by Jenna Allen
Praise for Jenna Allen’s
Lovers Reunited
The chemistry between the couple is sultry, the situation is poignant and romantically depicted as well.
—Fallen Angel Reviews, 4 Angels
Jenna Allen pens a great plot, an interesting couple and learning to get past the heartache. By taking a deepening hurt and no communication, she shows how a relationship often sees past the hurt in this stirring read.
—Coffee Time Romance, 4 Cups
Ms. Allen did quite a nice job of describing her characters and I found the plot to be interesting.
—The Romance Studio
A quick read, filled with emotion and passion. Perfect for a lunch hour read.
—Dirty Girl Reviews, 4 Stars
“Jenna Allen has brilliantly depicted the troubled marriage with its lack of communication, desperate loneliness and heart wrenching hurt. The resolution to their troubles is neither quick nor easy and Ms. Allen made me cheer for both of them. I found this a refreshing read–hot and sexy, but gut wrenching as well. I recommend this story for anyone who knows what it’s like to watch a relationship fall apart and hope for the miracles that frequently happen to bring healing. I loved this story.”
—Jennifer Leeland, author of Naughty Notions
Lovers
Reunited
Coming home is the only way out.
Jenna Allen
Paul Bentley is a detective, sworn to protect the city from criminals. His estranged wife Kayla is a counselor determined to guide people towards a better life. The stress of their conflicting jobs breaks their marriage, but can the passion that remains reunite these former lovers?
Lovers Reunited
by Jenna Allen
Copyright © 2013 by Jenna Allen
First Publication © 2007 by Jenna Allen as On Again
Cover art by Novel Graphic Designs.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9900084-2-2
Kindle Edition
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be interpreted as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, organizations or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote brief excerpts in a review.
First electronic publication: Phaze Books 2007
Reprint of revised edition by Jenna Allen: 2013
I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jeff. Thank you for holding my hand on this crazy roller coaster of life. It’s a wild ride and I’d never be able to do it alone.
Table of Contents
Reviews
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
From the Author
Lovers Reunited
Discover more Happily Bedded Bliss
Desire Renewed
Romance Rekindled
About Jenna
Hello my lovelies,
Thank you for joining me on the Happily Bedded Bliss journey. The time to explore what follows happily ever after has come. The dream is fall in love and get married and grow together in marital bliss. If only staying together were as easy as getting together.
Lovers Reunited peeks in at a relationship where it makes sense to let go, and yet there is more to a love affair than logic. Regrets and if only’s are hard things to live with. Sometimes they keep you from taking the easy road. And thank goodness for that.
Happy Reading,
Jenna Allen
Lovers Reunited
Kayla Bentley laid on her side of the king-sized bed, pining for sleep. Insomnia had rushed her last month when the separation agreement had been signed, and hadn’t eased its stony grasp since. She could fall asleep on the couch easy enough, as long as the television was on, but once the station changed programming she’d awaken again and her mind would race. Those snippets of sleep only kinked her neck and had her chasing dreams that would never come true, not anymore.
As soon as she lay down on the bed they’d shared, her mind spun with promises made and broken. Sickness and health she could handle, and for better or worse had been fine, but she hadn’t signed on to have Paul check out completely.
With an aggravated sigh, she threw off the covers and shuffled to the bathroom. Enough light streamed in from the streetlamps outside for her to find the taps on the garden tub and start the water flowing. She lit the jasmine candles she’d bought for their anniversary last spring. He hadn’t even called that night to say he wasn’t coming.
Being married to a beat cop hadn’t bothered her. She worried, but got through it. When he’d made detective he’d started to retreat bit by bit, but making vice had been a clean break. He was home sometimes, but no longer there.
A collection of bath oils and bubble bath cluttered the counter. Since he’d left, she’d become quite the connoisseur. Something needed to caress her skin and ease her troubled mind, even if it was only water.
She poured a thick stream into the steaming water, the bubbles multiplying before her eyes. Baths relaxed her, but not enough to fall asleep. Soon she’d have to consider sleeping pills. But sleeping pills were what instigated her mother’s prescription addiction, which in turn led Kayla to become a drug counselor. No, there had to be a better way.
She pulled her soft cotton nightgown over her head just as the phone rang. Her shoulders tensed. Calls in the middle of the night were never good. No matter the legalities, she was still a cop’s wife.
Adrenaline had her answering before it rang a second time.
“It’s me.” Paul’s voice hummed through the line, warming her like hot chocolate.
“Are you okay?” She swallowed, tucking the phone in the crook of her neck and rubbing her bare arms as she made her way back to the bathroom to shut off the water.
“No. Are you?”
She sighed, looking down at her naked body and the inviting bubble bath. What the hell? One foot dipped into the water, bubbles popping against her skin. Perhaps in the tub she wouldn’t feel so bare.
“I’m glad you answered. I thought you might be asleep.”
She slipped beneath the bubbles, settling in quietly. “Not yet. Why are you still up?”
“I was thinking.”
“Uh-oh. I hope you didn’t hurt yourself.” She grinned, sliding just deep enough for the warm water to caress the tops of her breasts, the bubbles tickling her chin.
Paul cleared his throat. “I arrested Dingo Wells today. He asked me to call you.”
Great. One of the graduates of the program had slipped back. “You know I don’t take work home with me.”
“Yeah. I left you a message about him. He just got me thinking.”
Kayla closed her eyes, breathing in the jasmine of the candles and pulling the heat from the water deep into her bones. He’d been thinking. Why couldn’t he have thought before he’d moved out, before they filed for separation? She needed to hang up, right now. But, God help her, she wanted to know what he had on his mind. She hadn’t had any idea what went though his head for over a year now.
“Kay? I’m lonely.”
“Better to be lonely alone.” Her lip trembled and she prayed it didn’t show in her voice.
“Yeah. Look, I know I agreed to leave you alone. I know there’s no going back. You’re better off without me dragging you down. But I was thinking, maybe I could come over? We could open a bottle of wine and
try and talk again.”
“You never dragged me down when you were here. It was losing you and having to see you still here that hurt.” Her stomach twisted and she inched lower in the tub, letting the water soothe her wounds.
“I feel like I should take that hurt away, you know? I want to hold you and let you know none of it had anything to do with you. I didn’t want any of it to touch you.”
“I don’t live in a bubble, Paul.” She took a deep breath for courage. “You don’t want to change. You just don’t want to be lonely right now. And on again, off again is not good for either one of us.”
“We haven’t tried on again. Let me come over. I’ll bring a bottle of your favorite wine and you can mess up my head. And then once I get it together we can mess up our bed. It’s been way too long, Kayla.”
“We can talk on the phone.” Her eyes felt heavy, tears threatening. She wanted him, the old him, here in the worst way. But she didn’t think she had it in her to tell him to leave again.
The phone clicked in her ear. She called his name a few times before giving up and setting the phone on the ground. She closed her eyes, trying not to think of him, but it was too late. His image loomed in her mind, teasing her.
She wanted him to come over, share a bottle of wine and some actual conversation. He might be able to ease the ache in her body if not in her soul. With a sigh she sank deeper in the water, knowing that would only make things more complicated.
Over the last year she’d slowly learned to take care of herself. At first it was the little things like squeaky door hinges and leaky taps, but time had made her completely self-sufficient. With a sly grin she let her mental image of Paul work for her.
He relieved stress by lifting weights, and it showed. He’d been asked to pose in a charity calendar last year, but had begged off. No matter, she wasn’t too keen on the rest of the world knowing how he looked fresh from the shower.
Or how he smelled. Soap mixed with that man in ways that should be illegal. She could almost smell him there, beckoning her beneath the spray of the shower with him. He’d lick his lips in seductive invitation, drifting a hand across his muscled chest to where the light smattering of hair across his pecs arrowed down. Even with the steaming temperature of the water, her body jumped a few degrees, her blood thickening and slowing with each pulse of need between her thighs.
Her hand drifted there to ease the ache. She leaned her head back against the edge of the tub, her hair spilling over the rim as her fingers began a cautious exploration. She slipped a finger between her slick folds, slowly allowing the piping hot water against her most sensitive skin. She gasped as her fingers found her swollen, throbbing clit.
Palming her breast in her other hand, she taunted the tight nipple, pinching and pulling until she could feel the sensations in her core. In her mind she saw herself in the shower with Paul, the steam rising around them as his mouth explored her neck, breasts, before he sank to his knees before her.
Lifting a leg over his broad shoulder, he’d near her center, his tongue licking liquid flame into her body. He’d tease her clit with light caresses at first, picking up speed until her legs quaked and release loomed on the horizon.
Pulling her lip between her teeth, Kayla gave herself over to the sensations, pinching her nipple fiercely as the wave of ecstasy crested. She slipped a finger inside so she could feel her insides tremor as the jolt of pleasure shook through her. Her gasps echoed in her ears, her heart racing in her chest. Taking deep breaths she let the image of how they were calm her pulse, calm her body, calm her soul.
Paul Bently smiled as his key turned in the lock. If she truly thought they were over she would have called a locksmith. He slipped into the darkened house, closing the door behind him silently. The fingers of one hand trailed lightly on the wall as he crept to the kitchen.
He’d brought her favorite Pinot, hoping maybe it would help loosen his tongue and be enough of a bribe to get her to listen to reason. He’d been stubborn and determined, but since she’d told him to go the wall he built to keep her from being tainted by his work had started eroding.
Tonight, listening to one of her patients explain that he hadn’t been using, just in the wrong place trying to convince his wife to sober up, Paul wondered if that’s what Kayla had been trying to do. Had she told him to leave to force him to see what he was giving up by shutting her out?
The corkscrew was just where he left it, as if he hadn’t spent the last month and a half crashing on a cot at the station when he wasn’t working. The popping sound echoed in the stillness, but he didn’t hear a sound as he slid a glass from the cupboard and snuck up the stairs.
His fingers trembled as he reached for the handle of their bedroom door. She hadn’t wanted him to come over. There might be a real, live reason why on the other side of the door.
Men approached Kayla when she wore her wedding ring. Her hand had been bare when she’d met at the lawyer’s office to sign the separation agreement. No doubt she had a collection of invitations to spend the night elsewhere. Part of him knew Kayla wouldn’t tread on their marriage vows that way, but it was the same part of him that had been sure she only needed a little space, not a legal separation.
He slowly opened the door, stepping into the dim room. His eyes surveyed the bed with the covers thrown back on one side, the nightgown crumpled on the floor in front of the bathroom entry. His cheeks lifted in a grin. When he worked late he’d often come home to find her asleep in the bath.
His eyes closed at the vision of the last time he’d found her there, boneless and smiling. They’d made love without the world intruding, without a thought about anything but joining in pleasure. He wanted nothing more than to recreate that moment.
The wine and glass slid silently onto the dresser and he toed off his shoes and socks before stepping to the archway between their bedroom and bath. Candlelight licked at the walls and the scent of jasmine filled the steamy room. The aroma never failed to remind him of the garden arch they were married under. Had she chosen the scent for the same reason?
Kayla’s long, dark hair flowed over the back of the deep tub, spilling halfway to the floor. His heart quivered in his chest every time he saw her with her hair down. A decade ago he’d suggested she grow out her pixie style. Her flowing locks were a reminder of how much she wanted to please him. To see him happy, which he could never be without her.
His gaze traveled leisurely over the fine features of her face, amazed by how long her eyelashes seemed with her eyes closed. Her long, graceful neck was the only part of her body exposed above the bubbles. He really had planned on talking, but seeing her like this erased all the arguments from his brain.
A place designed to get clean was the best place to get dirty. One of the great joys in life was making love to Kayla in that tub. It took some experimenting to get it right, but once they had…
Kayla deserved all that and more. More than he’d been giving her. As much as leaving her felt like having his skin peeled off, she’d been right to ask him to go. If he couldn’t make the job and his marriage work together, then one had to go. And it wasn’t Kayla.
He plucked open the buttons of his cuffs, pushing them over his muscled forearms. Pulling both towels off the rack, he dropped them to the floor, kneeling on them beside the tub. On her face, tracks from barely dried tears ripped at his soul. They weren’t going to go on this way. It was killing them both.
His chest tightened as he watched her. She looked so sweet and innocent asleep that he felt the love close at his throat. This was his wife, and he’d nearly lost her to do a job he felt kept her safe.
Reaching out, he traced a fingertip across the soft skin of her cheek. Her lips tilted in a smile, his name a sleepy whisper upon them. Maybe he’d let her sleep, hold this moment together for as long as possible.
Kayla’s eyes fluttered open, blinking as she realized she was no longer alone. Before she had a chance to speak his mouth came down on hers. Soft and willing, h
er lips parted, allowing him a taste of all he’d missed. His kiss was at once confident and pleading.
Kayla snaked her arms around his neck, drawing him closer. In the tub she shifted, her shoulders rising up out of the water and exposing her lovely breasts. His cock twitched at the sight.
His attention faltered, his gaze dripping to her breasts like the suds sliding down her body. Thick, dark nipples beckoned him. His hand drifted down, but before he made it to his destination Kayla sat up straighter, effectively breaking their connection.
Rolling her shoulders back, she sunk just low enough in the water to cover her breasts and jutted her chin towards him.
“What are you doing here?” He watched her swallow, her deep blue gaze darting around the room. Probably looking for something to cover herself with.
“I came to talk.” He rubbed the back of his neck, now damp from her touch. “But then I saw you and you kissed me…”
“You kissed me. I wasn’t awake.” Her pretty knees emerged from the water as she drew them close to her chest, arms hugging them to her body.
“You woke up. You just forgot you were mad at me for a minute.”
“I’m not mad at you, Paul.” She stared at the wall as if it were more interesting than the periwinkle blue she’d insisted upon. “I’m just disappointed in the way things turned out.”
“That’s worse.” He reached for her again, but she pulled back. Instead of forcing the issue, he wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger, needing some connection. No matter how small.
“It’s the truth.” Her sad smile tugged at his heart.
“Doesn’t being apart feel wrong to you? Every night I try to sleep, but I can’t because I am used to you there.”
“I’ve had to fall asleep without you for a long time.”
Tucking a finger beneath her chin, he turned her face to his. “Like this? How many times did I find you here because you couldn’t sleep?”