Kathleen Creighton - One Summer’s Knight

She stopped abruptly, and Riley found himself with a heart full of words he could not-dared not-say. It was a vulnerable, exposed feeling, like a thief caught with his hands full of stolen booty, pinioned in the glare of police spotlights. Did you ever in your life, Summer Robey, do something just for yourself? Take a cruise? Shop for perfume? Kiss a lover in the rain? Go dancing after midnight? Have an affair with a dashing attorney…?

The moments ticked away, counted in his heartbeats. He felt his body grow heavy and humid, with rumblings and growlings deep down inside of unacknowledged and unassuaged hungers. What would happen, he wondered, if he touched her now? If he were to reach out, reach across that small distance between them and take her hands…her strong, capable, no-nonsense hands…would he feel them tremble? Hands could tremble, he knew, for many reasons, and so could lips…and bodies. He suddenly knew that he wanted to feel hers tremble-her lips, her body-but for no other reason than desire. Not with cold, exhaustion, nerves or fear. Never with fear-never again with fear! Only desire. For him.

He realized then that it was he who was trembling-deep down inside where only he could feel it. Where only he could know. He also knew that while it was desire that made him tremble, there was fear, too. And finally it was the fear that made him back away, tiptoe carefully away from the edge and, instead of touching her, lace his fingers together on the tabletop and lightly say, “Tell me, Mrs. Robey-if you could choose what you wanted to do, what would it be?”

She stared at him, wordless with surprise.

He gestured toward the windows, which, without either of them noticing, the dawn had painted a soft, seashell pink. “It’s Sunday. Say you could do anything you wanted to do today-say I’m a genie, and I’m granting you one wish, just for today-what would it be?”

Summer caught a breath and held it. After the traumas of the day just past, the night’s demons and a conversation fraught with strange undercurrents and unknown tensions, his mood, the question, the sheer lightheartedness of it, were as enchanting and restorative as a rainbow. And in spite of herself, knowing what a fantasy it was, she allowed herself to be drawn into the game, if only for a moment. Closed her eyes and opened her mind and allowed the yearnings to take shape…and color…and then, choosing one, just one, she whispered, “The beach…I’d go to the beach.”

“Done!” he said, slapping the table with his palm. “Today we’ll go to the beach.”

And just like that, the sunlit vision evaporated in the cold rain of reality. She shook her head, fiercely emphatic. “No. No-absolutely not. You’ve done enough-too much. Seriously.” A thought struck her. She sat up straight and fired it back at him. “What would you normally do on a Sunday? Whatever it is, I insist you do it-as if we weren’t here.”

“Okay,” said Riley. But she didn’t like the gleam in his eyes.

He got up from the table, gathered up his water glass and the two mugs and went into the kitchen. A moment later, Summer heard water running, cupboard doors opening and closing, the subdued rattle of pans. Intrigued, she went to investigate, and was confronted with the mind-boggling vision of Riley Grogan, street-fighting lawyer, tuxedoed man-about-town, dashing rescuer of tree-stranded children, Rhett Butler in a blue silk dressing gown, coolly dumping handfuls of flour into a mixing bowl.

“What are you doing?” She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his chest, where a careless swipe of his hand had dragged a smudge of flour across one silk lapel and sifted it into the adjacent V of dusky brown skin and crisp black hair. Impossible, she thought, finding herself for the second time in as many days fighting an urge to laugh.

“What am I doing?” He glanced at her, eyebrows aloft. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m cooking breakfast. Obviously.”

“But I can-you don’t have to-”

“Ah, but you said I should do what I normally do on a Sunday, so…I normally make breakfast. Beginning with biscuits. Excuse me.”

She dodged aside as he reached past her to turn on the oven. “Biscuits. My God,” she murmured, her mouth dropping open in awe, “where on earth did you learn to make biscuits?” Captivated, she leaned against the counter. “Your mom teach you?”

His laugh was low and ironic. “No ma’am-just a friend. Hand me that fork, would you?”

She did, and was barely even aware that in doing so her arm had brushed against his. “I have never been able to make biscuits. Mine make excellent hockey pucks.”

She watched a smile etch itself into the side of his face beneath the furring of beard stubble. “Ah, but you see, the trick…is to be quick.” And he turned the bowl upside down, dumped its contents onto the counter and began to knead the floury mixture with light, deft strokes.

And Summer, staring at his fingers, his long, elegant hands, remembering how they’d reminded her of fine, smooth leather, felt a prickling of the nerve endings in her skin, a tightening sensation in her nipples, a tingling heaviness between her thighs. As if it were a lover’s touch-as if. …he’d touched her!-she experienced a wave of purely physical desire such as she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

“Of course-” Riley’s voice seemed to purr in her ear “-these would be better with some redeye gravy, but I haven’t got any sausage, I don’t think…”

She mumbled thickly, “It’s just as well we don’t. Isn’t that what they call heart attack on a plate?”

He clicked his tongue sorrowfully as his hands wielded a biscuit cutter, making tidy circles in the lumpy mass of dough. “Ah, I see you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed by the Health and Fitness Nazis out in California.”

Who are you, Riley Grogan? Summer thought as she gripped the edge of the countertop, shaken by the force of her attraction to him, weak-kneed with reaction. Every time I think I have you figured out… She cleared her throat and gave a low, uneven laugh. “Will the real Riley Grogan please stand up?”

He paused in the process of transferring the rounds of dough onto a cookie sheet to throw her a surprised and uncertain smile. “What?”

“I’m having a little trouble with the redeye gravy, if you want to know-it doesn’t quite fit your image, does it?”

He gave her a longer look across his shoulder. “The image you have of me, you mean.”

She held his gaze. “The image you foster.”

“True.” And his mouth quirked in a Rhett Butler smile.

She couldn’t help it. Her breath caught. “So,” she said, all but whispering, “Which are you-filet mignon, or biscuits and redeye gravy?”

It seemed an age before he answered, an age in which she searched for answers in his eyes and saw there only the tiny twin reflections of herself. “Both, of course.” His voice sounded raspy to her, as if it came from poor-quality speakers. “Most people are.”

“Multifaceted, are you?” Had she forgotten to breathe? It seemed so, because without air to support it, her voice suddenly cracked and broke.

A strange, dark chuckle seemed to vibrate through the space between them. “Mrs. Robey-” he touched her nose with a floury finger “-I have facets you haven’t begun to explore.”

She found herself staring at him, her mouth dry as flour, heart thumping. My God, were they flirting? She wanted to reach for something, anything to hold on to, and discovered to her surprise that she was already gripping the granite countertop with both hands. Thank God, she thought, for that support. But…oh, she thought, how good it would feel-and her whole being ached with yearning-if it were his lean, warm body and not cold, hard stone beneath her hands.