A Wedding on Lilac Lane by Hope Ramsay (best book clubs .txt) 📕

patient and had an amazing working knowledge of female anatomy.

Yeah, he was an incredible lover. And besides, who said vanilla was boring? She was willing to bet that a Google search on ice cream flavors would prove that vanilla topped the list of favorite flavors. Vanilla was versatile. You could put whipped cream and cherries on top. You could drizzle chocolate or caramel on it. You could slice up a banana and go to town. Vanilla might be plain, but it was spicy if you got the premium stuff with the little bits of vanilla bean in the cream.

Dylan was like that flavor.

And she didn’t want to leave his bed. Snuggling up to him was really nice, but ultimately unwise since this was only a fling. And, damn, he was going to become her stepsibling.

Merely saying the word “sibling” had a certain ick factor even if she wanted another gigantic helping of vanilla, please. And especially because he was so warm and cuddly and the air-conditioning in his house had been turned to subzero. She could get used to warm and cuddly. Cody always had cold feet.

The unwanted comparison crept into her brain like a little blinking caution light. She’d repeated history, hadn’t she?

She’d gone off with some guy, knowing it would make her mother go ballistic. Crap. Mom would murder her if she ever found out.

The digital clock on Dylan’s bedside table said it was after three in the morning. In a couple of hours, she’d need to be up, getting ready for breakfast service at the inn.

The walk back to the inn would take twenty minutes. She should go.

She slipped from the covers, the cold air in the room raising acres of gooseflesh as she scooped up her discarded clothing and tiptoed down the hall to the guest bathroom, where she dressed and tried unsuccessfully to straighten her tangled hair. When she was semi-presentable, she inched the door open, only to find Dylan standing in the hallway wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants with holes in both knees.

Dammit. She hadn’t wanted to wake him up. She’d thought he was sound asleep, judging by the snores. Also, the holey sweats were a revelation that she liked. Too much.

But now she’d have to talk to him. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say. So she started with an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“You were going to walk back to the inn by yourself.” It wasn’t a question. His blue stare had a probing intensity.

“I need to get back. I have to get up at oh-dark-thirty for the breakfast service. And I’m sure Ashley has noticed that I’m missing. That can’t be good.”

He blinked. “She keeps an eye on you?”

*  *  *

Dylan crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to forcibly pull Ella back into his arms. When he’d awakened a moment ago and found Ella gone, he’d been ticked off.

What? Had she hated it? Because he was pretty sure that the sex had been good. More than good.

But he hadn’t considered the fact that Ashley Scott might be keeping an eye out for Ella or worried that she hadn’t come back to the inn this evening.

“So you think Ashley will notice?”

“Of course she will. So I’ll just let myself out and—”

“I’ll take you home.”

“You know, it’s not necessary.”

The hell it wasn’t. He was surprised by her attitude and yet not surprised at all. She’d been clear from the start that this wasn’t anything serious. Merely lust or something. A fling to get the attraction out of their systems.

Ha. That was a joke. Or maybe the joke was on him. Maybe she was simply horny tonight, and he’d been handy. Wasn’t that the way musicians lived? Moving from place to place and lover to lover.

“Well, I’m not letting you walk home in the dark,” he said. Maybe she was used to one-night stands, but he’d been raised a little differently. He wasn’t going to check his manners at the door. Even if the idea of having a relationship with Brenda’s daughter was…

Impossible. It almost didn’t matter if Dad and Brenda got married. Ella was the one woman he should never have touched.

Damn. She was right. He needed to back off fast. Get her home and hope that Ashley Scott didn’t notice and blab her mouth all over town.

“I’m taking you back to the inn. No arguments.” He turned and headed off toward the kitchen, and she followed him into the garage.

“Is that Jim’s Harley?” she asked as he opened the garage bay. His 1995 Harley-Davidson occupied the third bay of the gigantic garage. Dylan had purchased the bike right after Lauren had ditched him. He’d been restoring it for the better part of a year, working through his pain by rebuilding the bike piece by piece.

He turned toward Ella. “No, it’s mine.”

Her anime eyes widened. “Really?”

She obviously thought he was boring or dull or something. He considered the possibility of taking her home on the bike. But that would be stupid. It would make too much noise, and besides, she needed proper riding attire, not that slip of a dress. He’d seen the damage pavement could do to unprotected skin, and it wasn’t pretty. If you wanted to ride a motorcycle, you needed to do it responsibly.

“Yeah, it’s mine,” he said. “But we’re taking the car.” His words may have come out a little hard. He was angry, but he couldn’t decide if he was angry at himself, or her, or Ashley Scott, or the situation, or maybe all of it.

They didn’t say a word during the five-minute drive to Howland House. But when they got to the driveway, he doused the lights and set the brake. “I don’t have any regrets,” he said, turning toward her.

“No regrets here either. But…” She paused, and he braced himself for whatever hard thing she was about to say.

When the silence stretched out for several long heartbeats, he asked, “But what?”

“I don’t think we should do it again.”

She was