Kisses After Dark Read Online Free

directed his way, but that didn’t stop him from pressing ever so gently into her. “I showed you hard and fast last night. Let me show you slow and sweet this morning.”
    “I’m never going to survive you. Don’t you know I’m an old lady with seven grown children? I can’t be carrying on this way.”
    “Yes,” he said with a low chuckle, “you can. And there’s nothing old about you. You’re beautiful and all mine.”
    Sarah was mortified all over again when her eyes flooded with tears. Her emotions were hovering close to the surface after her son’s beautiful wedding and the life-changing night she’d spent with Charlie.
    At the sight of her tears, Charlie froze. “Does it hurt, honey?”
    “No. Well, sort of, but in a good way. Don’t stop.”
    He kissed away the tear that rolled down her cheek. “Why the tears?”
    “I’m so happy, Charlie. I had no idea that something like this, like you, even existed.”
    “Aw, baby, hearing you’re happy is all I need.” He continued to move slowly and carefully as he made love to her.
    Sarah reached up for him and brought him down for another kiss. She’d waited a long time to kiss him, and now she was addicted to his kisses. Her fingers dug into the taut muscles on his back.
    “That’s it,” he whispered gruffly against her lips. “Scratch my back like you did last night. I love that.”
    “God, you turned me into a madwoman.”
    “I love that, too.”
    “You’re out to embarrass me to death, aren’t you?”
    “No way. I’m out to love you until death do us part, starting right now.”
    He picked up the pace, stealing the words from her lips, the thoughts from her brain and the breath from her lungs.

    As an innkeeper for most of her adult life, Adele Kincaid was an early riser. Even years after she and her husband had retired to Florida, she was still, as Russ would say, “up with the roosters” every day.
    Being here, back at the Sand & Surf Hotel she and Russ had owned for more than five decades, felt like being home. She’d forgotten how much she loved the old hotel, which had been brought lovingly back to life by Laura and Owen over the last year. Adele was so proud of what the two of them had accomplished here, and deeply thrilled to see the boy she’d loved so much all his life settled with a woman who not only loved him passionately but also suited him perfectly.
    If anyone deserved that kind of love more than Owen, she’d be hard-pressed to name him or her. Well, except maybe for his mother, Sarah. Her daughter was happily in love with a wonderful man after living through a nightmare with her abusive ex-husband who was now going to jail, where he belonged.
    When Adele thought about what Mark Lawry had put his family through… She was a peaceful woman, but left alone in a room with that monster, she might be tempted to commit murder. Each of the seven Lawry kids bore scars from their upbringing. Owen was the only one of them to find love and settle down. Adele hoped he would be the first of them to take a chance on love, not the last.
    Sitting on the hotel’s back deck with a cup of coffee, looking out over the wide expanse of water, she watched for the first ferry from the mainland that was due to arrive in South Harbor in twenty minutes. The routine of island life was one that had suited her for many years, and she’d missed it during their time in Florida. They’d moved there when their grandson Jeff had needed them after his suicide attempt. There they’d been able to get him the medical attention he needed, the kind of help that wasn’t available on a small island like Gansett.
    It had been the right thing to do at the time, but she was tiring of the incessant sun and the heat. She missed the New England seasons and the variety of weather that came with them. Perhaps it was time to speak to Russ about moving home.
    She glanced at the cream vellum envelope sitting on a table next to her and smiled from the anticipation of