The Fortune Most Likely To... Read online

  Where was he?

  Granted she’d flown through every light and gotten home in record time, moving as if her car was being propelled by a gale, but she hadn’t left that much ahead of Everett.

  He should have been here by now.

  Unless he’d changed his mind and decided to go straight to his sister’s house instead.

  Or maybe he’d just decided to head back to Houston from the fund-raiser instead of coming over to her house.

  To her.

  Had she come on too strong?

  But after he kissed her like that, unearthing all those old memories, she just couldn’t help herself. Any thoughts of hanging back or taking it slow had just incinerated right on the spot. All she could think of was how much she’d missed being in Everett’s arms, of having him hold her as if she was something very precious.

  She felt as if she was losing her mind.

  Lila looked out her window and saw only her car in the driveway.

  He’d had a change of heart, she thought, letting the curtain drop back into place.

  With a gut-wrenching sigh, she turned away. Served her right for giving in to her emotions like some silly schoolgirl and—

  She jerked her head up, listening. Was that—

  Yes, it was. It was the sound of a car pulling up in her driveway.

  All those doubts that were surfacing took a nosedive and she threw open the door before he had a chance to ring the doorbell.

  “There are way too many red lights in this city,” Everett told her.

  Grabbing hold of his shirt, Lila pulled him over the threshold and into her house, slamming the door shut right behind him.

  “I don’t want to talk about red lights,” she said just before she rose up on her tiptoes and sealed her mouth to his.

  It was more than a couple of minutes later that they managed to come up for air—temporarily.

  “Right,” Everett breathlessly agreed, devouring her with his eyes. “No talking about red lights.”

  “No talking at all,” Lila countered.

  As she sought out his lips again, sealing hers to them, she began to systematically remove Everett’s tuxedo, separating it from his body so quickly she worried that she’d wind up ripping something.

  If she did, she could fix it, she assured herself. She knew her way around a needle. But right now, she wanted to relearn her way around his body.

  It had been a long, long time since she’d been intimate with him. Since she’d been intimate with anyone, because after she had left Everett, she’d never met anyone to take his place, or even come close to qualifying as a candidate for that position. Without love as an ingredient in the mix, lovemaking just didn’t seem right to her.

  As she was eagerly removing his clothing, Everett was doing the same with hers.

  Lila could feel his hands moving along her body. Locating her zipper, he pulled it down her back in one swift movement, then peeled away the silky gown from her skin.

  It fell to the floor like a sinking blue cloud, pooling about her high heels.

  Lila caught her breath as she felt his strong hands tugging away her bikini underwear, then gliding over her bare skin, swiftly reducing her to a pulsating mass of desire.

  With urgent movements, she hurried to return the compliment until they were both standing there in her living room, nude—except for one thing.

  She was still wearing her high heels.

  Lila quickly remedied that, kicking the shoes off and instantly becoming petite.

  “Damn,” Everett whispered against the sensitive skin of her throat as he pressed kiss after kiss along it, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dreamed about doing this.”

  The feel of his warm breath sliding along her skin caused all her desires to intensify. Her mushrooming needs almost engulfed her as they seized control over every single facet of her being.

  Her mind in a haze, Lila felt her back being pressed against the sofa. She didn’t even remember how they got there.

  Everett was taking inventory of every single inch of her body with his mouth, creating wonderful sensations as he moved.

  Doing wonderful things.

  She was eager to return the favor, but for the moment, she couldn’t find the strength to do anything but absorb every nuance of what was happening. She was utterly immersed in the deliciously wicked feelings that were erupting all over her as his lips and tongue left their mark everywhere, branding her.

  Making her his.

  Lila twisted and arched, savoring and absorbing every wondrous salvo wildly echoing throughout her body.

  And still he continued, moving lower and lower by pulsating increments.

  Anticipation rippled through her like shockwaves as she felt first his breath, and then his mouth moving down to the very center of her core.

  His tongue teased her ever so lightly, skimming along the delicate, sensitive area, all the while raising her response higher and higher, creating a fever pitch within her until finally, delicious explosions erupted simultaneously all through her, undulating over her like a series of earthquakes.

  Lila cried out his name, pulling him to her until he was right above her, melting her soul with the intense look of desire and passion in his eyes.

  She felt him coaxing open her legs with his knee. What there was left of her shallow breath caught in her throat.

  The next moment, he entered her and they were sealed to one another, creating a single heated entity.

  Everett began to move his hips so slowly at first, she thought she had only imagined it. But then the movements began to increase, growing stronger. Taking her with them.

  And then they were no longer on her sofa, no longer in her house. They were somewhere else, completely isolated from the world. A place where only the two of them existed.

  The only thing that mattered was Everett and this insanely wondrous sensation that they were sharing. Their bodies danced to music that only the two of them could hear.

  The tempo increased, going faster and faster until suddenly they found themselves racing to the top of the world, to a place that was both new and familiar at the same time.

  Lila could feel her heart slamming against his. Could feel Everett’s heart echoing hers to the point that she thought their two hearts would forever be sealed together as one.

  And then she felt the fireworks exploding, showering a profusion of stars all around her until that was all there was.

  A world filed with stars.

  She clung to Everett then, clung to the sensation that they had created together. She clung to it for as long as she could and bathed in the euphoria that came in its wake.

  She held on to the sensation—and Everett—for as long as possible. But even so, it receded no matter how hard she fought to hang onto it.

  Sorrow began to wiggle its way into the spaces the euphoria had left behind.

  Everett shifted his weight off her, moving so that he was lying beside her.

  He tightened his arm around her, exulting in the feeling of warmth generated by holding on to her. He glanced down at his chest and was mildly surprised that he wasn’t glowing or giving out some sort of light like a beacon that guided the ships through the night at sea.

  She was back, he thought. He’d won Lila back. And the lovemaking between them was so much better now than it had been before. The sex might have been familiar at its roots, but it had also felt wonderfully brand-new.

  The woman in his arms was so much more now than she had been all those years ago.

  How did he get so lucky? Everett silently marveled. Lying here next to Lila, reliving the lovemaking they had just shared, he found himself wanting to take her all over again.

  Wanting her with a renewed fierceness that was impossible to ignore.

  Propping himself up slightly, Everett
leaned over her face and kissed one eyelid, then her other eyelid.

  Then her mouth.

  He lingered there, deepening the kiss until it all but consumed both of them, feeding something in his soul.

  And then hers.

  She looked up at him with wonder. “Again?” she questioned.

  Lila saw laughter entering his eyes as Everett told her, “Honey, I am just getting started.”

  Something came over her.

  Lila seized the moment and just like that, turned the tables on him. It was her turn to be the seducer rather than the seduced. This relationship didn’t have a prayer of working if only one of them gave while the other received, she thought.

  So, just as he had done before, Lila began to prime his body, ever so lightly gliding both her lips and her tongue along all the sensitive, seducible areas of his body.

  Priming him until he verged on the edge of full readiness.

  She moved with purpose along Everett’s chest, gliding the tip of her tongue along his nipples just as he had done to her.

  And then she slid her tongue along the hard contours of his chest, moving steadily down to his belly, teasing it until it quivered beneath her hot, probing mouth.

  Raising her eyes, she met his. A wicked look entered them as she proceeded to work her way lower along his anatomy until she had reached his hardening desire.

  With an air of triumph, she went on to make him hers by branding him.

  She did it, once, then twice—then suddenly, she felt his hands on her forearms, stopping her. He drew her away and brought her back up to his level by pulling her body along his.

  Arousing both of them even more.

  The next second, he raised his head and captured her mouth with his own, kissing her over and over again until he had reduced her to the consistency of a rain puddle that was about to go up in the steam of a hot summer sun. At that moment, he deftly switched their places. He was above her and she was back under him.

  And just as before, they united, forming one whole.

  This time he moved urgently right from the start. There was no gentle increase in tempo. There were just the swift, direct movements that were intended to bring them swirling up to journey’s end.

  And it did.

  So quickly that it stole away their breath, leaving them gasping and panting in the aftermath of the crescendo that had brought all the stars raining down on them.

  As before, the euphoria that sealed around them in the aftermath was wondrous. And, also as before, it slipped away much too soon, leaving Lila exhausted and slowly making her way back to reality.

  With painstakingly slow movements, Lila shifted her head so that she was looking at the man next to her without alerting him to the fact that she was.

  It was happening. Happening just as she had been afraid that it would.

  She could feel it.

  She was falling in love with Everett all over again. And she was totally powerless to prevent it, she thought with a sliver of panic that was beginning to grow inside of her.

  Why had she done this?

  Why had she allowed it to happen? She could have stopped it from ever taking place—should have stopped it from taking place not once, but twice, she ruefully reminded herself. She had allowed the evening—and herself—to spin completely out of control and now she had consequences to face.

  She didn’t like this feeling, this feeling of being unable to stop her life from spinning out of control.

  Lila could feel herself growing more and more afraid. Afraid of what she’d done. Afraid of where she just knew it was going to lead—to the same unhappiness she’d experienced thirteen years ago.

  How could something that had felt so right in the moment be so very wrong in the long run?

  But it was, she thought.

  It was.

  What made her think that just because they’d managed to recapture the rapturous happiness of lovemaking it was destined to end any other way for them than it already had once before?

  Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

  And that was her, she thought ruefully. She was doomed to repeat the mistakes she’d made once. In fact, she already had repeated those mistakes.

  Well, she could learn from her mistakes, Lila silently insisted. And she intended to start right now, before it was too late and things spun further out of control, setting the stage for Everett to break her heart all over again.

  Summoning her resolve, not to mention her courage, Lila turned toward the man lying next to her on the sectional sofa.

  She struggled into an upright position.

  Everett shift toward her. “Want to take this to your bedroom and do it again?” he asked her with a warm, inviting smile.

  “No,” she said with such finality that it froze Everett in place. “I want you to leave.”

  The blissful happiness he’d just been experiencing broke up into tiny slivered shards. He felt as if he’d just been blindsided.

  Everett stared at her. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked, trying to understand why she had made this unexpected U-turn.

  “Things are moving too fast, Everett,” she told him. Her tone left no room for any sort of attempts to change her mind. “You need to go.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Everett sat up. “You’re really serious?” he asked, unable to believe that Lila actually meant what she’d just said to him.

  He’d been with a number of women since he and Lila had broken up and although he’d never gotten to the serious relationship stage with any of those women, none of them had ever kicked him out of bed, either, figuratively or literally.

  His confidence shaken, Everett had no idea how to react to this totally unfamiliar situation.

  Lila had already gotten up off the sofa, wrapping a crocheted throw around herself in lieu of clothing. Her insides were quaking, but she held her ground.

  “Yes, I’m serious,” she insisted, her voice rising in pitch. “Very serious.”

  Well, he’d tried his best and for a little while there, he thought that he’d succeeded in winning Lila over. But obviously, he’d miscalculated, Everett told himself. He was willing to do anything to win Lila back except for one thing: he was not about to beg. A man had to have some pride, he thought fiercely.

  Nodding his head, he quickly pulled on his discarded tuxedo slacks. Securing them, he grabbed the rest of his things and held the clothes against his chest in a rumpled ball of material. He didn’t even bother putting on his shoes. Instead, he just picked them up and held them in his other hand.

  “All right then,” he told her, heading for the door. “I’d better go.”

  Lila stood like a statue, saying nothing.

  Everett let himself out the door, leaving it wide open. As he walked to his car in the driveway, he heard the front door close with finality behind him, obliterating any hope that at the last minute Lila would change her mind and either come running after him or at least call him back into the house.

  Forcing himself not to look back, Everett opened his car door and got into his vehicle. He felt so totally stunned and deflated that he could hardly breathe as he started up his car and pulled out of Lila’s driveway.

  He stopped at the first all-night gas station he came to. Ignoring the convenience store clerk’s curious looks, he asked for the restroom key. Taking it from the man, he let himself into the single stall bathroom.

  The conditions in the restroom were far from ideal, but he managed to put on the rest of his clothes. He wanted to avoid having Schuyler ask him a barrage of questions if he walked in wearing only the tuxedo slacks.

  He loved his sister dearly, but he just wasn’t up to fielding any of her questions, however well intentioned they might be. He just wanted to quietly get his things from her guest room and drive
back to Houston.

  But as luck would have it, a swift, clean getaway was just not in the cards for him.

  Despite the hour, Schuyler was up and heard him coming in. Everett had barely closed the front door and walked in before his sister walked out of the kitchen and managed to waylay him at the foot of the stairs.

  “What are you doing back so soon?” she asked him in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting you back until around midmorning.”

  He offered her a careless shrug in response. “Fund-raiser ended so I came back.”

  Schuyler furrowed her brow, as if something didn’t sound right to her. “Why didn’t you go get a nightcap with Lila?”

  “I didn’t want to drink and drive,” Everett answered. He looked longingly up the stairs. So near and yet so far, he couldn’t help thinking.

  Schuyler’s furrowed brow gave way to an all-out, impatient frown.

  “Damn it, Ev, I’m trying to politely tiptoe around the subject but you’re making me have to come flat out and ask.” She paused, waiting for her brother to jump in and say what she was waiting for him to tell her. But he remained silent. Huffing, Schuyler asked, “Why aren’t you over at Lila’s place, picking things up where the two of you left off back in college?”

  “It’s complicated, Schuy,” Everett told her.

  “That’s what people say when they don’t want to deal with something,” she insisted. She pinned her brother with a penetrating look that went clear down to the bone. “Do you care about this woman?” she asked him point-blank.

  Still smarting from his rejection, he really didn’t want to get into this with his sister. “Schuyler, go to bed.”

  They had always talked things out before and Schuyler apparently refused to back off now that she had broached the subject. “Do you care about this woman?” she repeated, enunciating each word slowly with intentional emphasis.

  He could see that Schuyler wasn’t about to let this go until she had an answer from him. So he gave her one. A short one.

  “No.”

  Schuyler’s eyes narrowed, looking deep into his. “You’re lying.”