Always Next Summer Read online

  “Are you okay?” I asked as our car swung gently a hundred feet up in the air. We were out in the country, and beyond the lights of the fair itself, there was only darkness. The night was clear, the moon almost full, and the sky an eerie silver nearly as bright as day. My stomach tightened when I saw the tears on her cheeks. “Maggie? What’s wrong?”

  “Just a little cold,” she murmured, leaning toward me.

  Carefully, I put my arm around her shoulders and drew her against my side. With my free hand, I brushed the tears from her cheeks. “What is it?”

  “I was remembering the last time I was here.”

  She wrapped her arm around my waist and settled her head on my shoulder, as if she had done it a thousand times before. “I was with Jack but I didn’t really want to be. I didn’t know why it didn’t feel right, but it didn’t. There were a lot of things about my life I didn’t feel right about for a long time. It makes me sad now to think about all the years I lost trying to be someone else.”

  I kissed her forehead. “I was here that night. I wanted to be up here with you. I wanted it so much I was sick inside.” I laughed softly. “There’s nothing quite like first love.”

  Maggie gasped. “You felt that way about me? Back then?”

  Our car gave a shudder, and I knew we’d be going down soon. There was so much I wanted to say and I knew there would never be time. So I took a chance, because second chances are a rare thing and I had already waited so long. I cupped my fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face to the stars. I covered her mouth with mine and kissed her with all the trepidation and wonder that I had stored in my heart all these years for only her. I kissed her gently at first and let her feel in the heat of my flesh and the tender stroke of my tongue the dreams I had dreamt of her night after night. When her arms tightened around me and her fist clenched my shirt, I slid inside her mouth with the barely bridled need of a thirst that had gone unquenched despite all the other kisses I had ever known. Her lips bruised over mine, answering my hunger with her own. Her body vibrated in my arms, her passion matching mine. She was everything and more than I had imagined, and I opened my eyes, certain that I would awaken as I had so often with the elusive sadness of a dream escaped.

  Her eyes were open, intent on mine. She raised her hand to my face and stroked my cheek, touching the corners of our joined mouths as if to assure herself that we were both real. She drew away enough to whisper against my lips.

  “If this is going to end when we reach the bottom, I’m not getting off.”

  “It doesn’t have to end,” I murmured as our car slid to a stop. “It’s not true what they say, you know. You can go home again, and this time, I’m not leaving.”

  Maggie kissed me again before easing from my embrace. She smiled, and this time there was only hope in her eyes. “I’d forgotten how much I loved this fair. We’ll have to come again.”

  I nodded. “There’s always next summer.”

  “Yes,” she said, taking my hand. “There is.”

  About the Author

  Radclyffe has written over fifty romance and romantic intrigue novels, dozens of short stories, and, writing as L.L. Raand, has authored a paranormal romance series, The Midnight Hunters.

  She is an eight-time Lambda Literary Award finalist in romance, mystery, and erotica—winning in both romance (Distant Shores, Silent Thunder) and erotica (Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments edited with Stacia Seaman and In Deep Waters 2: Cruising the Strip written with Karin Kallmaker). A member of the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame, she is also an RWA/FF&P Prism Award winner for Secrets in the Stone, an RWA FTHRW Lories and RWA HODRW winner for Firestorm, an RWA Bean Pot winner for Crossroads, an RWA Laurel Wreath winner for Blood Hunt, and the 2016 Book Buyers Best award winner for Price of Honor. In 2014 she was awarded the Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Award by the Lambda Literary Foundation. She is a featured author in the 2015 documentary film Love Between the Covers, from Blueberry Hill Productions.

  She is also the president of Bold Strokes Books, one of the world’s largest independent LGBTQ publishing companies.

  Find her at facebook.com/Radclyffe.BSB, follow her on Twitter @RadclyffeBSB, and visit her website at Radfic.com.

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Beauty and the Boss by Ali Vali. Ellis Renois is at the top of the fashion world, but she never expects her summer assistant Charlotte Hamner to tear her heart and her business apart like sharp scissors through cheap material. (978-162639-919-8)

  Fury’s Choice by Brey Willows. When gods walk amongst humans, can two women find a balance between love and faith? (978-162639-869-6)

  Lessons in Desire by MJ Williamz. Can a summer love stand a four-month hiatus and still burn hot? (978-163555-019-1)

  Lightning Chasers by Cass Sellars. For Sydney and Parker, being a couple was never what they had planned. Now they have to fight corruption, murder, and enemies hiding in plain sight just to hold on to each other. Lightning Series, Book Two. (978-162639-965-5)

  Summer Fling by Jean Copeland. Still jaded from a breakup years earlier, Kate struggles to trust falling in love again when a summer fling with sexy young singer Jordan rocks her off her feet. (978-162639-981-5)

  Take Me There by Julie Cannon. Adrienne and Sloan know it would be career suicide to mix business with pleasure, however tempting it is. But what’s the harm? They’re both consenting adults. Who would know? (978-162639-917-4)

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  Walking Through Shadows by Sheri Lewis Wohl. All Molly wanted to do was go backpacking…in her own century. (978-162639-968-6)

  A Lamentation of Swans by Valerie Bronwen. Ariel Montgomery returns to Sea Oats to try to save her broken marriage but soon finds herself also fighting to save her own life and catch a murderer. (978-1-62639-828-3)

  Freedom to Love by Ronica Black. What happens when the woman who spent her life worrying about caring for her family finally finds the freedom to love without borders? (978-1-63555-001-6)

  House of Fate by Barbara Ann Wright. Two women must throw off the lives they’ve known as a guardian and an assassin and save two rival houses before their secrets tear the galaxy apart. (978-1-62639-780-4)

  Planning for Love by Erin Dutton. Could true love be the one thing that wedding coordinator Faith McKenna didn’t plan for? (978-1-62639-954-9)

  Sidebar by Carsen Taite. Judge Camille Avery and her clerk, attorney West Fallon, agree on little except their mutual attraction, but can their relationship and their careers survive a headline-grabbing case? (978-1-62639-752-1)

  Sweet Boy and Wild One by T. L. Hayes. When Rachel Cole meets soulful singer Bobby Layton at an open mic, she is immediately in thrall. What she soon discovers will rock her world in ways she never imagined. (978-1-62639-963-1)

  To Be Determined by Mardi Alexander and Laurie Eichler. Charlie Dickerson escapes her life in the US to rescue Australian wildlife with Pip Atkins, but can they save each other? (978-1-62639-946-4)

  True Colors by Yolanda Wallace. Blogger Robby Rawlins plans to use First Daughter Taylor Crenshaw to get ahead, but she never planned on falling in love with her in the process. (978-1-62639-927-3)

  Heart Stop by Radclyffe. Two women, one with a damaged body, the other a damaged spirit, challenge each other to dare to live again. (978-1-62639-899-3)

  Undercover Affairs by Julie Blair. Searching for stolen documents crucial to U.S. security, CIA agent Rett Spenser confronts lies, deceit, and unexpected romance as she investigates art gallery owner Shannon Kent. (978-1-62639-905-1)

 

 

  Radclyffe, Always Next Summer

 

 

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