Summer Love by Piper Rayne
Chapter Six
It was the quiet that awakened her. The storm was gone. The wind no longer howled outside. The rain had ceased battering the windows and roof. She opened her eyes to a watery light streaming through the skylight above the bed. The power was still out, though. The room was hot and close, and missing the hum of the air conditioning.
In fact, the only sound in the room was that of the man breathing next to her.
Huh.
So that wasn’t all just a dream. She really did stay up most of the night while Ian Youngblood—rock star god—gave her orgasm after orgasm. To be fair, she gave him a few, too.
She luxuriated in those thoughts for awhile. She was definitely glad that destiny or the universe or the cosmos or something had given her another chance with Ian. Even if it was only for one night.
She felt him stir.
Or maybe for one night and one morning. Was that too much to ask of the universe?
He turned his head and opened his eyes. “Mornin’, darling.”
“Good morning.”
His smile was wide and still a little sleepy. “It is a good morning, isn’t it?” He waggled his eyebrows. “We survived the storm.”
“Tropical Storm Ian.”
“Of course, we haven’t checked to see whether we’re still in Maryland or whether we got blown all the way to Kansas.”
“I’m afraid to even think about the sandbags. I hope they held.”
Looking at the deliciously sexy man in her bed, she hoped her heart was going to hold. The last thing she needed was to start wanting something that she couldn’t have, that couldn’t ever be. Ian was a one-night stand. A means to an end. The way to get her man mojo back.
He pushed himself up on one elbow. “After lugging them all into place? I’m going to be seriously pissed if they didn’t work.”
He reached over and pulled her closer. Her hips strained toward him, entirely of their own accord. She moaned as he ran his hands down her spine, slowly touching each vertebra as he went.
“Now that’s what I wanted to hear.” His hands reached the base of her spine, settling on the soft curves of her bottom. “I’m going to translate that as, ‘Ian, please make love to me again.’”
She moaned again as he pulled her hips against his morning wood. “Actually, the exact translation is, ‘Ian, please make love to me now.’”
He rolled over onto her and nipped at her lips. “Mmm, I do love a bossy woman.”
She was about to wrack her brain for a snappy comeback, but the next kiss rendered her brain inoperable. For the next hour, her body did all the thinking. She was coming down from what was perhaps the finest orgasm of her life when the power came back on. The air conditioning unit in the window stuttered to life. Normally, she considered the air conditioner to be one of mankind’s greatest achievements, but not today. The sound of it rattling away meant that their secret night together was over. Ian Youngblood would get dressed and walk out her door.
The irony of that was not lost on her.
They clung to each other for one more long moment, then rolled apart.
“I can go make coffee while you’re in the shower,” she offered.
She showed him where the bathroom and towels were, turned the dryer back on to finish his clothes, and got dressed herself. By the time he came downstairs in dry jeans and a shirt, she had brewed a pot of coffee and tossed together a sampler plate of yesterday’s pastries.
“Hope you don’t mind it black.” She handed him a Two Beans signature brown-and-white striped mug. “I’ll have to go out and get fresh milk and cream later.”
He took a sip and looked around at her shop. “You’re probably one of those ‘coffee is like fine wine and should be enjoyed without alteration’ people, anyway.” He grinned to let her know he was joking.
She responded with a coolly lifted eyebrow. “Actually, altering coffee is one of my superpowers.” If only she hadn’t lost actual power, she could demonstrate all of those coffee altering talents for him, create an entire sampler menu that would keep him here for hours. The thought of him leaving shortly filled her with a sense of deep, deep disappointment.
Clearly, I suck at one-night stands.
Maybe if she hadn’t walked out on him in London, then they could have … She snapped herself out of it with a big sip of hot, black, unaltered coffee. It was a one-night stand in St. Caroline, and it would have been a one-night stand in London, too. Ian Youngblood—world famous rock star. Mai Tran—small town coffee impresario. Their lives were about as incompatible as two lives could be.
She grabbed one of yesterday’s orange-cranberry scones and walked to the front door, looking for signs of water inside. She let out a sigh of relief upon seeing it dry. The sandbags held. Her heart? Maybe not so much. Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t the type of person to inflate a chance meeting with someone into true love and a lifetime commitment.
Except a tiny little voice inside her was doing exactly that.
Pull yourself together, woman!
She unlocked the front door and threw it open to the warm, damp air outside. An arm settled across her shoulders, comfortable and familiar after only one night.
“So, Mai with an I. How’s it look?”
“Pretty good.” She nudged a sandbag with her foot. “Even your car survived.”
“Well, that’s good. At least I won’t have to explain that to the car rental place.” He ran his fingers through her messy bedhead hair. “Did I mention that I might be here in town all summer?”
Did she hear that correctly? She could swear he just said that he was going to be around for awhile.
“Why?”
“Simone and I have been talking for years about writing and recording an album together. Given that the tour is on hiatus, this seems like an opportune time for us to finally work on it.”
She was about to close the door when Oliver Wolfe pulled up to the curb in one of the fire department’s red pickup trucks. He got out and looked the building up and down.
“Any damage, Mai?”
She shook her head as he walked toward the sandbags. “Is there flooding anywhere?”
“Along some of the creeks outside town. Tide was high at Secret Beach. Some damaged boats at the marina. But that’s about all.” He picked up one of the sandbags blocking her door and heaved it aside. “The fire department will come around and collect your sandbags, if you want.”
“Sure. That would be great.”
“It might be a few days, though.”
Oliver was looking at Ian standing behind her. His eyes narrowed briefly in recognition. That he said nothing did not surprise her. Oliver was as buttoned down as they came. His wife would be in tomorrow to get the scoop on why Ian Youngblood was in Two Beans. Mai planned to simply deny it.
No, no, not that Ian Youngblood. Just a guy who looked a lot like him.
Ian stepped around her and hopped over the sandbags. “I’ll help you get these out of the way,” he said to Oliver.
While they worked to clear the entrance to the shop, Mai poured a to-go cup of coffee for Oliver. When Oliver was gone, she poured refills for Ian and herself.
“Can I ask you something?” He pulled a chair out from one of the tables and sat down.
“Sure.” She joined him.
“That guy you were with in London—he live here in town?”
“No. He lives in Annapolis. He’s an attorney there.”
“And you two never patched things up?”
Hope swelled like a balloon in her chest. He’s staying in town for awhile. He’s verifying that your ex is no longer in the picture. She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“I knew he wasn’t right for me. I knew that before we went to London.”
“So why did you want to marry him?”
“I wanted to get married and settle down. I wanted to start a family and I was afraid I wouldn’t meet someone better. Getting someone to move to a small town has proved to be a hard sell.”
* * *
“Well, the guy was an idiot if he didn’t want to move to this cute little town and procreate like mad rabbits with you.” At the moment, Ian was hard-pressed to think of anything else he’d rather do. The memory of their morning in bed was so fresh he could still feel the press of her skin against his.
“Lots of guys are idiots, in my experience.”
There was a long silence after that, which he filled by quietly admiring her lovely face and messy hair. Random notes of a new song were pinging here and there in his brain.
“You should probably go check on Simone’s house.”
It looked as though it pained her to say that. It pained him to think of leaving. But Simone’s house had just been through the same storm. He should go check on it.
“Right. Some housesitter I am.”
“You got trapped by the storm. Extenuating circumstances.”
He leaned across the table, held her chin between his fingers, held her gaze with his. “The weather could have been perfect, and I still would have stayed. Mai with an I.”
