"I have to." Johnny's wrists were iron-hard with tension, straining in her grasp. "I'm a mess, Tessa. I need to get my head on straight, and that's not your responsibility. Not anymore. Besides, if leaving you here to fend for yourself is the only way I can convince you that I trust you-that I see you for the astonishing, intelligent, skilled, beautiful woman that you are ... well, I'd say that's the least I can do for you."

With every word, Tessa felt the chains of love twine more strongly through her soul, tying her to this man she'd given her heart to so long ago. Maybe he didn't love her; maybe he never would. But that didn't change the fact that she was so in love with him, she could barely breathe.

And she would be d.a.m.ned before she let him walk out of her life without trying every weapon in her a.r.s.enal to get him to stay.

"I'll let you go," she said slowly as her breathing calmed and her heart began to thump a steady beat. "But first, I want one night in your arms."

His eyes went molten black, full of heat and desire. But his body was stiff. He held himself away as if he didn't trust himself to touch her. "I don't know, Tessa. I'm not sure what good it would do."

That almost cracked her in two, but she didn't falter. "I want the memories. I want to know what other brides found out on their wedding nights, and I want it with you. Please, Johnny. Don't make me leave this marriage as untouched as I came into it."

She'd barely finished speaking before Johnny was kissing the words from her lips, sucking and nipping and stealing her breath and her sanity. Tessa retained just enough of her rational mind to gasp out, "Not here! Patty would kill me if I defiled her kitchen."

"Mmm." Johnny nuzzled into her neck, his restless hands shaping her ribs before sneaking up to cup her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Not to mention what the health inspector would say. Because I plan to do things to you that are definitely not sanitary."

Tessa laughed at the same time that a hard shudder of l.u.s.t shook her. Gripping tight to Johnny's shoulders, she said, "That's one way you made me happy. You could always make me laugh."

"That's because I like making you feel good. Hopefully tonight, I'll discover some new ways."

The whispered words, heated and rough against her skin, made Tessa go boneless in his arms. Everything seemed to add to her desire-the rub of her thighs together, the texture of Johnny's hair between her fingers, the brush of hot air from the cooling oven ... shoot. They were in the bakery.

"Yes," she gasped, stiffening her trembling arms and trying to push away. "Tonight. I'll come to you at the bar."

"We could go right now," Johnny suggested, resisting her attempts to separate their bodies.

"I want to, believe me. But unfortunately, these sourdough loaves aren't going to bake themselves." Tessa managed to step back a pace, one self-conscious hand going up to straighten her top and fix her ruffled hair. "And ... I want to have a little time to get ready for you. For our wedding night."

Johnny's eyes went soft and dark like melted chocolate. "Our wedding night. Only slightly delayed."

"Better late than never." Was that really her voice? Tessa wondered. Husky and low ... she sounded more confident than she felt.

As if Johnny could hear the nerves underneath her attempt at seductive flirting, he ran his fingers through her hair one last time before letting go of her completely. "Go. Bake. Do whatever you have to do to get ready, then come find me. But for the record? All you ever need to do is smile at me."

The sweetness of that stayed with her through Johnny helping her knead the last few loaves and set the trays on the rolling cart for their second rise overnight. That sweetness stuck around through his lingering kiss before they parted ways after locking up the bakery. It carried her down the street as if she were floating, her feet barely touching the pavement.

But by the time Tessa was in her room at Patty's house trying on different bras and nightgowns, that sweet, floaty feeling was long gone.

A knock on the door startled her out of her sad contemplation of herself in the mirror.

"Can I come in, sugar?" Patty called.

Taking one last, discouraging look at her favorite nightgown-a light pink satin shift with skinny straps and a ruffled hem-Tessa went to let her friend in.

The older lady's brows lifted toward her salt-and-pepper hairline. "I thought you were going back out. Change your mind?"

Tessa debated being embarra.s.sed and decided Patty would only scoff if she blushed. "No, I'm still going. I'm trying to find something to wear that might entice my husband to finally help me get rid of my stupid virginity."

"And you think that little pink number is your ticket to o.r.g.a.s.m City?"

"Patty!" Tessa laughed and gave up trying not to blush.

"Pshh." Patty waved that away with a crepe-papery hand. "I'm old, not dead. And even though I've never been married, I've lived what you might call an adventurous life. Trust me, you and your pink nightie aren't going to shock me."

"I'm afraid they're not going to shock Johnny, either," Tessa said glumly. "I thought this nightgown was so pretty and s.e.xy when I bought it. Now it looks more like something a little girl would wear playing dress up."

Patty wandered over to the guest room closet and started flipping through the hanging clothes. "Tell me what you want your outfit to do."

"I want it to make Johnny want me," Tessa said baldly. "I want it to make me irresistible, so irresistible that he can't do anything but kiss me and take me to bed. And stay there with me forever."

Casting an amused glance over her shoulder, Patty said, "That's a lot of pressure to put on a sc.r.a.p of satin, sugar."

"I know. Especially when the woman inside the satin is more of a girl next door than a femme fatale."

"Fiddlesticks. Any woman can be a femme fatale, if that's what she wants to be. But don't underestimate the appeal of that girl next door, either. Listen up, sugar. I've got a secret for you."

Tessa looped her arm around Patty's frail shoulders, her heart full of love and grat.i.tude for this spitfire of a woman, with her years of experience and wisdom, even as part of her ached for her mother. What would Tessa's mother have said in this situation? She'd never know.

Setting aside that well-worn longing, Tessa said, "I would love to hear your secret."

"Well, sugar, it's this. We act like s.e.xy underthings and skimpy nighties are for the man's benefit, to get him in the mood." Patty held up a shirt Tessa had buried at the back of the closet-a man's white b.u.t.ton-down shirt, worn at the cuffs and collar, all starch long gone. "But men are already in the mood. They're always in the mood. The truth is, the point of a woman wearing lacy undies or silky lingerie is to make herself feel s.e.xy. Desirable. Sensual. It's not about what will turn him on. It's about you feeling confident and ready to be loved."

Tessa touched a trembling finger to the collar of the shirt Patty held. "That's Johnny's shirt. It's one of the only things I took from our house when I left."

"I had a feeling."

"It smelled like him," Tessa whispered. "I wore it every night for the first year after he went on that undercover a.s.signment."

"And how did you feel when you put it on?" Patty pressed.

"Safe. Warm." Tessa swallowed. "Loved."

Even the illusion of Johnny's arms around her had been better than nothing.

When Patty tossed aside the hanger and held the shirt out, Tessa shrugged into it. It was like wrapping herself in the best memories of her life with Johnny. She glanced in the mirror, surprised at the small, secretive smile that curved her lips as she settled the plain cotton on her shoulders. The sleeves reached past her fingertips, but she'd long ago rolled them to bare her wrists.

Breathing in, Tessa still caught a whiff of Johnny's clean, masculine musk. She felt her muscles loosen, tension releasing, even as something deep inside her coiled taut with the expectation of pleasure.

"How did you get to be so wise, Miss Patty?"

A nostalgic smile flickered across the wrinkled visage. "My mother was a wonderful woman. Ahead of her time in many ways, and one of those ways was that she hated how many of her women friends didn't enjoy s.e.x. She told me that I deserved to someday have 'a healthy marital relation,' as she called it. I know she hoped I'd find it with a husband, but well, that's another story."

Unexpected and unwelcome, tears threatened at the corners of Tessa's eyes. "I miss my mother," she admitted. "I know she wasn't perfect, but I also know she loved me. And sometimes I feel sort of ... I don't know. Incomplete, not knowing how she is or even if she's still alive."

"Oh, sugar." Patty's eyes misted over. "It's been decades since my mother pa.s.sed on, and I could stand here and bawl right now talking about her. The bond between mother and daughter is complicated. Good or bad, there's nothing quite like it."

Sniffling, Tessa gave their reflection a watery grin. "I can't be too sad when I have you in my life. I hope you know how much I love you, Patty Cuthbert."

"I never had any children of my own, so I missed out on grandkids, too, but if I'd had a granddaughter, I would have wanted her to be just like you, sugar."

"Stop it!" Tessa wailed, tipping her head down to Patty's frail shoulder. Laughter through tears, what a weird and wonderful feeling.

"All right, all right, that's enough of that." Patty dabbed at her eyes briskly, then took Tessa by the arms and squared her up to face the mirror.

Tessa blinked at herself wrapped in Johnny's old shirt, the color high in her cheeks and her eyes bright with unshed tears and overflowing emotion. She looked ... ready.

"You're beautiful, young, and in love," Patty declared. "Don't squander it! Go get 'im, girl."

Chapter 17.

Tessa stood outside of the b.u.t.tercup Inn, the hand-painted sign swaying gently above her head in the night air. The door was locked, of course. She was just debating whether or not to call Johnny to come down and get her, or to throw pebbles against his window or something, when a sudden chill lifted the hairs along her arms.

She wasn't alone in the alley.

Holding her breath, Tessa dropped her car keys casually into her palm, one key sticking out between her knuckles the way she'd learned in the self-defense cla.s.s the Sanctuary Island Sheriff's Department had put on last fall.

Normally she wouldn't have thought twice about it, she realized distractedly, listening for footsteps or movement behind her. Some of Johnny's worries must have rubbed off on her after all, even though she didn't truly believe she was in any danger.

A gla.s.s bottle clinked against the pavement, kicked by a careless foot, and Tessa spun with her fists raised and ready to strike out ... at a wide-eyed Quinn Harper.

"I surrender!" Quinn held her hands up, her dimpled chin quivering with the effort of suppressing a laugh.

Tessa rolled her eyes at herself and blew out a breath. "Sorry, you just startled me, is all."

"Here to see Johnny?"

Finally noticing the nervous antic.i.p.ation jittering through the younger woman, Tessa raised her brows. "I am. Are you here to see Marcus?"

She tried to keep her tone completely free of judgment, but from the way Quinn stiffened, she didn't quite succeed. That dimpled chin stuck out obstinately. "Yep. And I've already heard what a bad idea that is from everyone in town, it seems like, including Marcus himself. But I don't care. I want to be here."

For the first time since Tessa met Quinn, she glimpsed something beneath the bright, carefree mask the girl wore like a second skin. Quinn wasn't just having fun, sowing her wild oats with a s.e.xy older man. She was in deeper than that.

Tessa recognized the signs; she'd just spent an hour staring at them in her own mirror.

"Sometimes that's enough." Tessa smiled and watched Quinn relax enough to smile back. "Do you have a key?"

"I do, as it happens." Producing her key with a flourish, Quinn let them in and led the way through the darkened bar to the back staircase. She navigated around piles of cardboard boxes and tables stacked with upside-down chairs as if she'd been there plenty of times in the dark.

Tessa followed her quietly, musing on the ways she and Quinn were different-the married virgin and the free-spirited single girl-and the ways they were the same. Both of them were laying their hearts on the line when they lay down with the men they loved ... and both of them were likely to wake up one day with those hearts broken into a million pieces.

But wasn't that true of everyone who took a chance on love? And wasn't the hope of a happy ending enough of a reason to take the chance?

Tessa had already spent too much of her life cowering in the shadows and hoping the world would pa.s.s her by. And guess what? It did pa.s.s her by, but staying safe hadn't kept her from heartbreak. Here, on Sanctuary Island, she had taken more risks and exposed her vulnerabilities and basically invited the world to take its best shot-and she was closer to getting what she wanted now, tonight, than she ever had been before.

At the landing at the top of the stairs, Quinn turned to the door on the left. Pausing with her hand on the doork.n.o.b, she gave Tessa a smile that looked brave in the dim light of the moon streaming in the window. "Have a good night," she whispered.

Tessa's heart began to gallop as she stared at the door on the right. Johnny was behind that door, waiting for her. "You, too," she said absently, reaching for the doork.n.o.b.

"We'll try to keep it down," Quinn said, the sparkle and mischief returning to her laughing voice. "But no promises!"

She whisked away into the front apartment, leaving Tessa blushing on the landing. Did she have the guts to be like Quinn, to throw open the door to what she wanted and walk right in as if she belonged there?

Not really.

Sighing, Tessa lifted her hand to knock but before it connected, the door swung open to reveal Johnny's lean, muscled form silhouetted in the moonlight.

Tessa clutched her coat around herself and swallowed dryly, her throat clicking in the silence of the hallway. Every cell of her body vibrated like a struck tuning fork, reverberating with Johnny's nearness and pulling her in closer to him.

Johnny's eyes glittered, nearly black with hunger. Without a single word, he reached out and drew her inside.

His heat scorched her skin, pouring off him in waves that made her gasp. The gasp turned to a moan when his arms clutched her to his chest and his mouth crashed down on hers. They surged together, ravenous and shaking with it.

"How did I wait this long?" Johnny muttered against the sensitive skin over her jawline. His roving hands combed through her hair and down her back, molding her more closely to him. Tessa's b.r.e.a.s.t.s crushed against his chest, naked under her clothes, and even that rough caress turned her on.

She didn't want to talk about why they'd gone years-years!-without this when they could have been ... when all along, she'd wanted ...

Dazed and in need of oxygen, Tessa tore her mouth from Johnny's and pulled back far enough to kick off her shoes and shrug out of her coat.

"Don't-"

Whatever protest Johnny was about to make died on his lips when his stare dropped to her body. His shirt hung on her slender frame, unb.u.t.toned far enough to show the pale skin of her sternum. Her legs were bare, and he couldn't see it, but she'd decided against underwear.

What was the point? she'd reasoned. They'd only slow her down.

The point was, she realized now as she fought not to squirm under Johnny's intense gaze, that underwear made you feel more covered. Less bare.

Somehow, wearing Johnny's shirt and nothing else, Tessa felt more bare than if she'd actually been naked.

"You're wearing my shirt." Johnny's dark brown eyes lifted to scrutinize Tessa's face. "You kept it. All this time. And you're wearing it. Do you have any idea what that does to me?"

Tessa couldn't hold back a smile. Maybe wearing s.e.xy things wasn't only about pleasing herself. Maybe it was about pleasing both of them.

"Do you like it?" she asked, sending a coy glance up through her lashes to check his reaction.

His reaction did not disappoint. Chest flexing, Johnny brought one hand down to palm the hard ridge of his erection, solid and obvious in his jeans. He made a sound like he couldn't believe his eyes.

"I can't believe you can ask me that. Yes," he said definitely. "I like it. A lot."

"I'm nervous," Tessa explained with a breathless laugh. "I'm sorry, I wish I weren't."

"Don't be sorry. I'm nervous, too." Johnny's mouth twisted in a rueful grin. "I'm not a virgin, but it's been a while."

Struck, Tessa said, "Wait. How long has it been for you?"