” She grinned. “Or maybe I just see them that way because you’re such an incredible kisser.”

  His ego took a satisfying lurch. “Incredible, huh?”

  “Mind-boggling, in fact.”

  Josh leaned down and touched his lips to hers in the slightest brush. “When I kiss you like that?”

  “That’s nice,” she said. “But then there’s this other thing you do.” She held on to his shirt and skimmed her tongue across his lower lip. “Something like that.”

  “Ah,” he said, nodding. “Like this.”

  His mouth closed over hers. When her lips parted on a sigh, his tongue invaded. She still had a lingering hint of cinnamon and sugar on her lips, the scent of it on her breath. She was clinging to his shirt, her eyes dazed by the time the kiss ended.

  “Mind-boggling,” she murmured breathlessly. “Maybe we ought to find that bed before my knees give way.”

  He laughed. “There’s no rush, darlin’. I just made tea.”

  Her gaze smoldered. “Forget the tea.”

  Josh swallowed hard. “Forgotten,” he said at once, scooping her into his arms.

  “How’s the rest of your memory? Think you can find your way to the bedroom?”

  “There are four bedrooms in this house,” he said lightly. “I may not be thinking clearly, but I’m bound to stumble across one of them.”

  He found his own, of course, and was relieved to find that he’d tossed the covers back in place after yet an other restless night. When he lowered Ashley to her feet beside the bed, he very nearly had to pinch himself to be sure this moment wasn’t a dream. He wouldn’t go so far as to say he’d had a crush on her forever, because it hadn’t been like that. It had been impossible—at least for him—to fantasize about anything real with a girl who was so far beyond his reach.

  But he’d wondered about her, wondered about all of the D’Angelo girls who were always laughing, always having spirited adventures with the most popular boys in town. The reality, as it turned out, was better than any thing he’d imagined. This flesh-and-blood woman made him long for things he’d never expected to want so much…a home, a family, a future that didn’t involve nonstop work to get ahead. He’d never had those thoughts as a teenager. Nor had he had them as recently as last week when he’d still been debating taking things to the next level with Stephanie.

  Ashley, however, promised to provide endless fascination. As a girl, from his vantage point of distance and teenaged longing, she’d seemed strong, intelligent and invincible to him. She was all of those things as a woman, but she was also vulnerable, and that made her seem accessible in ways he’d never dared to dream about.

  She touched him, then, her fingers grazing the skin of his chest, then dipping lower. The memories fled, replaced by a sea of sensations in the here and now. Need exploded inside him, but patience—years of it, or so it seemed—kept his hands steady and slow.

  She didn’t seem to want slow, though. She moved restlessly against him, taunting him deliberately, moving aside his careful fingers to strip away clothing in an anxious rush. She barely gave him time to appreciate her naked beauty before she was pulling him onto the bed.

  Josh was no fool. As much as he wanted to linger over every caress, to savor every touch, he caught on to her edgy, almost desperate mood and gave her what she wanted. He pinned her hands loosely above her head, then looked into her eyes, searching for her soul. It was there when he entered her with one hard thrust, all the need, all the desire, all the raw wanting that any man could ask for.

  She came apart at once, shuddering beneath him, surrounding him with slick, pulsing heat. He smiled into her eyes.

  “That one was for you, darlin’.”

  She gave him a lazy, satisfied smile of her own. “And now?”

  “And now we’re going to do this again,” he said.

  “Oh, really?”

  “And this time it will be for both of us.”

  He waited for her body to grow still, waited for the longing to rise once more in her eyes and then he began to move, slowly at first, letting the sweet tension build, until she was pleading with him for yet another release.

  “In time,” he murmured. “In good time.”

  Given her penchant for control, he wasn’t surprised when her body tried to take the decisions away from him, but he was more determined. He held her in place, his rock-hard arousal sheathed in her, not moving a muscle until she calmed, her gaze alert and filled with interest in what he had planned.

  Satisfied that he had her full and captivated attention, he began to move again, this time responding to her little cries of pleasure with deeper, harder thrusts until the rhythm was no longer his—or hers—to control.They were both caught up in the passion, in the frantic need. He was pretty sure they were going to go up in flames, if something didn’t happen to lessen the mounting heat, the sweet, powerful friction that was driving them wild.

  Josh had no idea what it would take to send them flying, but he hadn’t expected it to be a smile. Ashley’s lips curved ever so slightly into a Mona Lisa smile of purest satisfaction and he came undone. The smile spread as she came with him.

  As they slowly fell back to earth, Josh cradled her against his chest and fell into the deepest, most contented sleep of his life, only barely resisting the urge to whisper that he’d fallen in love with her. Only the shock of that, the wonder, kept him silent. That and the fear that even after what they’d just shared, she wouldn’t feel the same way.

  “Do you have any idea how intimidated I was by you?” Josh asked Ashley as they lay side by side in his bed after making love for yet a third time during the long, lazy afternoon. The rain had started once again and was beating a staccato rhythm on the old tin roof.

  Taken aback, Ashley stared at him. Of all the things he’d said and done since they met, this was the one that most astonished her. “Intimidated? Why?”

  “Because you’re one of the totally unattainable D’Angelo sisters, the most beautiful, most intelligent one. When I was sixteen, I never in a million years would have dreamed we’d be together like this.”

  She was even more astounded by that. “You knew me when you were sixteen?”

  He laughed. “Hardly. I knew of you. Every boy in three counties knew who you were. You and your sisters breezed in here every summer and left behind a trail of broken hearts each fall. Your poor grandmother was constantly apologizing to all the mothers.” He regarded her intently. “Is that what you’re going to do to me? Will I wind up being your autumn fling?”

  His tone was light, but Ashley heard the note of real concern behind it. “You know I can’t make any guarantees right now, Josh. This is what it is, for as long as it lasts. We have to agree to that, or it’s pointless to even start.”

  He gave her a wry look and ran a hand over her hip. “I’d say we’ve already started.”

  Indeed, they had. Ashley hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Her body was still quaking inside from the power of what they’d just shared. And based on the shiver that Josh’s light touch had just sent over her, she was eager to try it again. Before she could indulge herself, though, she wanted him to explain how they’d never met.

  “Why didn’t we know each other back then?” she asked him, tracing the outline of his wickedly clever mouth. “It’s not as if we were living miles and miles apart.”

  “You and your sisters were way out of my league,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “It was sort of like the difference between standard-issue white bread and one of those crusty loaves of olive bread that come from a gourmet bakery. No comparison.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Are you saying we were snobs?” The possibility rankled, most likely because she feared there might be some truth to it. Look at the judgments she’d been making about men her entire adult life. Look at how stunned she’d been that Josh had slipped past the careful screenin
g system that tended to weed out anyone she deemed unsuitable by some ridiculous standard that combined ambition and success to the exclusion of character.

  He shook his head. “Not at all. I just wasn’t on your radar. That’s obvious, since you couldn’t pick out my picture from those photos in the living room. I was the one with glasses and a pained smile.”

  She immediately remembered a picture that had charmed her. The boy, barely a teenager, had looked miserably self-conscious as he gazed at the camera. “I know exactly which picture it is,” she said. “Wait.”

  She scrambled from the bed and ran to get it. “This is you,” she said, holding it out to him when she’d returned.

  He winced as he looked at it, then nodded. “That’s me, all right.”

  “You were a cutie,” she said.

  “Please. If you believe that, then you have a very broad definition of the word.”

  “You were a cutie,” she repeated. “I can’t believe I never spotted you.”

  “That was as much my fault as yours. I was shy and got along better with the characters in books than I did with real-life girls my own age.”

  “That’s amazing,” she said.

  “What? That I turned into this sexy stud muffin?”

  Ashley couldn’t contain the laugh that bubbled up. “No, that I missed knowing you back then. I’ve always had a thing for shy bookworms.”

  Josh scoffed at her. “Kenny Foster was about as far from a shy bookworm as this region ever produced.”

  She blinked at the mention of a name long forgotten. “Kenny Foster,” she repeated. “My gosh, whatever happened to him?”

  “You didn’t keep up with him?”

  “Obviously not.”

  Josh grinned. “Just as well. You’d have had to defend him on an embezzling charge. His fingers got a little sticky down at the bank.”

  “You’re kidding! My dad always said he had shifty eyes.”

  “Your dad’s obviously a very wise man.”

  She met his gaze. “Want to know what he says about you?”

  His expression sobered. “I don’t know. Do I?”

  “He thinks there’s something fishy about a man who never goes to work.”

  To her surprise Josh didn’t seem to take offense.

  “If only he knew,” he said dryly. “Knew what?”

  “That this is the first time off I’ve taken in five years.”

  She studied him with surprise. “Really?”

  “No lie.”

  “Me, too,” she said, holding up her hand to give him a high five. “I don’t suppose you’re having the same kind of career crisis I’m having, though.”

  “I wouldn’t call it a crisis,” he said. “Just thinking about a few things.”

  She sat up beside him. Now was her chance to return the favor and listen to him, just as he’d allowed her to go on and on. “Talk to me.”

  He shook his head. “I have the woman of my dreams in my bed and you want to do career counseling? I don’t think so.”

  “What did you want to do?”

  “This,” he said, reaching for her.

  When his mouth closed over hers, all thoughts of jobs and just about everything else flew out the window. He was right. Why waste time on anything else, when there were so many sensations they had yet to share?

  “Where exactly were you all day yesterday?” Maggie asked when Ashley finally returned her call the next morning after she got home from Josh’s. “I called three times after I got back from dropping everyone off at the airport.”

  “I know. I got the messages.”

  “And I dropped by the house.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me a bit,” Ashley said.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Oh, stop it, were you with Josh or not?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Which means you were,” Maggie concluded. “Just how serious are things getting between the two of you?”

  Ashley didn’t have a good answer to that. The sex was definitely serious. In fact, it was magnificent. She couldn’t say the same about the relationship. There were some huge gaps that needed to be filled in before she could honestly say they had one.

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Does it matter?” she asked irritably.

  “Yes, it matters. I’m coming over. We obviously need to talk.”

  “We do not need to talk. And I don’t want you and Melanie to get the idea that you need to start planning the wedding.”

  “I should hope not,” Maggie said so emphatically that it caught Ashley off guard.

  “I thought you liked Josh.”

  “I do. We all do. In fact, all the guys are going over to Melanie’s tonight to bond over beer and burgers, which is why I was calling you. Melanie and I want you to join us here.”

  “Why? Are you serving beer and burgers, too?”

  “Please. I’m the sister who cooks, remember? I’m serving roasted pork with apricot sauce, mashed potatoes and an asparagus salad. Melanie’s bringing a decadent chocolate cake.”

  “Do the men know about this meal? It might make them rethink the whole beer-and-burgers thing.”

  “I think it’s more about the bonding than the menu,” Maggie told her. “And I’ve instructed Rick not to come home without a few answers about the mysterious Josh Madison.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We all like him, but what do we really know about him?”

  “About as much as you knew about Rick before you climbed into bed with him,” Ashley reminded her tartly.

  “Ha-ha,” Maggie retorted. “But I learned a whole lot more before I agreed to marry him.”

  “I haven’t agreed to marry Josh.”

  “Then the subject has come up?” Maggie said, seizing on Ashley’s inadvertent slip of the tongue.

  “In passing,” she admitted. “But do you honestly think I’d consider spending my life with a guy I hardly know?”

  “Not without running his Dun and Bradstreet rating,” Maggie said. “Have you done that?”

  “No, I have not done that,” Ashley said, wounded yet again by the suggestion that her standards for men were suspect. “In fact, that’s insulting. I’m not a snob.”

  “Not a snob, just very certain of the kind of man you want in your life. Are you telling me you no longer care about the designer apparel and the Rolex watch?”

  “It’s never been about the damn clothes,” she snapped, even though Josh’s wardrobe had been one of the first things she’d noticed. It hadn’t impressed her. Lately, though, she’d hardly noticed what he wore. It simply hadn’t mattered.

  “No, it’s been about the man having enough ambition to be able to afford them,” Maggie agreed. “Maybe I’ve missed something. What does Josh actually do for a living? Do you know something about his career that the rest of us don’t?”

  “No, I’m not entirely sure, either. I do know that he’s thinking of making a change, same as me.”

  “Great, two of you in career crisis. That ought to provide a nice solid foundation for marriage.”

  “Go to hell,” Ashley said, losing patience with the whole conversation, mostly because she didn’t have any of the answers about Josh she probably should have, given the increasing intensity of her feelings for him. She didn’t do anything impulsively, yet she’d managed to get involved with a virtual stranger in barely more than a week. And, like it or not, she was involved with him.

  “We’ll discuss this some more tonight. I’ll see you at seven,” Maggie said sweetly.

  “I never said I was coming.”

  “But you will.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “Because you know if you don’t, Melanie and I will be on your doorstep by seven ten.”

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  “I mean it, big sister. You need a plan of action. You need to find out who Josh is before you get any more dee
ply involved with him.”

  “Now who’s being a snob? Isn’t it enough that he’s been amazingly supportive and kind? Isn’t it enough that he’s smart and fun, to say nothing of sexy?”

  Maggie chuckled. “Nice defense for a woman who’s only casually interested in the guy. We’ll talk some more about that, too.”

  “I can’t tell you how I’m looking forward to it,” Ashley said sarcastically and hung up.

  If she had half a brain, she’d stay as far away from her sister’s tonight as she possibly could. Unfortunately, unless she hid out in another state, Maggie and Melanie wouldn’t hesitate to track her down. No, it was better to go and save all of them the trouble. She’d just perfect her technique for saying no comment to anything she didn’t care to answer.

  12

  Josh studied the uneasy expressions on Mike’s and Rick’s faces and concluded that he was about to be served up along with the burgers. “Okay, guys, what’s the deal?”

  They were surprisingly reticent. Mike flipped the hamburgers on the grill and avoided looking at him directly. Rick sighed.

  “I’m waiting,” he prodded.

  “We’re on a mission,” Rick finally admitted. “From our wives,” he added, as if there were any question about who’d put them up to it.

  Josh bit back a chuckle at the idea of these two men, both of whom obviously had a very strong sense of who they were, being manipulated by the women in their lives. It was a testament to how deeply they loved their wives. “Interesting. And you felt obligated to accept this mission?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mike confirmed. “If I were you, I’d run right now. The list of very intrusive questions we were given is endless.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper. “Melanie made notes. She didn’t trust my memory.”

  Rick held out a similar sheet of paper. “Neither did Maggie.” He frowned at Mike. “I think we were supposed to be more subtle about it.”

  Josh laughed. “You definitely missed the boat on that. Doesn’t matter, though. I’m afraid I can’t hide from a few questions,” he said with some regret. “It would send the wrong message, don’t you think?”