Second Chance at the Riverview Inn (Riverview Inn)

“Helen?”

“I wasn’t coming on to you, in the car,” she said. Blurted. Again. She was real blurty right now. “I mean, it might have seemed that way.” She did this spastic kind of reenactment of grabbing his wrist. “But I wasn’t, because that would be ridiculous, you know? Me hitting on you. I’m, like, a single mom, did I tell you that? I am. Not that single moms aren’t…like, sexual creatures. I’d say more so, you know? Because we remember and miss…things.” Oh my god, oh my god, shut up, Helen. Shut up.

“Anyhoo, I don’t want things to be weird because you think I was going all…what are you doing?” she asked as he stepped away from his door and closer to her. She moved back and the hallway was small, so one more step back and she was pressed flat against her door. He put his hand on the doorframe near her head, all the veins and muscles in his forearm standing out against his skin, and this was the most sexual thing that had happened to her in years.

The air between them was smoke and fire, and her eyes were about to cross with sudden-onset horniness.

He wasn’t even touching her, but it felt like he was pushing her up against that door.

He wasn’t even touching her and she was wet.

“Nothing about you is ridiculous,” he whispered. His breath was against her lips and her eyelids fought a humongous fight to stay open. Her knees were working hard too, keeping her upright. Really, this was just a full-frontal attack on her whole body. Her lungs were going to stop working any second.

“You can hit on me anytime,” he whispered. “And if there are…things you miss, I’d be happy to remind you.” And then, he just stood there. So close she could smell him, coffee and fried food from the diner, and beneath that something citrusy. Him. His skin was the citrusy stuff. Her fingers twitched and she realized how badly she wanted to touch him.

That sweet soft bit of skin just outside the collar of his shirt. He wore necklaces, one on a chain, the other on a bit or rawhide, and both of them crisscrossed that terrain. It was where his heart was beating and it the skin looked so soft, like velvet, and it would take nothing, absolutely nothing to rise up on her tiptoes and press her lips to that skin.

It would be warm, she thought. He would be warm.

And parts of her had been cold, dropped in ice cold, Han Solo in the carbonite cold, for over three years.

“Helen?” he breathed, like he wasn’t sure what she was thinking, like he’d finally clued in that this wasn’t a normal reaction to a rock and roll sex god by a twenty-nine-year-old single mother. That something else was going on and she couldn’t take it anymore.

She couldn’t even say anything to make her exit graceful. She couldn’t even laugh or make a joke. Her entire self was going haywire.

It was rude. But she couldn’t take it anymore and she turned away from him, her shoulder hitting his chest. Brushing against it until he stepped back, but too late. Her skin registered the feel of his body against hers and was currently extrapolating that all over her body. Stupid body.

She fumbled with the key, once, twice, realized she had it upside down.

“Helen.”

“Good night!” she cried, and thank the lord the key was right and she got the door open and nearly fell into the dark sanctuary of her room. The door slammed shut between them, leaving Micah Sullivan standing in the hallway.

She was tired, yes. But now she was absolutely ruined with adrenaline. She took off her clothes, crawled into bed, pulled the blankets up over her head and called Josie.

“Helen!” Josie answered on the second ring. “What are you doing—”

“You have to help me.”

“Are you okay? Is Bea okay?” Her cousin/best friend’s voice got sharp.

“She’s fine…but Josie.” She closed her eyes, not even sure how she was going to get the words out. “Josie.”

“You are officially freaking me out.”

“I almost kissed Micah Sullivan.”

“What?”

“Or…he almost kissed me. It’s all kind of a blur right now.”

“Helen. You need to start at the beginning.”

It took five minutes to catch Josie up to speed, especially since she got very distracted by the part of the story that took place in the closet.

“You asked him if he was going to pee?”

“Not my finest moment, Jos. But also—not the point.”

When she was done, she waited for her cousin’s wise words of wisdom to fill her with guidance.

“Jesus, Helen. What are you going to do?” Josie asked.

“Ummm. That’s why I’m calling you.”

“Well, if you want my opinion I think you should get off the phone with me and go knock on that guy’s door and get naked.”