“Why don’t you kiss me?” she asked.

“Because it won’t stop,” Aaron said.

“I know,” Jenn replied, smiling.

Then his lips covered hers, and she could feel the frustration in his mouth, his tongue, in the way his fingers touched her face.

Her blood started to simmer, and the feel of his tongue inside her mouth, its furious demands, were the very best sort of pain. His hands fumbled, pulling her closer, her breasts to his torso, and her fingers tangled in the dark silk of his hair. Her phone, her prized phone, fell uselessly away, and once again Jenn was swept up in the very things that were bad.

Oh, but this. How could it be bad? He was whispering to her, using words that were neither pretty nor poetic, but the unfocused rasp in his voice, the hard pressure of his touch was hitting the spot right between her thighs.

It was all pleasure now. Apparently Mr Wilderness Adventure had other ideas.

And soon she’d know what they were …

About the Author

KATHLEEN O’REILLY wrote her first romance at the age of eleven, which to her undying embarrassment was read aloud to her class. After taking more than twenty years to recover from the profound distress, she is now proud to finally announce her career—romance author. NOW she is an award-winning author of nearly twenty romances published in countries all over the world. Kathleen lives in New York with her husband and their two children, who outwit her daily.

Dear Reader,

This past summer, we went camping in a cabin in upstate New York. Tragically, there were many similarities to my heroine’s accommodations in Long Summer Nights. But sometimes, against all odds, something miraculous happens. In my case, you manage to forget the fishhook you found in the mattress, and have a great time!

I hope you enjoy the romantic adventures of Aaron and Jennifer, and their quest for true love. I didn’t intend to like Aaron as much as I did, but in the end he truly touched my heart.

Happy May!

Kathleen O’Reilly

LONG SUMMER NIGHTS

KATHLEEN O’REILLY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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1

THE TINY CABIN WAS A cobwebbed hovel. An abandoned relic left over from an era that predated air-conditioning and bed springs. Casually, coolly, completely in command, Jennifer Dade scanned the room. Yes, the cabin predated indoor plumbing, as well.

She glanced at the manager of the campgrounds, a tan, thirtysomething woman, who had lake-green eyes that seemed as weary and faded as the once-white apron she wore. Yet there remained a quiet dignity, as if she was not yet resigned to rejection. And no, it wasn’t that Jenn wanted to be rejecter-girl and take her business elsewhere, but the dirt …

As if on cue, Jenn sneezed, and then met the woman’s eyes. They were steady. Unflinching. Joan of Arc, prepared to be martyred at the stake.

Why now? Why this?

The place was borderline unlivable, and Jenn did have limits to what she’d put up with. She had standards. High standards. She thought of her last boyfriend, Taj, the twenty-four-year-old drummer with a love of the Cartoon Network. Mostly high standards.

The manager noticed her hesitation—understatement of the year—and patted the head of the cherubic chubster who was clinging to her hip.

“You don’t want to stay here, do you? You’re here for the Summer Nights Festival, and you’re expecting something a lot nicer, right? There’s a bunch of bed-and-breakfasts up the road. The Wildrose Inn is the nicest, and I heard they had a cancellation. If you make it there before high tea, you might get in.”

“The Wildrose Inn?” Jenn breathed the words, shallowly transported by the idea of a towering Victorian with rambling rosebushes that dotted the lawn. Tea on a silver platter … and a toilet. It sounded heavenly, with mass appeal. Commercial appeal. The sort of commercial appeal that would insure Jennifer’s job.

The little girl piped in, flashing her big, blue Oliver Twist eyes and a grape-juice stain that extended from nose to chin. “It’s all right, Momma. Somebody else will come soon. We’ll find a renter. I know we will.”

Watching the kid, Jenn felt something tug at her heart, and she wasn’t sure if it was the first stirrings of maternal instincts—which frankly terrified her—or her stubborn impulse to drop a quarter in every panhandlers box, even though she knew it would only perpetuate the very impracticability of the homeless plight.

However, if she wanted to keep the job of her dreams, she needed to fight these urges. For the next two weeks, Jenn was on assignment, and her computer needed electricity. Ergo, if there was no electricity, there was no job.

So, even if she wanted to stay here, she couldn’t. Problem solved.

She almost smiled until she noticed the black-plated plug in the wall. Okay, electricity was here.

Still, the readers would love the Wildrose Inn. Presidents had probably slept there. There was probably a charming love story about the ghosts that roamed the halls. Because of course, there would be ghosts at the Wildrose Inn. And a five-star chef who thrilled the critics.

The sad-faced kid began sucking her thumb. Jenn felt her womb contract, pulse, sigh. No. Be strong.

“It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I was expecting something a little more …”

“Fancy,” finished the woman, no stranger to the obvious.

Time for a new tactic, something that didn’t make her feel like such a martyr-killer.

“This is the deluxe cabin?” asked Jennifer hopefully. Maybe the paper had made some clerical mishap, and Jenn had landed the supersaver accommodations instead? Times were tough; it was a possibility.

“My ex was a wilderness freak,” the woman explained. “He loved the sounds and smells of nature, and bought this place for a song. Of course, then he leaves me to run it. Not that I want to talk bad about Emily’s father—” she covered her daughters ears “—but if I called him an asshole, I’d offend thousands of butt cheeks everywhere.”

Sorrowfully Jenn shook her head. “Been there, bagged that, sobbed at the ending. We’re a gullible gender. Too softhearted to stand up for what is best for us. No, it’s all about sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice.”

It was a habit of Jenn’s. Promote camaraderie, create intimacy, inspire trust. It was the key to her reporter’s way, the secret to getting to the very heart of strangers in the span of sixty minutes or less.

But not this time. The woman heaved a self-sacrificing sigh, uncovered her daughter’s ears, and then smoothed at nonexistent creases in her apron.

“You’ll be happier at the Wildrose. It’s really nice. They have these great down comforters, and in the afternoon,

Sven will do massages. His name isn’t really Sven, it’s actually Mario, but still, he has great hands.”

Her apple cheeks blushed a dark scarlet, and Jennifer suspected the woman knew Mario’s hands in the most intimate sort of way.

Sentimentality and guilt warred with her need to do this feature right, and Jenn glanced at the kid who was now milking this one for all it was worth, her grape-stained chin wobbling, her wide eyes brimming with tears.

It was like watching a little Meryl Streep, and Jenn had always been a sucker for Meryl Streep and her ability to convey heart-wrenching melancholy with only a quiet look. This kid had those same Oscar-winning genes in spades and knew it.

Unfortunately it wasn’t completely an act.

Oh, hell.

Mind made up, Jennifer nodded. “I like this place. Sometimes I think it’s important to get away from the distractions of the everyday world. A place where I can turn off the television.”

“No television.”

“And chuck the cell phone in the lake when the ringing gets too loud.”

The woman laughed, a relieved laugh, and Jenn smiled to herself.

“Not a problem. No cell reception for miles.”

Miles? Miles? Longingly Jenn stroked the new iPhone in her jean pocket, knowing she could never chuck it into the lake. All the hiking and nature apps that she’d loaded especially for this assignment? Pointless.

Techno-gadget lust versus the good of human kindness.

Her sigh was long and slightly overdramatized, but at least now the manager looked calmer, and the kid looked more than a bit self-satisfied.

Yes. She was a sap, and for the next two weeks, she’d be a rustic, outdoorsy sap, and hopefully they didn’t have poison ivy.

“Welcome to Harmony Springs. I’m Carolyn, and this is Emily.”

Now that Jenn had made peace with her decision to abandon all the comforts of a postindustrialized society, she set her suitcase on the floor. “What do people do for bathrooms? “

Carolyn started to laugh. “We’re not that rustic. There’s a men’s bath and ladies’ bath right down the path. You won’t be able to miss it, but it gets dark at night, so keep a flashlight handy. You brought your linens and soap, right?”

Sneaky Emily was watching her, daring her to back out of the deal now, not that Jenn was considering it—much. “Oh, yeah. I’m all set.”

“Perfect. We’ll get out of your hair. There’s a movie every night in the main lodge, and a horseshoe tournament at dusk.”

“Wow. I think I’m going to love this place,” gushed Jennifer, and Carolyn smiled gratefully.

“You’re a nice person.”

“Sometimes. But I had an ex who dragged me on survivalist training for two weeks. I ended up with a sunburn and a bad case of poison ivy, and the pièce de résistance? He dumped me because I wasn’t tough enough to hack it. I think I can make it fine.” With or without three-ply toilet paper.

Really? Asked the snide little voice in her head.

“One last thing—we keep the grounds really quiet here. We only have two guests now, but Cabin Three really appreciates his privacy.”

“He doesn’t like children,” muttered Emily, and Jenn kept her smile to herself. Obviously Cabin Three did not take kindly to having his emotions manipulated for capitalistic purposes.

“We don’t know that, Emily,” scolded her mother.

“Yes, we do. He tells me that all the time.”

“I’ll make sure to stay out of his way,” Jenn assured them both, liking Cabin Three more and more.

Now that Emily’s sales job was complete, the little girl threw open the wooden door, and dashed out of the cabin. She ran in unlaced sneakers, jumping down stairs and over rocks. Watching her unbridled freedom, Jenn envied that ability to run, laces whipping out wildly, uncaring of the consequences that might doom her to a bruised knee or, for example, losing the job of her dreams.

Before Carolyn could trail after her daughter, Jenn had one more thing she wanted to know. “Can I ask you something?” she asked.

Carolyn halted on the wooden porch and nodded, her eyes watching her child. It was always the loving mother who looked over the world with guarded eyes, wanting the best for their kids, wanting them to avoid the bumps and bruises of life. In that respect, Jenn’s mother was exactly the same.

“Why don’t you leave here if you’re not happy?” she asked, not wanting to think about her overcautious parents at the moment.

Carolyn sucked in her lip, the way people do when they have an answer ready, but they know it’s the wrong answer, so they chew on their mouth and their words, hoping to find a more socially acceptable way to spit it out. Almost all of the Dade family were notorious lip-suckers—except Jenn.

“I thought about leaving, about starting over, but not yet. One day, I’m going to wake up and know that I’m ready, but right now, I wake up, and I go to work. Doing the cleaning and the laundry, running the movie, keeping Emily somewhat well-adjusted. That’s enough for now. It makes me happy. It makes Emily happy, and if Emily is happy, then I’m happy.”

“But don’t you want more? Don’t you feel like you’re settling?” Jenn had an irrational fear of settling, of living her life on the terms as defined by Great American Societal Credo #32, A Woman Must be Successful and Recognized on Her Financial Merits, a well-trod treatise on the postfeminist era female.

“Why are you so interested?” Carolyn asked, obviously noting the not-so-well-disguised panic in Jenn’s voice, which came as much from her own insecurities as it did from professional curiosity.

Jenn decided to come clean, because on a good day, she wasn’t this edgy, but this wasn’t a good day. It probably wouldn’t be a good two weeks either, and although she didn’t like to read the writing on the wall, sometimes it needed to be read.

“I’m a journalist. I’m here to write about this town, this place, the Summer Nights Festival, and I’m fighting for my job against a femme fatale who is sleeping with the boss. I don’t have a chance in hell of keeping my job, but if I do, then my parents aren’t right, and I’m twenty-seven years old, which is too old for my parents to be right, and so I have to come up with something here. Something fascinating. Something illuminating. Something mesmerizing. Something that will titillate my editor far more than the sight of Miss Nolita’s naked garbanzos.”

Carolyn knew desperation when she saw it. “You’re sure you don’t want to check out now? The Wildrose has this great chef. Four stars. In fact …”

Jenn held up a courageous hand.

“Let’s forget about the chef for a minute. What would you do if you weren’t here?”

“I don’t let myself think that far ahead.”

“Why not?”

“Because usually it’s not good, and I like being happy. If I don’t think too much about tomorrow, then I’m happy.”

Most other female New Yorkers aspired to be dancers, or media captains, or heart-free mistresses to high-powered men. All Carolyn wanted was to be happy. Jenn made a mental note to investigate this self-satisfaction concept more fully. Women choosing happiness over the rigid expectations of the world? Story at eleven.

AARON BARKSDALE DRUMMED his fingers on the mahogany tabletop, glancing at his watch for the hundredth time, not wanting to look like an impatient male in a frilly, feminine world, but as a writer, he believed in absolute honestly, so yes, he was an impatient male in a frilly, feminine world.

But not impatient without cause. The elegant dining room of the Wildflower Inn was overstuffed with flowers, smothered by the rabid scents of hairspray … and potpourri.

Aaron hated potpourri. Neither was he especially fond of hacked-off flowers that were crammed into vases, and in his soul he knew that a woman’s hair was best left soft and unshellacked. Feeling rather justified in his criticism, he leaned back in the pint-size chair and his fingers drummed even faster.

Where was Didi? She was always late, he reminded himself, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Excuse me. I don’t mean to interrupt, but can you move your chair please?”

At the sound of a woman’s voice, his fingers ceased their drumming, and he turned to contemplate this newest irritation. Automatically his mouth curved into the politely expected smile, but it wasn’t as difficult as usual.

She had soft brown eyes, possessing that wondrous sort of delight most commonly seen in magazine ads for cleaning products. Her face was long and thin, with a sharp nose well suited to intruding where it didn’t belong. But she had nice hair, he admitted, only to be fair. Autumn gold waves that fell past her shoulders, soft and unshellacked—as it should be.

“Your chair?” she repeated in that same no-nonsense tone, and he reminded himself that people must be more dense in frilly, feminine worlds. Trying to oblige, he shifted an inch forward, until his knees lodged painfully against the adjacent chair. All social obligations now complete, he nodded to dismiss her.

“Do you need that much room?” asked the woman who would not be dismissed. “I’m trying to work,” she offered as way of explanation, as if everyone chose a dining room as their personal office. Of course, with the hodgepodge of electronic gadgets spread on the table in front of her, he wasn’t surprised she needed extra space.

“The chair’s aren’t that big,” he argued, because if he moved any closer to the table, he’d be on top of it.

She looked him up and down, and smiled, patently fake. “You don’t look fat.”

Fat? Then he noticed the teasing look in her eyes. “Don’t get nasty,” he answered testily, because Aaron had never handled teasing well.

“I’m trying to work here, but I can’t move my elbows. I need to move my elbows,” she explained, flexing her arms over the small tabletop, her expression politely determined in that way of people who didn’t know when to give up.

“Don’t we all?” he muttered, before unhappily adjusting his knees. Trying to block out the rest of the world, his fingers began nervously drumming once again.

She looked up, scowled at his hand.

“I’m making you unhappy, aren’t I?” he asked, strangely happy about it.

As soon as he spoke, a heavily embalmed dowager at the next table shushed him. Obviously people in her world enjoyed the oozing scent of bad potpourri and didn’t mind having their legs compressed in unnatural positions.

Cranky old biddy, he thought. Probably owned cats.

“Sorry,” the younger woman apologized in a stage whisper, with a nod toward the next table. He nearly smiled when the older woman sniffed.

“It’s not your fault,” he told the younger woman magnanimously.

“I won’t bother you again,” she promised, but after that, he could still feel her staring at his back, and he told himself that the woman was very attractive, and he shouldn’t mind having her stare at him. But this time, he could feel the tightness of his collar, the instinctive desire to cover his face. He told himself it was the surroundings, the filigreed trappings and overindulgence of gilt. When faced with too much noise, too much gold and too many eyes, he had an overwhelming urge to flee.

Finally he turned around, shuffling his chair sideways to face her. “I don’t like being in crowds,” he explained. “Especially fussy crowds with pearls and rose patterns and cucumber sandwiches.” It was as close to an apology as he’d ever admitted.

“You don’t get out much, do you?” she asked.

“Enough,” he lied. He got out more than he wanted, and every time he did, he regretted the experience. When he got right to the point, as he knew he should, Aaron preferred isolation. He preferred the voices in his head, the world he created, the perfect turn of the phrase.

He preferred alone.

“Why are you here?” she asked, seeing through the lie.

“Lunch.”

“Dragged the dragon out of his lair? Must be some friend.”

He snickered at the thought. Didi? “She’s not a friend.”

“Oh,” she replied, a wealth of innuendo in the word, and he choked back his laughter. She thought Didi was a date. “I’m sorry. I’ll get back to work.”

“Don’t let me keep you from it,” he said when she turned away, not bothering to correct her assumption.

Eventually she shifted again, knocking into his shoulders. “I can be a very bad procrastinator. Sometimes I’ll know I should be working, but if I know I have the time, it’s like pulling teeth.”

“You should be more disciplined.” Deciding that maybe she did need more room to work, he shifted to the other chair at the table. It was a little better. They weren’t touching so much.

“Disciplined like you?” she asked with a mindful glance at his undisciplined fingers, and Aaron felt an odd heat on his face. A blush. Easily explained by the heat of the room, the presence of chemical additives and the disconcerting lack of oxygen.

“I never pretended to be a great example,” he muttered, and before she turned away, she smiled.

There was a bleak trickle of sweat down his neck because he enjoyed her smile. It made him warm and lethargic, and Aaron didn’t want to feel warm and lethargic, so he rubbed at his neck and concentrated on the Great Lily Massacre in the bud vase in the center of his table.

Not that it was enough. Out of the corner of his eye, he could observe her as the roller-ball pen scratched the well-thumbed pages of her Moleskin notebook. Careless and haphazard but energetic and slightly obsessed. He approved.

When she wrote, she talked to herself, reading aloud, and it wasn’t half-bad. A few dangling participles. Some verbs that could have been punchier, but overall, it was decent. He got caught up watching the movement of her mouth, and decided that her mouth wasn’t half-bad, either. It was fluid and expressive, never still, never concealing.

Oddly fascinated with her, Aaron forgot about the pungent smells and the cramped ache in his knees. It wasn’t that she was pretty, but the light in her face drew him in. A hum of energy radiated about her, not relaxing, not comfortable, but always magnetic. When she was paused in her work, she would ruffle her hair, mussing it up even more. Each time she raised her hand, the dowager glared. Not liking the glares, Aaron gifted the dowager his best crocodile smile. Instantly the stares stopped.

The drama of the world played around the younger woman, but she was immune to it all. He didn’t understand this ability to tune out the noises, and he wondered.

All too soon, the waiter came, presenting her with the check. As she pulled some cash from her overstuffed bag, she didn’t look Aaron’s way, and he told himself he was relieved. After all, he didn’t like to be disturbed. But then she rose, and he found himself supremely disturbed. He didn’t want to notice her, didn’t want to leer at her body like some undersexed boy, but it was impossible. Truly. She had breasts that would make any man want her. High lush curves that would just fit his palms.

Beneath the table, his cock throbbed painfully, and he told himself that it had been too long since he’d had sex. At one shining moment in time, his sexual appetite had been legendary. It was humiliating to realize he’d been reduced to an ordinary man with ordinary tastes and a hard-on that could bisect a brick.

Needing to focus his energies elsewhere, his fingers drummed on the wooden tabletop, hard and fast, an eerily carnal rhythm.

Thank God no one was there to see.

Except for her.

As she walked away, she glanced at his drumming fingers and then smiled at him, a quick nervous smile, not a sexual invitation, not that his body knew the difference. Stupidly he stared—and of all the human foibles, Aaron hated stupidity most of all—but he couldn’t help himself. For a second her eyes widened, zeroing in on him, cataloging each and every one of his human foibles, probably so she could pen them in her journal in her chicken-scratch scrawl.

Aaron looked hastily away. One innocent smile, and in his mind, he’d kissed her, stripped her and had her whispering his name between frenzied moans.

After she left, he calmed his oversexed blood and his undersexed cock, leaning back in his chair, breathing in the florid scent of rose like smelling salts.

In a few minutes, Aaron returned to his normally disagreeable state, and he smiled with relief, almost happy that Didi was late.

It was over an hour later when Didi finally showed, not that he should be surprised. There were many words to describe Didi Ziegler, punctuality not among them. She peered at the world through her owlish round glasses in a flamboyant red. People whispered that it was undiagnosed dementia to wear red past seventy. But Didi, who had broken hearts for nearly half a century, ignored the whispers and went airily on her way. And Aaron, who knew gossip to be only the most perverted form of the truth, chose to ignore them, as well.

“You’re late,” groused Aaron, obediently holding up his head as she kissed the air somewhere next to his ear.

“I like to see you squirm, darling. What sort of agent would I be if I didn’t torture my client?”

“A humane one.”

“You don’t want a humane agent. You want a viper, and we both know it. Save the lies for your pages. Speaking of …” She raised her pencil-line brows until they disappeared into the silvery wisps of her crisply styled hair. “Do we have progress yet, or are you still twiddling your thumbs? I suppose twiddling is preferable to other, more colorful activities. But the isolation, the provincial wilderness … the mind assumes the worst.”

Didi always knew the exact way to restore him back to equilibrium, and he flashed her a grateful smile. “Before you start the interrogation, I’d like to eat first. After the plates are cleared, we’ll progress to pointless chitchat wherein you tell me all sorts of frothy drivel, and I’ll pretend to care. Then I can complain about the state of the world, and the melting of the ice caps and ponder the fates of little baby seals.”

She cocked back her head and laughed, a rich belly laugh that caused heads to turn, and Aaron’s mouth twitched in amusement. “One of these days I will fire your worthless, delectable ass.”

“I’m the client, Didi.”

“And you keep bringing that up. A convenient truth that only muddies the patent unhealthiness of our business relationship.”

“Bite me,” he said with not a trace of malice.

“It’s a good thing I don’t have a full set of teeth, instead of these giant moons they call veneers. Tell me, Aaron, what happened to natural teeth, and natural boobs, and natural wrinkles? Ugly is a dying art form,” she said, patting her beautifully coiffed hair slyly.

“You wear it well.”

“If you call me Broom Hilda, you will die.”

“You always look lovely.” It was true. In his eyes, Didi represented the very best of the female sex. Razor-sharp, loyal, but with a large heart that few would ever see.

“I am not lovely, merely eccentric and egotistical. In the past, the men fell for it in droves.”

“They still do,” he said, and she beamed with approval.

After they ordered, they ate, and she dished the latest in the publishing world. Some old names, many new, and Aaron was glad he was longer a part of it. Moving north, “fleeing” as Didi termed it, had been the best decision of his life. Too bad she didn’t see it that way.

“I saw your father.”

“So?” he asked easily, shaking pepper over his plate, not really caring how much he used or where it landed.

“It was the Scribner dinner. He asked about you. He’s getting old and scrawny, much like the rubber chicken you are condemning to your well-seasoned hell. He looked heartbroken, as well. I thought you would want to know.”

“That’s the Scotch.”

“I could give him a message, although it would be a horrendous waste of my time and talents because I am not some plodding delivery service, especially when you could do it so easily yourself. However, because I am an exceptional agent, dedicated to my clients needs, I would. But only this once.”

Aaron sawed at his chicken with excessive force. “Tell him the usual.”

“It always makes me happy to spew vulgar obscenities and watch his eyes narrow to toothpicks. Martin is waiting for the manuscript,” she added, daintily picking at her salad, turning from one unpleasant topic to another.

“I’m not ready to write again.”

“Yes. I know. You are too emotionally frozen, devoid of all feeling and heart, and even worse, unable to plot your way out of a paper bag. Blah, blah, blah. You are becoming tedious.”

He stared at her silently, as any self-respecting heartless, emotionally frozen man would do.

Unamused, she shot him a withering look.

“I need more time,” he lied. Actually there were ten completed manuscripts under his bed. In fiction, Aaron believed in total honesty. In life, not so much.

“I’ve been telling him that for eight years. Eventually he will grow old and possibly die, and you will have squandered your opportunity. Not that I care.”

Aaron shrugged, feeling the pecking bites of guilt, and he hated guilt. Guilt was usually directly followed by stupidity. “I’ll have something when I have something.” It was an empty promise, Didi knew it, and she moved aside the bud vase, the better to scowl at him.

“Show me what you have, Aaron. Give him a morsel, something to dangle in front of his greedy little eyes, and let them remember the vibrant talent that you are.”

Aaron fought the urge to put the vase back in place and hide the disappointment in her eyes. “When I’m ready. The perfect book takes time. It’s nearly impossible to do it twice in a lifetime.”

“You will never be ready if you spend all your time in this dreary little ghost town. You should be in the city.”

She spoke with all the arrogance of Aaron’s father, some acquired from her two short years as Cecil Barksdale’s mistress, but there was one important difference between the two—Didi actually looked at Aaron with affection. Aaron’s father only looked in the mirror with affection. In the end, it was the same reason that both Didi and Aaron had left him.

“Since hell has now frozen and your will has fossilized into something large and beastly usually found in museums, I have no choice. For the next week, I will be slumming here for a short respite.” She coughed, not so delicately. “If you feel a warm, relentless wind breathing down your neck, it will be me doing my job as I should be paid to do, if you were actually writing.”

As he considered the horrific idea of someone sitting there, waiting for him, expecting to actual read his words, Aaron’s fingers began to tap once again. His father had always said true genius could never be forced. There were few things that Aaron and Cecil agreed on. That was pretty much it.

He considered the lethal determination in Didi’s face and knew that soon he would have to come clean. But not yet.

“Oh, you are the sly one,” she murmured, her mouth curved in a Cheshire grin. “I know you’ve been writing. It’s there in your face, your restless fingers.” Delighted at his obvious misery, she rubbed her hands together. “There. I’ve decided. Every day we will have lunch, and you will report your progress.”

“You can lunch wherever you choose. You’ll lunch alone.”

“You would treat me so shabbily, Aaron?” she asked, watching him with those piercing black eyes that knew him better than anyone.

“No,” he said with a resigned sigh. With a single-minded efficiency, Aaron had chased away everyone in his life. Nine years later, it was only Didi who stuck beside him. He wasn’t sure if it was his commission check that kept her in his life, or some stubborn desire to needle him to life. He suspected the later. Money had never been Didi’s raison d’être.

“It would break my heart if you chose to brush me away now.”

“You don’t have a heart,” he reminded her.

“True. But if I had a heart, it would break.”

Aaron pushed at the chicken on his plate, seeing too much resemblance in himself and not proud of it. “As long as we don’t eat here again,” he told her, then swallowed a bite, doubts lodging in his throat like a bone. This was going to be a disaster and Didi’s victorious smile didn’t help.

Airily she waved her knife with as much skill as flair. “Of course, darling. Whatever you want.”

2

“A QUIET TUESDAY NIGHT in Harmony Springs. Day One in this reporter’s quest to find something interesting in this picturesque town where absolutely nothing ever happens. Did Quinn need to send me on this assignment? Do I have sucker stamped on my head? Do I need to keep asking these stupid rhetorical questions?”

Jenn clicked off the phone’s voice recorder, and leaned back on the hard surface of the giant boulder. Above her was the night-dark sky. And stars. She’d heard the rumors of their existence. She’d seen pictures in books, but as a lifelong resident of New York, she’d never observed them in their natural habitat.

Out here in the solitary woods, there were other creatures in their natural habitat. She could hear them scuttling and slithering, and she told herself not to panic. Cute, furry things scuttled. Mouselike things. Mickey. Minnie. Mighty.

And then of course, there were the not-so-nice ones with devil-red eyes that glowed like the fires of hell. With large teeth that could chew on human flesh … and she could almost feel something crawling on her.

Instantly she brushed at her jeans and came away with nothing but embarrassment. Sometimes an overactive imagination was a plus, and sometimes, like now, it was a definite problem. Taking a deep, focusing breath, she stood up, and held her phone to the moon like Excalibur.

Two bars. Almost enough to make a connection.

Standing on tiptoe, she reached for the stars.

At the sight of three magical bars, she squealed with delight, nearly dislodging her feet from terra firma.

Still, the near-death experience was worth it.

Her phone’s display finally lit up, showing a map of the constellations above her head. Virgo and Centaurus. These were the twinkling constellations that were normally obliterated by the bright lights of the city. They seemed so low, so deceptively close, as if you could throw out your arms and touch them. It seemed that stars, much like New York politicians, were born to deceive.

She repeated the line in her head, liked it, and recorded it, a mental reminder of her literary prowess. And they thought journalists couldn’t write.

Below her notes, the day’s headlines crawled across the screen. All the things that happened in New York without her. A humbling experience, which proved that yes, the world did not revolve around Jenn.

But, her reporter’s brain argued, wasn’t that the whole point of being out here, at one with nature? It was a giant screw you to the concept of being at the center of everything. To say that you don’t care. To say you don’t need the rest of the world. To proclaim—a bit too loudly—that you’re satisfied with only the company of me, myself and I.

Deciding the philosophical overtones weren’t newsworthy, she sat down on the rock, reading over the day’s headlines, getting distracted by the goat-rodeo they called Albany politics. She was deep into an op-ed piece on the latest budget referendum when she heard a new noise. Not scuttling, rustling. A large rustling, then a quiet oomph.

Not alone anymore. Quickly she closed her eyes in case the creatures had returned.

“Hello,” drawled an annoyed voice. Not a mouse, she thought with relief, and opened her eyes, blinking twice in case her imagination had kicked in again.

No, not imagination. It was the uncooperative man from the inn. The same man who had dazzled her loins and piqued her curiosity. Yet no matter the pique or the dazzle, Jenn knew at a gut-deep level that this man would be another mistake.

His black hair was worn long, a man who didn’t care about the opinion of the world. Tonight the cool blue eyes were arrogant and detached, missing the burning intensity of this afternoon. His nose was Romanesque, the profile of dictators and emperors and rulers. Nothing sensitive there. It was only the slight dimple in the center of his chin that made her wonder about the accuracy of her assessment.

But all those warning signs didn’t mean she couldn’t have fantasies, didn’t remember the shot of excitement that chased through her this afternoon. The marvelous thing about dreams was that they were harmless, as long as you remembered they were only dreams.

Mr. Habitual Scowler sat down next to her, long legs stretched out in front of him, and she told herself there was nothing remotely dreamy about him.

“Your phone is very distracting,” he said in a completely undreamy voice.

Surprised, Jenn looked at the innocent device in her hand. Yes, cell phone users were capable of many sins. Since she was intolerant of most of them, Jenn knew that both she was and her phone were being unjustly accused. “My phone?”

“I was trying to work, and I kept seeing this flash from my window. I told myself to ignore it, but I couldn’t. So I walked over, looked out onto the normally darkened night sky, and I saw you sitting up here, performing some odd ritual.”

“You could have ignored me,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but then I kept telling myself that you might be some pagen worshipper, and might get naked and things went downhill from there. I couldn’t work, and I needed to work, so I climbed up here to ask you to return to your cabin where you belong.”

Immediately she realized who he was, and her heart bumped happily. Never a good sign. “You’re in cabin number three, aren’t you?”

“You’ve been spying on me?” he asked, sounding not as disturbed by that thought as most normal people would be.

“I don’t spy,” she said, defending herself. “I was warned not to disturb you.”

“Too late. You’ve disturbed me.” He pushed a hand through his hair, disturbing that, as well. It only added to his sexy quotient, and Jenn tried not to smile.

“I’m sure many mental health professionals would tell you that you were already disturbed long before I wandered onto this rock. And by the way, innocent rock-wandering would not be considered a disturbance by the population at large.”

“At this campground, I’m the sole population at large. It’s not a busy place.”

“And now there’s me. I’m looking at the stars, and I’m going to continue gazing at the stars, so if I’m disturbing you, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to stop.”

“You’re not gazing at the stars. You’re gazing at your phone. There’s a perfectly good sky up there. You should try it.”

“I don’t know all the constellations. I’m learning. I suppose you know them all,” she asked carefully. He didn’t look like a romantic stargazer, she thought, not wanting anything else to add to his sexy quotient.

“No,” he answered, and she sighed with relief. Although secretly she admitted that she liked the lack of fog in his eyes.

She pointed to the stars on her phone. “If you had a star app, you could learn them.”

“Spoken like the commercially brainwashed American consumer that you are. Obsessed with convenience, purveyor of a thousand bits of minutia to manage an already hurried world. Devices that fool you into believing that you can rule time and have some control over your life. And in the end, those very things only make you a slave instead of the master.”

Instinctively she knew it wouldn’t be smart to laugh. If he hadn’t sounded so completely sure of himself, she might have felt sorry for him. Instead, because perhaps there was a shred of uncomfortable truth, she crossed her arms over her chest and raised her brows in her best imitation of smug superiority. “This coming from a man who left his solitary cabin and climbed up on a rock, solely in hopes of a little gratuitous nudity? You’re in no position to cast stones.”

Sadly he didn’t look the least bit ashamed. “I’m a mere man. Tethered to the weakness of the flesh and damned to experience life at its worst.”

That was the problem with weakening flesh, she thought, wishing that this time her body could be a little smarter. Instead she was noticing the long, length of his thighs, the rangy breadth of his shoulders and the sexy way he looked at her when he didn’t want to look at her. She’d never realized conflicted men could be so arousing.

“Who said that?” she asked.

“It’s no one you’d ever heard of.”

“He sounds overwrought.”

“That’s the polite term,” he said, his teeth flashing in the dark, and she was shocked at how normal he looked. How appealing. How completely unromantic and yet still hot.

“Why are you here?” she asked, now completely overwrought herself.

“Because I thought you were going to take off your clothes. I thought you would look nice without them.”

Her eyes narrowed only because if he asked nicely, she might have considered. “You think that line will fool me? Leisure Suit Lothario doesn’t come easy for you. In fact, you probably had to scrape the dregs of your social vocabulary to come up with that one. Ergo, the actual answer to my question is even worse than being branded a mere man.”

As insults went, it was convoluted and scattered, mainly because her mind was still stuck back at taking off her clothes.

He looked at her sideways, his eyes amused. “What are you? Psychologist, or just nosy?”

“I’m a reporter.”

At her words, the change in him was visible. The humor in his eyes faded, and his mouth tightened to a forbidding line. “Bottom-feeder.”

Jenn was used to the lack of respect. As a journalist, she had trained herself to be immune. “You are a charmer. I bet your complimentary ways go over well with all the ladies. What do you have against reporters?”

“Do you want specifics, or are the broad, generalized sins of the species enough?”

“Specifics. I like dealing in truths.”

“There is no truth, only whatever is convenient to whomever is speaking.”

She didn’t like his words, didn’t like his bitterness, didn’t like that he was correct. Since she was a kid she’d wanted to be a reporter, but she wasn’t blind to the narrow line that a journalist had to walk. Integrity versus news.

Instinctively she changed the subject to something safer. Like sex. “Is this your idea of seduction? It’s not working,” she muttered, relieved when the tight smile appeared again.

“No. It’s my idea of trying to get you off this rock.”

He looked strangely content for a man who was disturbed, but she understood. He provoked her, but she could feel the answering thrum in her blood, the tightening of her skin, the brooding pulse between her thighs.

Frowning, she crossed her legs and his eyes followed the movement with a knowing awareness that didn’t help the situation. “That didn’t work with the pilgrims at Plymouth. It’s not going to work with me. I have an assignment. I’m going to do my assignment, and I’m sorry if my presence disturbs your man-in-the-bubble existence. Actually, no, I’m not sorry. It’s a lot of fun to irritate you.”

He looked at her, his eyes a little too stunned. “Do you clip the wings off butterflies, as well?”

It was fascinating the way he drifted into insults so easily, using them like a shield, parrying anything that cut too close. “A butterfly, are we?” she said, raising a faux superior brow.

“I like to think in objectifying metaphors, dehumanizing as much as possible. It makes dealing with people much easier. Generally I like to avoid most people.”

Not quite sure how to answer that one, not quite sure why he seemed content to sit with her on the rock, Jenn elected to remain silent, her legs firmly locked.

It was a beautiful night not to be thinking about sex. The sounds of nature weren’t quite so forbidding when he was beside her. Somewhere an owl was hooting, and she realized she’d never heard the hoot of an owl. Crickets played and the stars shimmered in a velvet sky. When he didn’t think she was looking, he would glance at the display on her phone, matching the constellation to the one’s overhead. But she was always secretly looking, always watching him.

She liked him, she admitted. He was the best sort of man. Brutally honest and unafraid to speak his mind, dark and twisted such as it was. But it was that honesty that was refreshing.

He leaned back on the uneven surface of the stone, his chest rising steadily, his face turned up to the sky. He had a nice chest. He chose to hide it, much like he seemed to hide everything, a complete opposite of most of the other men she met who wanted to drone on about every aspect of their existence as if she couldn’t wait to hang on each and every second of their day. Frankly a little mystery could be very sexy.

Maybe she should do this. Maybe she should have an affair. Maybe she should lean over four inches and kiss him. Feel that sharp mouth on hers. Slide her hands under the buttons of his shirt, and see if his heart would beat faster. At the moment, so deep into her own dreams, she thought that it would.

“What’s your assignment?” he asked, which was the very worst question to ask while she was contemplating seduction.

Turning back to the matters at hand, which weren’t nearly as exciting as her current thoughts, she wiped sweaty palms on her jeans. “Harmony Springs. The Summer Nights Festival. The city-goers’ annual mecca to a quiet upstate community that offers very little in comparison to the myriad wonders of the five boroughs, so why the heck do all these people come here?”

Perhaps he noted the snark in her voice. “Which do you work for? Fear-mongering scandal-chaser with a penchant for yellow journalism or overpriced glossies perpetuating an idea of beauty or wealth that no ordinary person could achieve? “

She looked at him sharply, surprised by the anger. These days people were cynical about government, business and international diplomacy. But the media had been defanged long ago.

“I work for a newspaper. Large. Manhattan-based. Many Pulitzers among the staff. You probably haven’t heard of it.”

Beneath the sarcasm, she still felt the thrill, the fierce pride in her job, which warred with her marginalized female propensity to remain humble. Usually the pride won out.

His mouth curved, and not in a happy way. “They give the Pulitzer to every journalistic rabble-rouser who spent their college years watching All the President’s Men.”

After all her bragging—completely deserved in her eyes—the man didn’t look nearly as impressed as she’d hoped. Secretly she wanted to make that disdainful gaze flash with admiration and respect. Some of it was her own defensiveness, her own not quite deserved pride in her career. And some of it was because he belonged to the world of the intelligentsia and the literati. It was a nut she wanted to crack, a place she wanted to belong. At the paper, the halls were filled with people who dropped rhetorical devices at the drop of a hat. Instinctively she knew he lived in that high-brow existence, as well. His careful assessment of his surroundings, his use of language, his absolute moral certainty. So, who was he?

“I’m assuming you’re not a reporter. What is your job?”

He waited a long time before replying. But eventually he met her eyes casually. Too casually. “Writer.”

“Journalist?” she asked, not because she believed he was, but merely to see him dump all over the profession again. There was much to be gleaned from a person’s prejudices.

“Fiction. Not so different.”

A writer? Sure, there was something bohemian about him, but he seemed a little more intense than the unambitious dreamers who sat alone in their cave, waiting for the muse to come down and strike them with brilliance. No, this man would beat his muse senseless before he depended on someone else for his words.

He belonged somewhere else. Like Brooklyn, for instance.

“Why are you here?” she asked. “Why aren’t you out among the teeming masses, mingling with the great unwashed dregs of humanity, obsessed with the eight million stories in the naked city?”

“Do you have to keep bringing up naked?”

He looked so upset at the idea of weakness, so worried that he was actually afflicted with something as common as lust, that Jenn wanted to shout childishly, “Naked, naked, naked,” or perhaps, less childishly, to rip off her T-shirt and see what he’d do. Prudently she abstained from both and changed the subject.

“You’re here to write? No, strike that. I still don’t get you. How you can stay here without going bonkers? Don’t you want to know what’s happening in the world?”

“Are people still getting robbed, are hurricanes still blowing, is the country still poised on the edge of ruin?”

Okay, he had a point, but it amazed her that anyone could stay so unplugged from the events of the world, the personalities, the happenings that affected them all. He didn’t seem as though he’d be disinterested in the world. Maybe he didn’t want to think that way, but she’d seen him watching her phone, she watched him at the inn earlier.

“But it’s news,” she protested, speaking out in defense of the American media institution. How could anyone ignore … everything?

“It’s not news. It’s old. Old as history, old as time.”

“Old as sex,” she contributed, noting the blush, pleased at his response.

“You promised,” he protested. It was halfhearted, and his eyes warmed with lust and want, watching her the same way he watched everything else. Not liking it, not comfortable, but unable to stop.

“I didn’t promise. You assumed,” she answered, flirting dangerously, because she didn’t want him to stop. She liked the want in his eyes, the way it made her heart pump with courage instead of fear. She liked the powerful heat in her blood.

Suddenly he was very close, a whisper’s breath away. His legs were nearly brushing hers, the muscles in his arms tense with frustration. All she had to do was move one inch …

“Woman, you are the gate of Hell, the temptress of the forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law.” The words were low and raw and she’d never felt so completely aroused in her life.

“Cecil, again?” she whispered, inching closer.

“No, Tertullian.” His eyes met hers, fogged with desire. For her.

“Anytime,” she whispered, feeling the curling tension inside her, the budded nipples straining against her T-shirt, begging for attention.

His astute gaze rested on her T-shirt, and his mouth strained as well, causing her nipples to harden in a completely Pavlovian manner.

“I should go,” he announced, moving away from her, and she told herself she was glad. Relieved, even.

“The work is calling,” she rationalized, trying to keep her mind focused on important things like her future career in journalism, instead of the length and width of his sexual prowess.

“Yes,” he agreed, but he still wasn’t leaving, and he showed very little intent of going so, and she could feel the panic growing inside her, in direct proportion to the needy urge to lean in a little closer, ease into that completely planned yet seemingly arbitrary moment when two lips collide.

Do not fall for this, she reminded herself. Ignore the sexy man with trouble simmering in his eyes. He wanted sex, his body nearly hummed from it, and unlike the twenty-four-year-old drummer with a passion for cartoons, this one would give her a night full of screaming orgasms, and then break her heart, most likely at the same time because he seemed to be that talented.

“Who are you?” she asked, thinking that if he was going to break her heart, she wanted to know his name.

“Aaron.”

“Aaron who?”

“Smith.”

“Really?” she drawled, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.

“It’s actually Jenkins-Smith, but that seemed pretentious, so I just use Aaron Smith.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Smith. I’m Jennifer Dade, and from now on, I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

It was a desperate hint that she wasn’t in his way, that he was sitting on her rock, and if he truly wanted all that solitude and privacy that he kept blustering about, then he’d have to act a little less … stimulated. Not that she was complaining. Much.

“I should go,” he repeated, but he moved closer, and his eyes were on her mouth, and Jenn felt herself go hot, then cold. “Normally I like to ignore everyone else. It makes my life much more comfortable.”

“Why can’t you ignore me?” she asked, because she needed him to. She did not need this, but she couldn’t ignore it. She couldn’t ignore him.

He brushed a gentle finger across her brows. “You look at me with those busy eyes, always digging for your version of the truth, but grasping for the first clichéd insights into the psyche because it’s easy and it makes your deadline, and it doesn’t matter that there isn’t always some three-point paragraph that explains who we are. You think there’s always an answer, always a reason, but sometimes people are simply the way they are.”

It was not what she wanted to hear, not what she had hoped to hear, and all those roiling emotions finally erupted. “And that’s why you can’t ignore me, because you just can’t? The Twinkie defense? I had to be me. I was born to be bad. No, there’s always a reason. You just don’t want to tell me.”

She thought he was going to leave. Thought she’d finally done it. Finally chased him away, but instead he looked with all the wretched want in his eyes. All the lonely hunger, combined with the same painful recklessness that she felt in herself.

“I wrote about you. This afternoon, I came home and spewed out reams of pages about someone with your face, your eyes, your hair.”

“How did it end?” she asked, breathlessly tempted by the drama of it.

“You threw yourself in front of a train.”

“Why?”

“You are the mariner’s albatross, Ahab’s white whale, the magnificent obsession. In the end, there was no alternative. You had to die,” he said, sounding miserable and baffled.

But then his fingers reached out, touched her hand, such a small gesture, such a telling gestured. Sometimes sex was scratching an itch, and sometimes sex was the very human need to touch someone. All the phones, all the gadgets, all the machines in the world that mimicked human contact, and yet nothing came close to the absoluteness of sex.

“You like me, don’t you?” she asked, twining her fingers through his, locking them there.

“I don’t want to like you,” he admitted. “You’re very happy and sure of yourself and you like machines without souls.”

“I don’t want to like you either,” she admitted, as well.

“But you do?” he asked. His eyes met hers, uncertain and unhappy and still hoping that she would say yes.

“Women don’t like men like you,” she said because she knew that unhappily hopeful was bad. Very, very bad. It spoke of vulnerabilities, and wounds, and manly suffering that had plagued women for thousands of years.

“What sort of man is that?”

If he were any other man, she’d have thought he was fishing, needing a stroke to his ego, but he didn’t have those insecurities. Tragically like every other woman before her, she was falling for it in spades. “You want some three-point analysis that sums you up in fifty words or less?”

“Yes.”

She chose the less dangerous answer. “You’re brilliant and hurt and your writing draws you into humanity, but humanity repels you at the same time, and you can’t reconcile those two aspects and it frustrates you.”

“Do you know what frustrates me?” he asked.

“What?”

“How badly I want to kiss you. I hate your mouth. I love your mouth. When you talk all that blather, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Why don’t you kiss me?”

“Because it won’t stop.”

“I know,” she said with a smile.

Then his lips covered hers, and she could feel the frustration in his mouth, his tongue, in the way his fingers anchored her face.

Her blood started to simmer and heat, and the feel of his tongue inside her mouth, and its furious demands, was the very best sort of pain. His hands fumbled, pulling her closer, her breasts to his torso, and her fingers tangled in the dark silk of his hair. Her phone, her prized phone, fell uselessly away, and once again Jenn was swept up in the very things that were bad.

Oh, but this. How could it be bad? He was whispering to her, using words that were neither pretty nor poetic, but the unfocused rasp in his voice, the hard pressure of his touch was hitting the spot right between her thighs.

Her shirt was open, and his mouth was on the thin silk of bra, licking and sucking, and telling her how tempting she was. The hungry pull was like shocks of electricity direct to her chest, and she heard her own moan. Impatiently he shoved the fabric aside, touching her, his mouth on her nipple once again, and Jenn was glad for the cover of darkness, for the cloud of the moon.

Mistakes I Made on Summer Vacation, Part VI. The One with the Great …

She reached for his fly, stroked him through the thick denim fabric. She knew there would be a Part VII, VIII and IX to the movie.

He thrust into her hand, and the movement was so marvelously wicked, so raw. Then he pulled at her own zipper, restless fingers sliding low between her panties, lower still. One finger flicked at her, long, insistent and aiming to please, and she stopped worrying, stopped thinking, focused on the pleasure.

The stars watched as he turned her, pulled her back against him, and she lay on him, his body cushioning her from the rock. His erection prodded her against her ass, and she wiggled against it, against him, but he stilled her, because apparently Mr. Wilderness Adventure had other ideas.

Soon she realized what they were.

His hands brushed her shirt off to the side, pulled at her bra until it hung off to one side, and then he slid her jeans low on her hips, and all her pertinent parts were exposed to the air. While his mouth nuzzled her neck, his hands roamed over her like an explorer and she was his map.

Once again his finger thrust inside her, plunging deep, slick with her desire. Her pelvis tilted up into his hand, and her ass rode against him, and it was exquisite.

“You see the sky,” he whispered low in her ear, “the moon, the stars.”

She opened her eyes, blinked the world into focus and whimpered a yes.

“You don’t need a phone for this,” he said, pushing into her once again, and she wanted to laugh, but it was too hard to breathe, too talk, to do anything but ride with his hand.

Back and forth his busy finger slid over her slit, finding her clit, stroking there, circling there, her body weeping with delight. She bucked against him, feeling the hard ridge at her ass, and he moaned, but she was pinned against him, his hands keeping her down, and the hard torture continued.

He seemed to like watching her squirm, liked to hear her whine and complain. Part sadist, that’s what he was, because his hand was destroying her. His movements were faster, and she could feel him grinding against her ass, which only infuriated her, but all she could think of was chasing the high, chasing the feeling, chasing the stars.

She closed her eyes, her body arching, and her hips tilted up, and he laughed at her, and she wanted to make him pay, but not right now.

Right now, she only wanted to …

Come.

There. Instantly her breathing resumed, and her body fell against him, sated and sleepy, and she wanted more. She wanted him inside her. She wanted this.

Morning-after regrets be damned. Hell, great sex would probably inspire her to write a better story. Snag the Pulitzer. Show Little Lizette exactly how it was done.

With ethics. With integrity. With the feel of a hard man thrusting inside her.

Happily she turned, attacked his mouth with all the excitement building inside her.

But then he pulled back. The man who was going to help her secure her job pulled away.

Bastard.

She was furious that he was able to stop. That he had the discipline, the ability. And once again, she was left to find her focus.

Angry at him, at herself, at the way her jeans were unzipped, and her shirt was half torn, she stood and picked up her phone, because frankly, at the moment, she preferred it.

“I have a job. It’s very important to me, and it depends on me pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and I don’t even know if I can do it, but I have to try. If you sidetrack me, I will spend the next two weeks flat on my back, screaming my lungs out in orgasmic ecstasy. I don’t need that. I have to spend the my time searching out whatever godforsaken newsworthy truths abound in these hills. I will not do this.”

“You’re right,” he agreed easily, much more than she wanted. His eyes were shadowed in the dark, and she wished she could see them, wished she could see whether this was truth or a lie.

Not that she cared.

“I know I’m right. Now go,” she told him because this was her rock. This was her place. He didn’t want the stars or the night. He wanted his mangy cabin in the woods, so he could have it. But right now, he was going to have to prove to her that he could leave her. That he could leave the promise of sex, the promise of the human touch that she wanted to badly.

Slowly he got to his feet, the moon casting him in silver, and he shoved an unsteady hand through his hair. At that moment, she thought she had him. She thought he would admit defeat because he kept staring at her mouth, at her face, and his normally aloof eyes were still fogged with desire, and it was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen.

But in the end, he turned and swore, and she was alone on her rock, exactly as she’d asked.

After he disappeared, Jenn picked up her phone, prepared to get lost in the stars. Sadly after he had gone, the stars seemed to disappear, as well.

BACK IN HIS CABIN, Aaron pulled off his shirt, dragged off his jeans and stalked out to the lake. It was a rare moment when he yearned for the privacy of a cold shower. She had done this to him, and at the moment, the lake was all he had. The water was icy cold, enough to freeze a man’s desire, diminish his libido.

Didn’t work.

Shit.

Aaron lectured himself as he swam from one shore to the other, his arms stretching as far as they could. He didn’t know anything about her. Only knew she was a reporter and that she was here to write the story of her life. A story, she so candidly admitted, about which she had no subject or no plan. No, she expected her story to hit her between her curious eyes, or perhaps, even more serendipitously, she wanted the damn story to squander itself between her creamy thighs like some sordid porn flick, exploding in his face like old history.

A reporter?

And stupid moron that he was, all he could do was flutter around her like a mindless moth, risking his existence for the light of the flame. He’d nearly cracked open his head, and did he stop touching her? Shouldn’t he have been smart enough to walk away? Oh, hell no. Instead, she ended up being the one lecturing him on the problems of a liaison. Liaison. Such a pompous word for such a basic need. A man’s insane compulsion to spend a moment with a woman in exchange for his soul.

His arms cut through the water, his legs pumping until his muscles were on fire. Much smarter to work himself into exhaustion.

All he could think about was her splayed on the rock, nude, her arms reaching for him like some goddess of the earth. She, who worshipped at the altar of communication and technology, instead of the pleasures of the flesh.

Dammit.

The cold water was killer on his skin, completely useless on his dick. As he neared the shore of his cabin, Aaron dove under the water, then came up, before his feet settled on the unsteady shallows. He shook out his hair like a mongrel dog, and stalked toward the grass, feeling his head throb with every step and not caring. A concussion would be preferable to life-altering lust.

When he got to the dirt path, his still-tormented body stopped and turned to face the woman nearly hidden in the trees. Slim, with moonstruck hair and starlight eyes.

Aaron felt his body swell, his mouth dry, and he idiotically imagined that he could hear the shallow rasp of her breath.

His curse was loud and intended to chase her away, but she didn’t move, as if she expected him to run to her, to plunder her, ludicrously believing that he was incapable of restraint.

In spite of everything he knew, every mistake he’d learned from, every calculated step that he prided himself on, still, still he wanted to taste her again, absorb her undaunted breath, and gulp in great, greedy gulps of her being. She, with the bright, eloquent eyes that desired him, that mocked him, that dared him.

Right, he assured himself, while his merry cock gave truth to the lie. Still lying to himself, still believing himself completely in command, he took one hungry step toward her, toward the siren’s whisper of her allure, but then, because he wouldn’t go back to that life, sanity resumed. He stopped himself, putting his well-tended restraint back firmly in its place.

Her swollen mouth curved, twitched, because she knew what it cost him to walk away. But no matter.

Soulless, heartless, he made his way back to his cabin, pride and self-control precisely back in place.

JENN STAGGERED BACK against the trunk of the nearest tree, because she needed to stay standing, and she needed to breathe.

She’d never seen a man more beautifully built, more perfectly arranged. He had no accordion abs sculpted from a love affair with weights. He had no bowling-ball biceps artfully crafted from tedious curls. No, he was lean and loose-limbed and heavily aroused.

Oh, that was the worst. He was thick and powerful, and she could feel him between her thighs, inside her, and she wanted that, wanted him.

She rubbed her arms, feeling the night breeze on her skin, warm and damp. The air had hovered around him, steamed with his desire.

In the city, men didn’t want like that, they didn’t ache with it. They didn’t suffer with the very thought of it. Something out here stripped away the polish from the surface, or maybe it wasn’t this place. Maybe it was only him.

Aaron.

She’d come to his cabin to apologize, at least that was the story she’d invented, but then she heard the sounds from the lake. Safe behind the cover of the trees, she watched him swim, watching all that untapped energy.

It was unnerving. It was arousing.

She was in such big trouble. Instinctively she knew he was a mistake. Yes, she’d had more than her share of them.

Even when she tried for safe and easy, it was still a mistake. For example, the senior financial analyst from Tribeca, with the great apartment and nervous smile. There was no women’s magazine that would call him a Dating Don’t—unless it was Playgirl. To the uneducated eye, he appeared completely normal and tending to boring. Two dates later she learned that the nervous smile was due to a compulsive tendency to shoplift. He’d stopped in a drugstore for aspirin, and she’d nearly been arrested in the process.

Oh, sure, the cop had been very nice and understanding with flirty eyes. In fact, the cop was so nice that he’d let Jenn off with only her promise to call him. If she hadn’t been careful she wouldn’t have noticed the wedding ring on his finger.

Jerk.

But the cop was different from the man she’d met today. Aaron wasn’t flirty, wasn’t fun and would never pretend. Hide, yes, but there was something that drew her to him….

Still not being smart, her eyes searched out cabin number three, nearly hidden in the woods, a dim light in the window. Not an invitation. Not even close. She heard a furious clacking sound, fingers attacking the typewriter keys.

A typewriter?

Unable to resist, she smiled.

The torture of it suited him, with no room for mistakes or edits. No. Whatever words he allowed on the page would have to be perfection.

Feeling far from perfection herself, she went back to her lonely cabin number five. There she pulled on her favorite T-shirt, falling back on her uncomfortable mattress, still feeling the hard fingers on her breast, the burn of his kiss.

That night, she didn’t worry about mice or snakes. Instead she dreamed of a man with passion-fogged eyes.