To Have And To Hold Read online

  To Have and To Hold

  An erotic novella by

  Yvette Hines

  Also From Phaze Books

  By Yvette Hines

  Heated Restraints

  Arrested Heart

  Prisoner of Desire

  Santa’s Helper

  Speed Dating

  This is an explicit and erotic novel

  intended for the enjoyment

  of adult readers. Please keep

  out of the hands of children.

  www.Phaze.com

  To Have and To Hold

  Copyright © 2011 by Yvette Hines

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Edited by Kathryn Lively

  Cover Art © 2011 by Niki Browning

  First Edition November 2011

  ISBN-13: 978-1-60659-640-1

  Published by:

  Phaze Books

  An imprint of Mundania Press LLC

  6457 Glenway Ave., #109

  Cincinnati, OH 45211

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, Mundania Press LLC, 6457 Glenway Avenue, #109, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211, [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without permission from Mundania Press LLC. Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights and livelihood is appreciated.

  Chapter One

  “Brett is gone.” Patricia ran back out of the church sanctuary.

  Kelli looked at her mocha-colored friend with her platinum frosted hair cut in a bob around her face. “What do you mean, Brett is gone?”

  “G.o.n.e. Like as in not at the altar.” Patricia emphasized with a sassy tilt to her head.

  Gathering the satin and tulle skirt of her wedding gown in her hands, Kelli brushed past her best friend and marched over to the open doorway. Glancing down the aisle to the altar, Kelli expected to see Brett, her fiancé and expectant groom, standing between the minister and his best man, Dan. Scanning the wedding party, who stood there with odd expressions on their faces, she saw two groomsmen, one bridesmaid, and the junior bride. The cute ring bearer and flower girl were making their way down the aisle to the pianist’s beat. Gloria continued to play as if she hadn’t been told that the groom was absent. But no Brett.

  Kelli turned away from the packed church of two hundred guests and faced Patricia. “Where is he?”

  Shrugging, Patricia said, “I don’t know. When I came out I didn’t see him. But everyone is standing around like he just walked away to go to the bathroom or something. When I look at Carl, he just hunches his shoulders.”

  This is not happening. Kelli’s heart felt like lead as it dropped into her stomach. She and Brett had been planning this wedding for the last year. She sold her condominium, because they would be moving to Charlotte where Brett would be working with his father at their law firm. She quit her job, because Brett wanted a stay at home wife. He’d made a big production of her not renewing her birth control because he wanted them to start a family as soon as possible. Now she had less than a month before she would be out.

  Anger boiled in her veins and poured out her heart like hot lava from a volcano. Brett had a lot of nerve to do this to her after everything she’d sacrificed for him. He professed to love her. But if this was his damn idea of love, she didn’t want any part of it.

  “Weren’t Dan and Carl driving with him to the church?” Kelli asked, stepping away from the open doorway.

  “When it became apparent that Brett wasn’t coming out, I signaled to Carl to check on him. When he came back out without Brett, Carl pulled me to the side and said that Brett was acting funny this morning and had decided he wanted to drive to the church alone. Said he needed time to think. Carl said Brett seemed fine while they were waiting in the minister’s office, but that Brett told them to go out first and start the wedding that he would be right out. He said that when he went back there to check on him, Brett was gone. When he looked out Father Riley’s window, Brett’s car was gone as well.” Patricia grabbed her hand and squeezed as she finished talking.

  Carl was one of the groomsmen, as well as Patricia’s husband of four and a half years. They had met and married shortly after their college graduation. Unlike her and Brett who had decided to wait until after Brett graduated from law school and passed the bar exam. Now, to have this happen after years of her patience, it felt like a slap in the face. “I’ve heard of the runaway bride, but the groom...” Kelli could feel her throat become thick with emotions. She knew soon she would be in tears. “...this is a first.”

  “What are you going to do, Kelli?” Letting her hand go, Patricia moved to a side table in the foyer area and grabbed a tissue and handed it to her.

  She wasn’t going to cry. No way she would allow herself to break down in the church where she was supposed to be promising her future husband she would love, honor, and obey. What a big joke. Kelli figured she looked like she was about to cry. Swallowing hard and taking a deep breath, she shook her head, letting Patricia know she didn’t want the tissue.

  “I don’t know.” Turning Kelli marched back to the dressing room she and Patricia had used to change into their wedding attire. She tossed clothes and other items around until she located her purse. “Where are my keys?”

  “In my purse. Why?” Patricia sounded unsure of giving her the information. “Kelli, what are you doing? Why do you need the keys?”

  Her eyes were beginning to burn as she clutched at pants, tops, and shoes, throwing them over the back of the couch. I am not going to cry. When Kelli finally located her friend’s purse on the cushion of a couch, she dug inside. She heard Patricia’s voice waver with caution.

  “Kel, you can’t leave.”

  Swinging around, she looked at her friend who stood beside the open door. Kelli could hear the notes of Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin begin to play from the main sanctuary. Something else she had caved in, her entry song. Brett’s mother had said that using a love song was trashy and it was best to stay traditional. She wondered if Brett’s Aunt Gloria was deaf, dumb, and blind not to see what was going on around her. Over the wedding music murmurs and whispers were beginning to echo through the guests. “The hell if I can’t, the groom didn’t see an issue with doing it.”

  Gathering a handful of her dress in one hand and her purse and keys in the other, she brushed past Patricia.

  Kelli felt the quick grip of her friend’s hand as she halted her exit.

  “Who’s going to tell the guests what’s going on?”

  A bark of laughter erupted from her chest as Kelli looked at Patricia and said, “Tricia, if they haven’t figured out by now that the wedding is off, not going to happen, then they’re not as smart as
I am.” With that she pulled her arm away from Patricia and ran toward the door.

  “Where does she think she’s going?” Kelli heard Mrs. Cardwell, Brett’s mom’s commanding voice call out to Patricia in her wake. “She needs to talk to the guests.”

  Kelli shook her head at the woman’s audacity and continued racing down the steps of one of the oldest cathedrals in Charlotte, North Carolina. Mrs. Cardwell wanted someone to speak to the people then she needed to locate her damn son.

  Pushing all thoughts of Brett and his overbearing mother out of her mind, she sprinted by the black limo decorated with white ribbons and bows and a large sign that said “Just Married” on the back bumper. In an hour it would have been taking them to the reception. But not anymore. Arriving at her Carolina blue convertible Mazda MX-5 Miata with its soft top, she unlocked the door. Shoving the bulk material of the skirt of her wedding dress into the car, she closed the door, not caring if any of it got trapped in the frame. She would never wear this dress again.

  Starting the car, she pulled out of the parking spot and shifted into drive as she pressed the control to make the hard top retract.

  “Kelli!” Mrs. Cardwell bellowed, her face noticeably beet red even from the distance. “You get back here this instant!”

  Ignoring her, Kelli drove away as the wind pulled her wedding veil from her head, signaling her departure. She watched her rearview mirror as the pearl headpiece that landed in the middle of the road and Brett’s mom both became specks.

  The feeling of water streaming down her face as she traveled along the street drew her eyes to her face in the mirror. Damn, I’m crying.

  ****

  Will walked into the Early Girl as he did every Saturday. Most weekends he was in the office working on something, so he always treated himself with a down home southern style breakfast. His family lived hours away in Raleigh and he couldn’t go home to get his mother’s cooking every weekend, so he was happy when he’d located this place a few months after he took residency in Asheville. He was looking forward to some time off. This week with Mayor Tiffany Braxton on summer vacation with her family he was considering visiting his mother and father, whom he hadn’t seen since Easter weekend.

  The restaurant was filled with families and couples of all ages enjoying the food and atmosphere of the place. Seeing a table available next to the window, he headed toward it. Something odd and out of place with the normal casual diners caught his attention. Looking toward the back of the restaurant at the last table in the corner, he spotted a woman in a wedding dress. A few of the other diners were giving her side glances as well, all probably wondering—as he was—who the woman was and what had happened to place her there instead of at an altar with the man of her dreams.

  Will chuckled to himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in love—no, he’d loved once and loved hard. But, he knew his feelings for the woman were futile and he would never find a place in the woman’s heart, so he had loved silently and from afar. Now, he was so consumed with his busy work schedule that he never found time to seriously date anyone outside of an occasional affair or two with women who wouldn’t ask for more. To be in a more serious relationship would require him to reveal everything about his private life, and he hadn’t met anyone he would be willing to share that level of trust with.

  The woman’s head was down as she sipped from her hot beverage. Frosted blonde curls in a wild and very unattractive array swarmed around her head like an angry nest created by a blind bird. Will shook his head, wondering if the police had located the body of the hairdresser yet.

  Arriving at his table, he pulled his chair out, preparing to sit down. His gaze was drawn once again to the mysterious bride. She lowered her cup and lifted her face, staring across the eatery with vacant eyes, not seeing anything or anyone. Will froze. The beautiful, sienna brown angelic face surrounded by that mess of a hairdo was one he would never forget. His body went on full alert. His muscles tensed, causing a bead of sweat to trickle down the center of his back, and his cock instantly began to harden. She was the only woman that had ever caused such an immediate jolt to his system. The hell of it was that he’d never even slept with her.

  Taking a deep breath to calm his raging hormones, he rose and crossed the room to the woman dressed in what could only be described as a white cloud.

  “Kelli Delaney.” He spoke to her once he’d reached her table.

  Oblivious to anything around her, she turned at the sound of his voice. Will watched her light brown gaze go from expressionless to recognition. A smile broke the somber look on her face and stopped his heart.

  Launching herself out of the seat, which had to be a feat considering the size of the skirt on her wedding dress, she threw her arms around him in a quick embrace. “Will Robertson! Ohmygod...”

  He had no other choice but to wrap his arms around her and squeeze. The perfume, oil, or scented lotion that she used surrounded them. Will couldn’t put his finger on the smell, but the sweet, subtle scent touched his senses like a caress. He cleared his throat and stepped back. If he hadn’t broken contact with her his body would let everyone in the restaurant know how he felt about her. In a bold way.

  Her hand rose to her mouth, in shock. “It’s been so long.”

  “Do you mind if I join you? Or are you awaiting the groom?” He could feel his heart beating against his ribcage as he awaited her answer.

  “That’s doubtful.” Waving her hand in the air, she resumed her seat. “Please, sit.”

  Will claimed the blond wood chair across from her as he watched her push and finagle the puffy material under the table away from her drink.

  A waitress with the name tag that read Vera stepped over to them. “Can I get you something, sir?”

  Peeping across the table into the porcelain cup, he asked, “What are you drinking, Kelli?”

  “Their natural ginger tea with cream and sugar.” Kelli told him.

  Raising an eyebrow at Kelli, he refrained from commenting, but instead turned to Vera and ordered, “A carafe of the tea and coffee as well.”

  The waitress jotted down the information on a hand pad. “I’ll be right back with it, sir.”

  When she walked away, Kelli was the first to speak. “So, Will, how have you been?”

  “Let’s discard the elephant in the middle of the room, first.” He leaned back in his chair, making himself comfortable on the hard seat. “What brings you to Asheville?”

  Raising her cup, she sipped from it again. He noted she didn’t return it to the saucer, but instead clutched it as if the item was her sole salvation. “I’m not really in Asheville, I’m just passing through. I needed some gas so I got off the interstate. After two hours of being in the car I just wanted to sit still somewhere and think.”

  Gesturing toward her dress, he questioned, “So, am I to assume you’re on your way to your wedding?”

  Her teeth seized her bottom lip. The plumpness of it didn’t escape his notice. Redirecting his gaze back to hers, he waited.

  “From is more like it.” She pulled the cup toward her, but didn’t drink. For a brief moment she just inhaled as if the smell of it aided her in some way.

  “The runaway bride?”

  “The dumped bride.” The sullen look returned to her eyes as she glanced past his shoulder for a moment.

  “Who’s the fool?” He vocalized his thoughts.

  She set the cup down. “The one and only Brett Cardwell.”

  Damn. Will had observed his fellow baseball teammate’s relationship with Kelli and had always hoped that after graduation she had come to her senses. Apparently it had never happened. “I always knew he wasn’t a smart man.”

  “You would never be able to convince his mother of that fact. Brett made them proud the day he passed the bar, now he’ll be holding the firm’s reigns with his father.” She pasted a broad smile on her face.

  “How is Mrs. Cardwell?”

  “As bitchy as always.” She took a deep drink of h
er creamed tea mixture.

  The waitress chose that moment to bring the two carafes and another coffee cup for him. “There’s cream and sugar in the bowl. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Thanks, Vera.” Will said, as he filled his cup with coffee. Raising the cup, he tasted the bitter smooth blend. “I guess that means there’s no love lost there.” He responded to Kelli’s comment.

  “Not.” She glanced off in the distance then returned back to his face. “Not having her as a mother in-law is something I’m very happy about. With that woman, there was no pleasing her.” She paused and gave a dry laugh. “Unless she got it her way.” She added more tea to her cup. “Then she’s happy as a dog with a damn steak bone.”

  Laughing, Will watched her add two creams and four sugars to the small cup of tea. He wondered if the tea was just used to heat up her cream and sugar. Syrupy sweet. The words played in his mind as Kelli took a healthy sip of the drink. He didn’t have a sweet tooth and rarely did he indulge in deserts, but he had a weakness for Kelli Delaney that went beyond rational thought. When her pink tongue slid out of her mouth to take away a small drop of tea from her bottom lip he almost groaned out loud and his dick awakened for the second time that day. An urge to lean over the table and kiss her just to see if the flavor was captured on her tongue caused tension to curl at the base of his spine. If his arousal heightened any further he’d need to undo his pants so he didn’t pass out from blood flow constrictions.

  This woman had the power to bring him to his knees. He wondered what she’d do if she knew.

  Over the years he’d been around her and since, he’d learned to master his desires. It had become a survival skill to him. Distracting himself from his thoughts, he rubbed his hand across his chin as she continued.