Anne climbed up the back balcony's narrow fire escape staircase around five-thirty the next morning. The lights were off in Ben’s sitting room and the door was locked, so she tried the bedroom door and found it unlocked. Ben had flipped the security bar over to keep the door open a crack. She pushed the door and slipped inside then turned on a small table lamp. His bed was empty. The sheets were messed up and still warm, which indicated that he just got up. She heard the sound of the shower being turned on inside the bathroom and saw a sliver of light under the door. With nothing to do but wait for him, she crossed over to the sitting room and made a pot of coffee at the buffet counter. Then, thinking a cinnamon bagel would be nice, she grabbed the key card from the table and went downstairs to the inn's casual sitting room where a continental buffet was being set up for guests who preferred a light breakfast as opposed to a bigger breakfast in the dining room. She remembered that Ben used to like chocolate covered cake donuts and blueberry muffins, so she grabbed one of each and a cinnamon bagel for herself.
There was no one in the hall on her way back up the stairs or in the hallway when she let herself back into Ben's room a few minutes later. She could still hear water running in the bathroom, only this time it came from the sink. After setting her plate of goodies down on the coffee table, she poured herself a cup of coffee and added two creamers just as she liked it. The morning edition of the Seattle Times was waiting outside the hall door when she returned, and she had brought it in with her and set it on the table next to the plate. Seeing it still where she left it, she sat down on the couch and picked it up to read while she enjoyed her coffee and bagel. Wednesdays were typically not known for being newsworthy, and today proved no exception.
She flipped through the sections until she found the business section where there was a brief mention about Stanford Enterprises winning an award for its improvements in the field of manufacturing biochemical research. The award was to be given out in a gala event in early August. She thought about the news article, and she was hit once again with the desire to work for the company and be a part of all of their important research. She had not heard anything about a call back yet, but there were still interviews to be conducted that week.
She moved further along in the paper until she came to the lifestyle section where there was a photo on the front page of a young, blonde socialite with her new husband. Normally she wouldn’t care, but her eyes caught on the photo because the man looked familiar. After looking closer at the man, she had a start and shook her head unbelievingly. The man was none other than her father, the distinguished attorney, Andrew Conner. The woman looked younger than Anne. This would make her new stepmother wife number six for her father. He certainly was a busy man, Anne thought with more than a touch of rancor. Just as long as he stayed out of her life, she thought. Mom would see the article and probably think the same.
Anne's mother was the first wife of Andrew Conner. They met while he was still in law school, and she was a receptionist working at his father's law firm thirty years ago. They fell in love and after a whirlwind courtship of two months decided to get married. Actually, they needed to get married because Anne was on the way. Her mother was a month and a half pregnant when they eloped in Las Vegas before returning to break the news to his parents. It was not a warm welcome. The scene, from what Anne was told, was not pretty. Her grandfather accused Anne’s mother of trying to trap her father with another man's child even though her mother had been a virgin prior to her father entering the picture.
From there things got even uglier, and her grandfather threatened to disinherit her father if the marriage was not annulled immediately. Her father folded under the threat, and the marriage was soon annulled. Anne's mother was fired from the firm and kicked out on the street. She was devastated at losing her husband and job in a betrayal of her love and trust. But she learned an important lesson. Money and connections always came first with the Conners. Eventually, she made her way back to Orcas Island, where she was from, and moved in with her parents while she worked at a local resort. After Anne was born, she fell in love with and married Anne's stepfather, Jim, a Croatian immigrant who came from a long line of hoteliers and who was on the island looking for a place to invest in a new resort. The rest of their story was history.
It was not as nice for Anne. Except for the eyes and brows she shared with her mother, most of her looks came from her father's side of the family, namely her paternal grandmother. Anne’s life changed forever when a photo of her winning an all-state seventh grade science competition made it into the Seattle Times and was seen by her paternal grandfather. By that time, her father had married and divorced his third wife with no children coming from either the second or third marriages. This left her grandparents without any grandchildren and a sudden desire to meet Anne. At the urging of her grandfather, her father took her mother to court demanding full custody of Anne. After a long and nasty custody battle, her father lost. But while his bid for full custody failed, he was granted visitations on every other weekend, every other holiday, and a month every summer. The court ruling also required Anne to take back her father's last name of Conner, something that her grandfather fought hard for in court.
Anne was young and had not known that Jim was not her real father until the court case. Feeling confused and betrayed with her mother and stepfather for not being honest with the truth, Anne opened her heart unwisely to her father and grandparents. But what she did not know at the time was that her grandfather was dying of cancer, and he had set up a trust fund for Anne to be administered by her father. It was worth millions. The terms of the trust put her father in complete control of her money and left him with the belief that he could also control her young life.
Her father was overly critical of all of her choices and played so many mind games that it eventually ate at her self-confidence until she was afraid to make even the smallest mistake for fear of how he would react. He even went so far as to arrange her boyfriends and an engagement while she was an undergrad in college. She finally saw the light at the beginning of her senior year and kicked her father out of her life for good. The money from the trust would become hers next year when she turned thirty, but she didn’t want any of it. She just wanted to forget her father ever existed.
Anne was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the water being turned off, nor did she hear Ben moving around the bedroom until he came into the sitting room wearing only a pair of gray sweatpants. The sweatpants rested low on his hips. She could see the outline of his groin and knew that the sweatpants were all he wore. Ben was another issue, Anne thought. This was Ben Carlson, the boy that she was so sure she loved back when she was in high school. The man he became was sexy, smart, and had a great personality, and she responded to him in a manner so unlike her usual reserved manner with men. She laid awake for most of the night trying to reconcile her behavior when she was around him yesterday with that of the sensible woman she usually was and could not come up with an answer. The only thing she could think was that there were some residual feelings and urges left over from her teen years.
Sometime during the middle of the night, she decided that she needed to treat the next five days like a job and keep her head where Ben was concerned. She was going to tell him today that anything more than a kiss or touch in front of Chelsea would be out of the question. She just was not the kind of woman to engage in meaningless sex with near strangers, her behavior the night before and their past friendship notwithstanding. If he had not held back, had not been the sensible one last night, she would be regretting much more than what they did do. But the minute he walked into the room dressed as he was looking sexy without a shirt over his hair covered chest and with the low riding sweatpants, all of her sound reasoning flew out the window. She was in serious trouble from this man and more so from herself.
"Good morning, Anne," he said cheerfully as he walked into the room and sat next to her. The se
nsual look in his brown eyes caused a flutter in her belly and her loins to contract with remembered pleasure. Her mouth suddenly went dry, and she gulped her coffee, which caused her to burn her mouth. Ben smiled in understanding when she grimaced at the pain of the hot coffee.
"Good morning, Ben." She was able to talk after a moment. He watched her closely, his smile gone as he looked for something, a clue perhaps, on how she would act with him after last night. She gave him a strained smile, and he let out a disappointed breath.
"Having regrets and second thoughts?" She sighed then looked at the pattern on the carpet.
"I don't know what came over me last night. That wasn't like me at all," she told him sadly. He nodded his head quietly and picked up the donut. They sat in silence while he took a bite and chewed. It was clear to her that he was thinking and was worried.
"Look, Anne. I would never force you into something you did not want or was not ready for. I hope you know that. But I would still like your help with Chelsea. I know that I’m asking a lot." He had been looking earnestly into her eyes when he spoke, and she could feel herself becoming lost in her desire to spend more time with him once again.
"Alright," she eventually told him.
"Good. We will follow the same plan we discussed last night." He finished off his donut then went over to pour himself a cup of coffee that he took straight without cream or sugar. Then he sat back down beside her again and turned to look at her. "You're worried about what happened between us last night, aren't you?"
"Of course I'm worried." She was worried. Was her response to him a fluke? Would it happen again? She just did not know about this new aspect of herself.
"I won't force myself on you, Anne."
"I know you won't," she jumped in to reassure him. "I just..." She did not know how to complete her thought and caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He looked at her questioningly with an eyebrow raised but did not say anything. He was waiting for her. She took a deep breath and started again. "I just did not recognize myself last night," she said truthfully. "Everything between us just sort of exploded."
"And you’re wondering what happened? Was it an anomaly? Would it happen again? Will it go further if we began kissing again?" He looked at her closely. She realized that he understood and didn’t think poorly of her.
"Precisely."
"I think that you’re overthinking this, Anne. But if it helps, I’m game for an experiment. The only way to find out if it happens a second time is if I kiss you again. No surprises. No romantic dinners and walks..."
"Just the cold light of day," she finished for him. He gave a wry smile then took the coffee cup from her hands and put it on the table. "I want you to kiss me, Ben."
"I'm going to." He turned on the couch so that he could put his right elbow on the backrest and hold her head with his hand. Her hair was down again, and she felt his fingers weave into her curls at the back of her head. With his left hand he found the pulse beating at her neck and caressed it with his thumb. She put her hands on his naked chest just as he leaned in and lightly pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth in a brief kiss before claiming her lips with his own.
He kissed her softly at first with just his lips until she sighed and opened her mouth so that she could take his tongue inside. That was all the encouragement he needed before claiming her mouth in a kiss that soon went from savoring to passionate. He tasted so good again. The pleasure of his lips and tongue rubbing against hers was so exquisite that she pulled him closer until her arms were wrapped around his back. His skin felt so warm under her hands. He increased the pressure from his hand at the back of her head as his other moved under the collar of her button down shirt until his palm rested on the upper swell of her right breast, his fingers over the cup of her bra.
She finally had to break the kiss so that she could breathe and gasped when his lips found the pulse point of her neck. His arousal pressed against her, and she leaned back on the couch cushions pulling him so that he could follow her down. He did, and she felt his weight upon her, his arousal pressed into the juncture of her legs. She ran his hands over the solid muscles of his back, and he pushed his arousal into her until she began to push back. Suddenly, he found the strength to break the kiss and look down at her. His eyes were hungry with passion, and his shallow breathing matched the rhythm of hers.
"Anne?"
"Yes." It was all she could say before she reached up and kissed his neck causing him to moan. Encouraged, she nibbled his ear lobe while her hands moved beneath his waistband to caress his buttocks. He continued to moan, and he moved so that she could slide her right hand around to touch him. Then suddenly he pulled her hand away and stood up.
"Not here. Bedroom," was all he could say before he pulled her up off the couch and led her to the bedroom door.
The sound of his cell phone ringing rent the silence and made her jump.
"Ignore it," Ben ordered as he opened the bedroom door and pulled her over to the bed. The phone stopped ringing then started again. Whoever it was would keep calling until Ben answered. "Damn. I'll find out who it is and get off the phone quickly." Then he went back into the sitting room, grabbed the phone, and barked into it instead of offering a greeting. She sat down shakily on the side of the bed and took several deep breaths while she listened to the one sided conversation from the bedroom. He was on the phone long enough for the demands of her body to get back under her control and the flame of desire to lower.
He finally ended the call and came into the bedroom with a frown pursing his lips. When he saw her where he left her, he sat next to her on the bed and pulled her hand to his lap to hold it between his hands. "That was work. There are some problems, and I need to make some phone calls right away. I'm sorry, sweetheart."
"It's ok, Ben," she said softly. "Make your calls." Then she leaned over and gave him a passionless kiss. Looking into his eyes, she smiled wistfully at him, and he smiled back.
"You look like you've been thoroughly kissed," he told her softly. He raised his hand and brushed his fingertips over her lips before he dropped his hand again.
"I was." She stood up and walked to the bedroom door. Then she looked back at him with humor in her eyes. "I still don't know what to make of our reactions to each other, but last night was definitely not a fluke. I'm going for a walk outside and will be back at the inn in an hour. Will that give you enough time to make your calls?"
"I think so. What do you have planned for today?"
"When I get back, I was planning on having some breakfast then take a kayak out again. The weather is supposed to be nice, and I was thinking of going down the channel to Deer Harbor."
"Stop up and fetch me when you get back from your walk, and I'll join you." He stood up, walked over to her to put his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her tenderly. "I'll see you later, my Anne." Then he patted her on her rear end and followed her into the sitting room to make his phone calls.
Chapter 9