Past Midnight Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Praise for the novels of Jasmine Haynes

  “Deliciously erotic and completely captivating.”

  —Susan Johnson, New York Times bestselling author

  “An erotic, emotional adventure of discovery you don’t want to miss.”

  —Lora Leigh, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “So incredibly hot that I’m trying to find the right words to describe it without having to be edited for content . . . extremely stimulating from the first page to the last! Of course, that means that I loved it! . . . One of the hottest, sexiest erotic books I have read so far.”

  —Romance Reader at Heart

  “Sexy.”

  —Sensual Romance Reviews

  “Delightfully torrid.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “More than a fast-paced erotic romance, this is a story of family, filled with memorable characters who will keep you engaged in the plot and the great sex. A good read to warm a winter’s night.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Bursting with sensuality and eroticism.”

  —In the Library Reviews

  “The passion is intense, hot, and purely erotic . . . recommended for any reader who likes their stories realistic, hot, captivating, and very, very well written.”

  —Road to Romance

  “Not your typical romance. This one’s going to remain one of my favorites.”

  —The Romance Studio

  “Jasmine Haynes keeps the plot moving and the love scenes very hot.”

  —Just Erotic Romance Reviews

  “A wonderful novel . . . Try this one—you won’t be sorry.”

  —The Best Reviews

  Berkley Books by Jasmine Haynes

  PAST MIDNIGHT

  MINE UNTIL MORNING

  HERS FOR THE EVENING

  LACED WITH DESIRE

  (with Jaci Burton, Joey W. Hill, and Denise Rossetti)

  YOURS FOR THE NIGHT

  FAIR GAME

  UNLACED

  (with Jaci Burton, Joey W. Hill, and Denise Rossetti)

  SHOW AND TELL

  THE FORTUNE HUNTER

  OPEN INVITATION

  TWIN PEAKS

  (with Susan Johnson)

  SOMEBODY’S LOVER

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, 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.

  Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Skullestad.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Heat trade paperback edition / May 2011

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Haynes, Jasmine.

  Past midnight / Jasmine Haynes.—Heat trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51458-0

  I. Title.

  PS3608.A936P37 2011

  813’.6—dc22

  2010036500

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my husband, Ole,

  for all the years of believing in me

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my wonderful network of friends who support me, brainstorm with me, and encourage me: Laurel Jacobson, Bella Andre, Shelley Bates, Jenny Andersen, Jackie Yau, Ellen Higuchi, Kathy Coatney, Pamela Fryer, Rita Hogan, Terri Schaefer, and Jenn Mason. What would I do without you? Thanks also to my friends Teresa and Marty and my brother Michael for their technical help, and to Lynn for her insights. And, of course, to my agent, Lucienne Diver, and my editor, Wendy McCurdy.

  PROLOGUE

  JUST PAST MIDNIGHT, SHE REACHED FOR HIM IN THE DARK. A SLIVER of moonlight illuminated the bare wood bureau and blue carpet, its fingers creeping up the bedspread, ending at their feet, leaving the rest in darkness.

  It was always past midnight when she turned to him, as if touching him in the daylight or at bedtime, when he wasn’t sleepdrowsed, was sacrilege. He lived for the nights she reached out, as if his flesh were touch-starved. After a year and a month, he was starving, body, mind, and soul. He slept naked, terrified of missing a single moment. They never spoke. She wouldn’t cry out even when she came, her silence as essential to her as the dark. He used to beg for a word, a sound. Talk to me. He would have accepted anything—her anger, her pain, her guilt, her tears. But he’d always lost her as soon as his voice broke the quiet. He’d stopped asking and took what she allowed him; this, her hands on him, her mouth, her body. Without words, sex was anti-intimacy, yet this was all he had left of their marriage, these dark moments after midnight, and he would not let them go. He would not let her go.

  Her hand skimmed over his nipple, pinching, turning the nub pebble hard. She’d always known the things that drove him crazy. Then she followed the arrow of hair down his abdomen to wrap her fingers around him. She stroked him softly, gen
tly, to hardness. It didn’t take much, he was so on edge for her. He held his breath, afraid to disturb the silence, afraid he might cry out with the heat of her touch. Pushing the covers back, she laid her lips on his crown as the November night air rolled like a cold wave over his hot skin, the silk of her long red hair a curtain over his lap.

  She engulfed him to the root. Her mouth on him was heaven and hell. God have mercy. He fisted his hands in the sheets, his body wanting to rock, thrust, drive deep into the recesses of her mouth. Yet he held still, so still but for the throbbing of his blood and the pounding of his heart. The sounds of her mouth, her tongue, her lips taking him was like a gentle melody on the wind, caressing him, stealing through his mind. She reached between his legs and squeezed the heart of his manhood, bringing him to an aching, crushing need, his body arching involuntarily. But still not a sound, not even a groan.

  God, how he’d loved her, wanted her, still loved her even after all the pain, the guilt, the blame. Once upon a time he would have told her so, hauled her up along his chest to take her mouth, to taste his essence on her tongue. But those days were long gone; a year, four weeks, and a lifetime gone. Now all he could do was grit his teeth and try not to spend himself now, in her mouth. Because there was more. She would give him more, at least physically, but only in darkness and silence, only past midnight.

  She shifted, then slid back with a suctioned pop as her mouth left him. A moment later, her firm thighs gripped his hips, the heat of her core close, so close he could feel her all the way up to his throat.

  He didn’t enter her; she simply took him. As if he were nothing more than a solid piece of flesh to fill her emptiness and assuage her guilt and pain for this short space of time. She didn’t kiss him, didn’t brace herself on his chest to smile down at him. Their lovemaking used to be rich with talk and laughter, dirty talk, nasty talk, sexy talk, spinning ever kinkier fantasies for each other. It had been hot, exciting, priming him with the hope that someday they would act on those fantasies. Now she merely leaned back and rode him silently, hands splayed against her ass for support. For her, it was pure physicality, a way to stop the whirling thoughts and memories, the rawness of the act exhausting her into sleep.

  For him, it was touch, connection, life. For a little while, he could pretend that she had forgiven him. His body rose to meet her, overcome by a blinding, aching need he dulled with physical pleasure and the remembered taste of her, the sweetness of her juice, the softness of her skin, the flowery scent of her body lotion, pungent now with her arousal.

  She began to tremble with impending orgasm, her inner muscles working him. The barely there grunt of exertion remained her only sound, yet it was so erotic and beguiling in the deep after-midnight quiet.

  She spasmed around him, her body curling over his, but not touching, never touching beyond the fusion of their hips. He shoved his head back into the pillow, thrusting hard and deep as her climax rippled over him, around him, inside him. He filled her, forcing her to feel him, bucking hard against her, limbs trembling, sweat beading his forehead with the effort it took not to scream out his orgasm. Explosive and mind-altering in the dark, the silence, her body, her heat. They ended with quivering bodies and harsh breathing, until finally she slipped away, tipping to her side of the bed.

  Even as aftershocks jolted through him, she fell into the regular cadence of sleep, what she’d been striving toward when she reached for him. Sleep. Oblivion. The place where she could dream the dead alive again. She couldn’t talk about Jay, but she could dream of him.

  He was glad for her, yet he envied the ability. He’d never dreamed his son alive. For him, there were only dreams of Jay’s face the last time he saw him, in the hospital.

  Long past midnight, he lay in the dark, wide awake, his body sated, his heart bleeding and in shreds.

  1

  MONDAY. THANK GOD. SHE’D MADE IT THROUGH THANKSGIVING. One more holiday to go.

  She didn’t know how to tell Dominic that he was the only reason she got through the nights. Maybe it wasn’t fair to use him that way, but when she touched him, she didn’t have to remember anything. When they were done, she could finally sleep. The sex was how she managed to forget that she’d lost Jay a year ago last month, how she forgot that most people were starting their Christmas shopping, how she ignored that she didn’t need to shop anymore.

  Her parents had wanted them to come home to Michigan this year. She couldn’t handle it, the memories, the one little boy no one would talk about, driving it home that he wasn’t there. She’d told her folks no. Dominic hadn’t complained, even though his parents had been hoping for a visit, too. Last year she’d been too numb to even notice Christmas or the holiday season. This year . . . she wanted to pretend it didn’t exist.

  Erin DeKnight stared at the reorder point list. Dominic saved her nights. Work saved her days. There was a ton of stuff to do before the December year-end. The contract with Wrainger Electronics was up for renegotiation, ripe for eking out a few extra pennies for the bottom line. Costs had to be revised for raw materials and outsourced parts so they could roll standards for work-in-progress and finished goods, and revalue their inventory for the upcoming year. Two years ago, they’d purchased an online enterprise system, which saved them having to house their own server to run an integrated accounting and manufacturing software package, not to mention the data backups. In order for the system to operate properly, you had to feed it good raw data, which was a hell of lot of work before year-end. Work to keep her occupied. Dominic said she was a workaholic. She was. It kept her from thinking too much.

  Puffing out a breath, Erin flipped the report page, hitting the transducer part numbers. Which made her think of Leon. Leon had been fabricating transducers for DeKnight Gauges the entire ten years since she and Dominic had first started DKG. He was seventy-five and fabbed the parts out of his garage. No else did it cheaper. But Leon had decided to retire.

  Erin should have been finding another source, but instead she was searching for the perfect argument to change his mind. Leon was young at heart. He’d hate being retired, having nothing to do. She couldn’t let him do that to himself. He was more than a vendor. Truth was, Erin didn’t want to let him go. He was part of the DKG family. A talented whittler, he’d crafted a different animal for her birthday every year. He’d whittled for Dominic’s birthday, too.

  And for Jay’s.

  An image of Leon burrowed into her mind. Jay’s memorial. Leon’s grizzled face, eyes sunken. The words of grief she hadn’t let him express. He’d said them to Dominic instead. When Erin thought about Leon retiring, she felt queasy.

  Erin glanced up at the light rap on her doorjamb. Rachel, a paper in her hand, her smile too exuberant. “Morning.”

  Ah, saved from her own thoughts. Erin smiled a greeting. A newly divorced mother of two, Rachel Delaney had started as receptionist a couple of months ago, also handling filing, mailing, and a myriad of everyday jobs. She was blond, pretty, and curvy in a way that drew male attention. That wasn’t always good. Erin had felt sorry for her, a woman suddenly thrust into a man’s work world for which she had few marketable skills. She could easily have been taken advantage of by an unscrupulous boss.

  “What do you need?” Erin said pleasantly. She’d practiced the art of smiling. She might not always feel like it, but people needed normalcy, and that’s what she gave her employees at DKG. They were like a family, and for family, you presented the illusion that everything was all right. Even when it had stopped being all right over a year ago. But Rachel didn’t know; she hadn’t been at DKG then.

  “I printed out your itinerary.” Rachel laid it on Erin’s desk. “I sent it in an e-mail, too,” she added with the hint of a question, as if unsure whether she’d covered all the bases.

  The printing far too small for her to read, Erin reached out an index finger to slide the sheet of paper across the desk. “What itinerary?”

  “For the PRI Trade Show.”

  DKG
manufactured ultrasonic thickness gauges. While the gauges had testing applications in a variety of industries, high-performance racing was one of their biggest markets, and the Performance Racing Industry Trade Show, held every year in Orlando during the second weekend of December, was the show. But Dominic, not Erin, represented DKG.

  Erin didn’t sigh. She smiled. Rachel did her best, and honestly, she rarely made mistakes. “You know, this was supposed to be for Dominic, not me.”

  Rachel smiled with equal courtesy. “I booked his, too.”

  Erin kept her patience. She didn’t have as much of it as she used to. She hated to think of herself as a bitch, but sometimes, if she didn’t think before she spoke, she came off sounding pretty damn snippy.

  “Dominic handles our exhibit booth,” she said. Though he’d missed last year for the first time since they’d started DKG. He’d sent Cam Phan, their software engineer, in his stead. Far be it for them to actually miss the show altogether. This year, things were supposed to get back to normal.

  Not that things could ever be the same again.

  “He told me to book yours as well.” Rachel paused, her lips pursed as if she were slightly irritated now. “He’s going early on Wednesday, and he had me book a late-afternoon flight out for you on Thursday so you’d only miss one day of work. You’ll fly back Sunday with him.”

  She’d been tamping it down, but suddenly Erin couldn’t rein in her anger. “He did what?” She hated the trade shows, she hated schmoozing, especially now, with the holidays, and hell no, she wasn’t going. What was he thinking?