Batteries Not Required by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

conference table?” he asked. He locked the door and pulled the shades.
    â€œNot recently,” I admitted.
    â€œNot even with Bob?”
    I laughed. “Not even with Bob.”
    Tristan took the check out of my hand, damp from my clutching it, and drew me close. He felt so strong, and so warm. “If you plan on having your way with me,” he said, “you’re going to have to make a concession first.”
    â€œWhat kind of concession?”
    â€œAgree to stay in Parable.”
    I loosened his tie further, undid the top button of his shirt. “What’s in it for me?” I teased. I thought I knew what his answer would be—after all, it was burning against my abdomen, practically scorching through our clothes—but he surprised me.
    â€œA wedding ring,” he said.
    I tried to step back, but he pulled me close again.
    â€œIt seems a little soon—” I protested, but my heart felt like it was trying to beat its way out from behind my Wonder bra.
    â€œI’ve been waiting ten years,” he answered. “I don’t think it’s all that soon.” He caught my face in his hands. “I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ve loved you every day in between. The engagement can be as long or as short as you want, but I’m not letting you go.”
    My vision blurred. My throat was so constricted that I had to squeeze out my “Yes.”
    â€œYes, you’ll marry me?”
    I nodded. The words still felt like a major risk, but they were true, so I said them. “I love you, Tristan.”
    He gave me a leisurely, knee-melting kiss. “Time we celebrated,” he said.
    I took the lead. Forget foreplay. I wanted him inside me.
    I unfastened his belt and opened his pants and took his shaft, already hot and hard, in my hand. And suddenly, I laughed.
    Tristan blinked. Laughter and penises don’t mix, I guess.
    â€œI was just thinking of Bob,” I explained.
    He groaned as I began to work him with long, slow strokes. “Great,” he growled. “I’ve got a hard-on like a concrete post, and you’re comparing me to a vibrator.”
    I teased him a little more, making a circle with the pad of my thumb. “Ummm,” I said, easing him into one of the fancy leather chairs surrounding the conference table and kneeling between his legs.
    â€œOh, God,” he rasped.
    â€œPayback time,” I said.
    He moaned my name.
    I got down to business, so to speak.
    Tristan took it as long as he dared, then pulled me astraddle of his lap, hiked up my skirt, ripped my pantyhose apart, and slammed into me. I was coming before the second thrust.
    That’s the thing about a flesh-and-blood man.
    They never need batteries.

Read on for an excerpt from One Last Weekend by Linda Lael Miller, available from Lyrical Press next month.

Chapter One
    â€œOne last weekend,” insisted Ted Brayley, the Darbys’ long-time friend and now their divorce lawyer, facing the couple across the gleaming expanse of his cherrywood desk. “Just spend one weekend together, at the cottage, that’s all I’m asking. Then, if you still want to split the proverbial sheets, I’ll file the papers.”
    Joanna Darby sat very still, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw her soon-to-be-ex husband, Teague, shift in his leather wingback chair, a twin to her own. Distractedly, he extended a hand, not to Joanna, but to pat their golden retriever, Sammy, sitting attentively between them, on the head.
    â€œI don’t see what good that would do,” Teague said. At forty-one, he was still handsome and fit, but he was going through a major midlife crisis. He’d sold his highly successful architectural firm for an obscene profit and bought himself a very expensive sports car, and though there was no sweet young thing in the picture yet, as far as Joanna knew, it was only a matter of time. Teague was a cliché waiting to