Mira Kelly - Once is Never Enough

“You really didn’t know who I was?” he asked, pushing to his feet.

“I would have run the other way. No offense,” she offered belatedly, wondering whether it was possible not to take offense at that.

But apparently he hadn’t. “No, that’s good. I just didn’t like the idea that maybe this was some kind of conquest thing.”

She sat up straighter. “This from ‘the panty whisperer’?”

Garrett froze where he was, jeans pulled over his hips but the fly left open. Bare feet, bare chest … It would have been a calendar-hot snapshot if not for the hard set of his jaw and narrowed eyes.

“You did not just call me that.”

“Well, I mean …”

But then he was up. Stalking the room and back, coming to stop in front of her. “What?” he demanded, thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans, pushing them down just that extra inch in front, showing off a nearly scandalous stretch of skin. “You’re not suggesting I ‘whispered’ you out of anything?”

She tried to bat away the question. In three years she hadn’t even been tempted by another man. And in less than one night she’d fallen flat on her back and practically begged him to follow her down. If that wasn’t some kind of freakish sexual panty magic she didn’t know what it was.

MIRA LYNN KELLYgrew up in the Chicago area and earned her degree in Fine Arts from Loyola University. She met the love of her life while studying abroad in Rome, Italy, only to discover he’d been living right around the corner from her for the previous two years. Having spent her twenties working and playing in the Windy City, she’s now settled with her husband in rural Minnesota, where their four beautiful children provide an excess of action, adventure and entertainment.

With writing as her passion, and inspiration striking at the most unpredictable times, Mira can always be found with a notebook at the ready. (More than once the neighbours have caught her, covered in grass clippings, scribbling away atop the compost container!)

When she isn’t reading, writing or running to keep up with the kids, she loves watching movies, blabbing with the girls and cooking with her husband and friends. Check out her website, www.miralynkelly.com, for the latest dish!

Recent titles by the same author:

WAKING UP MARRIED

WILD FLING OR A WEDDING RING?

FRONT PAGE AFFAIR

THE S BEFORE EX

TABLOID AFFAIR, SECRETLY PREGNANT!

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my brilliant, hilarious, talented, sweet,

beautiful and more-fun-than-fiction children.

You are my real-life Happily-Ever-Afters. I love you.

“SO YOU TAKE your reckless adventuring like you take your coffee: lukewarm and watered down?”

Nichole Daniels stared first at the shu mai being jabbed in dumpling accusation from across their small table, and then at the gleaming blue eyes centering her best friend’s face beyond. “ Hypothetical reckless adventuring. And, for clarification, I want to enjoy my coffee. Not get hurt by it. So I take it hot, but not scalding. I like it brewed strong, but cut with something creamy to avoid heartburn.”

Maeve snorted. “You cut it with skim milk. Cripes! The whole point of this was to embrace the no-consequences element of a fantasy we weren’t planning to live out. I mean, seriously, I don’t want to be trapped on a deserted island at all. And if I actually was, I’d hope it would be with some kind of mechanical genius who played survival games of the non-cannibal variety in his spare time. But for the purpose of this chatty lunchtime game girlfriends play … in a context separate from reality … for one single night without consequences maybe you’d want something robust … rich … Oh, my God … something topped with whipped cream!”

“Enough, enough.” Nichole laughed, cutting into Maeve’s ramping excitement before the whole restaurant started staring at them. “I get the concept. Honestly, I’m just not interested.”

Maeve narrowed her eyes. “It’s a fantasy. How can you not be interested?”

Echoes of a distant conversation teased through Nichole’s mind—accusations and blame, heartbreak and humiliation, and the fantasy she’d bet her future on revealed for the nightmare it was. Everything she’d lost. Everyone.

She’d been down that road. Twice already. No thanks for a third.

It didn’t pay to pretend. Not even over a dim sum lunch with her best friend.

“I’m just not,” she managed through a stiff smile.

“Hence your overnight-on-a-deserted-island order for a male of unspecified looks who’s safe, honest and can keep up his end of a conversation.” Another jab of the chopsticks. “Lame.”

“Not lame. Maybe my reality is everything I want it to be. How about that? I’ve got a kickass career, a button-cute place in a cool neighborhood and the greatest friends in the world,” she said, batting her eyes at the best of them. “What more could a girl ask for?”

“Do you want me to start down at the toes or up at the head … Or should I just start in the middle, ‘cause that region might make my point a little faster.”

“None of the above! Now, stop taunting me with your dumpling or I’m going to eat it.”

Maeve snapped her chopsticks back, popping the shrimp bundle into her mouth with a grin. On finishing the bite, though, her look became more contemplative than teasing. “I’m serious, Nikki. It’s been three years. Don’t you ever get lonely?”

Nichole stared back, the word no poised on her tongue. Only as the seconds stretched, the single word that was the lie she’d been telling herself for all too long suddenly wouldn’t form. Her life was so right —in all the ways that mattered—she hadn’t let herself think too much about those times when the stillness of her apartment left a sort of hollow feeling deep in her chest. Or when the empty chair across her table kept her from using the bay window breakfast nook that was half the reason she’d signed the lease in the first place. But they were there, nonetheless, apparently lying in wait for the right opportunity to glare at her.

Maeve slumped back in her chair. “I should have given you the last shu mai. ”

“Please, it’s not so dire as that,” she assured her, starting to stack the plates cluttering the table. “I’m just not interested in another relationship.”

“But what about—?”

The strains of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” cut in, signaling a call from Maeve’s brother.

Hallelujah.

With Maeve scheduled to leave town for business the next day, Garrett Carter would probably keep her on the line for the next twenty minutes, reassuring himself she wouldn’t leave the coffeepot on, let anyone— anyone— into her hotel room, or accept candy from strangers in general. Only the reprieve proved short-lived when Maeve thumbed the call through to voicemail.

Nichole reached for her wine as an unholy gleam lit her friend’s eyes.

“I should set you up with Garrett.”

The crisp, fruity vintage burned like acid as it hit her sinuses. Napkin to her mouth, lungs wrestling to expel the alcohol in exchange for oxygen, she choked out a strangled, “What?” Then, wheezing, “I thought you were my friend.”