Chain Lightning (19 page)

“Sutter?“

Mandy’s voice was husky, barely a breath in the silence as she watched him with eyes that were as warm and clear as the golden light. There was no shyness in her now, only a very female appreciation of the man who was cherishing her with his hands.

“Mmm?“

“There isn’t any living coral on the beach, and probably none between the tide lines, as well.“

“Probably,“ he agreed.

Mandy’s breath caught as Sutter kissed the most sensitive area of her arch with unerring accuracy. Involuntarily her toes curled. Sutter smiled and touched her arch with the tip of his tongue, drawing a small sound from her lips.

“Sutter?“

“Mmm,“ he said, biting Mandy’s sensitive skin very carefully, feeling her foot flex in helpless response, “I’m beginning to think the foot fetishists have a point.“

Smiling, feeling laughter and desire shimmering through her body, Mandy watched light and shadow flow over Sutter as he caressed her foot.

“Of course,“ he murmured, circling her slender ankle with one hand, “ankle fetishists aren’t all crazy, either.“

Strong teeth closed just above Mandy’s heel, making her gasp at the unexpected sensations rushing up her leg. Sutter kissed the tiny indentations his teeth had left, caressed her with his tongue and fingertips and moved farther up her leg.

“Have you ever heard of a calf fetishist?“ Sutter asked, kneading the resilient muscle in question with his strong hands.

“No,“ admitted Mandy, sighing with pleasure, “but don’t let that stop you.“

He smiled and bent lower, rubbing his cheek against her calf. Involuntarily she closed her eyes, caught by the sensuous feel of his cheek’s sandpaper masculinity against her soft skin. When the tip of his tongue found and traced the sensitive nerve that went down her shin, she drew in her breath with a soft, rushing sound. When he retraced the passage with his teeth, she felt as though she were coming unraveled.

“Knees…“ Sutter began in a husky voice.

“Are ticklish!“ Mandy gasped.

“Sensitive,“ he amended, caressing her with a touch firm enough not to tickle. “Very sensitive,“ he added, “especially here.“

A soft, ragged sound was Mandy’s only answer. Until that moment she hadn’t guessed that the back of her knee had so many nerve endings, and that they were connected to so many interesting places on her body.

“But,“ Sutter continued in his deep voice, “I’ve never known of a knee fetishist, have you?“

Mandy tried to answer, felt the sultry heat of Sutter’s tongue behind her other knee and flexed her leg in sensual response.

“Probably no man is really into knees,“ Sutter said, running the back of his fingers over the soft flesh he had just kissed, “because by the time a man gets up to a woman’s knees, he’s so close to some truly beguiling territory that he can’t help skimping the knees and going on to higher things. Such as…“

Mandy half closed her eyes and shivered visibly as Sutter trailed his fingertips up her inner thighs. Her quickening breaths were a soft, almost secret sound in the tent’s intimate silence. Hearing the sensual catches and quivers in her breathing with each of his caresses made Sutter want to shout in masculine triumph and at the same time to cherish Mandy with utmost tenderness. Watching his touch take her from blushing shyness to uninhibited lover aroused him fiercely. Slowly he bent his head and kissed the warm skin his fingertips had been stroking.

Mandy’s eyelids closed as she simultaneously felt the heat of Sutter’s mouth on the inside of one thigh and the silky brush of his hair against the other. He rubbed his cheek over the inside of each thigh, letting her feel the soft, exciting rasp of beard stubble, then soothed her with his tongue, teased with his teeth, feasted on her warmth while her soft cries lapped around him like the rising, moon-drawn sea.

After a time Sutter’s teeth closed on Mandy not quite gently and his mouth sucked hard on her tender flesh for an instant; yet the cry that was torn from her lips came from a lightning stroke of pleasure rather than from pain.

He turned his head and gave another measured, fierce caress to her other thigh, smiling as he heard her pleasure and felt it in the heat of her skin. He smoothed his hands repeatedly over her slender, rounded thighs from inner knee to the sea-damp warmth of the bikini between her legs and back again.

“Yes,“ Sutter murmured, looking at the long, shapely legs and the alluring shadow between, stroking Mandy’s thighs with a subtle pressure that spread them farther apart. “It’s easy to understand why a man would become a thigh fetishist. Especially with you. You have such lovely legs, darling. But they’re only the beginning….“

With a sense of spinning anticipation, Mandy waited to feel Sutter’s gentle hands caressing the softness that ached for his touch. When she felt nothing more between her legs than the tropic warmth of the air in the tent, she opened her eyes slowly. Sutter was watching her, sharing her anticipation, smiling in a way that made sensual lightning shimmer in the pit of her stomach.

“Sutter?“ she whispered.

“Read my mind, golden eyes,“ he said huskily, bending down to her.

Sutter’s tongue probed teasingly beneath the tie on one hip, then traced the edge of the damp cloth across the top of the triangle that lay between her legs. At the same time his hands caressed her legs, holding her captive as though he were afraid that her shyness would suddenly return.

Shyness was the last thing in Mandy’s mind. After the first glittering instant she was lost. Every hot, wet glide of his tongue over her skin, the hard edges of his teeth biting through cloth, his breath mingling with her own warmth, everything about the moment combined to hold her in delicious captivity, enthralled by a slow, heated sensuality that dissolved her bones, leaving her wholly at the mercy of the man who so clearly was enjoying her.

With a final, loving rake of his teeth over cloth, Sutter became impatient with even the bikini’s minimal restrictions. Long fingers unfastened both bows and slowly peeled the damp cloth away from her, leaving nothing between Mandy and himself but the hot rush of his breath as he bent down to her once more. The first touch of his tongue surprised a ragged cry from Mandy’s lips, a cry that soon fragmented into whimpers as he pursued the sweet secrets he had uncovered, his big hands holding her for his slow, sultry explorations. When he lovingly teased the sensitive nub he had aroused, her back arched helplessly. Heat flushed through her suddenly, almost frighteningly.

“Damon.“

His answer was the exquisite restraint of his teeth holding Mandy captive for the kind of loving he had never given and she had never imagined. She shivered repeatedly, echoing the lightning strokes of pleasure stabbing through her, each stroke hotter and brighter, driving her higher, heat and pleasure so intense she would have screamed if Sutter’s elemental male sensuality hadn’t taken from her even the ability to breathe. Something burst deep inside her, dragging a hoarse cry from her throat in the instant before ecstasy convulsed her, waves of molten pleasure sleeting through her with each of his hot, consuming caresses until she could take no more.

Reluctantly Sutter lifted his head slightly, releasing Mandy’s violently sensitive flesh. He whispered soft, loving words as he brushed his cheek against the musky triangle of her hair, trembling even as she did in the aftermath of her sensual storm, whispering her name, holding her hips between his strong hands, nuzzling her incredibly delicate flesh, giving her slow, gentle caresses until he felt tension rising in her again.

Smiling, shuddering with the leashed wildness of his own body, Sutter bent to Mandy once more, stroking her, loving her with a gentle intensity that drew sweet shivers from her. With each of his sultry caresses her breathing and heartbeat quickened, sending heat streaming out from the pit of her stomach once more, giving her skin the sheen and taste of passion. His hands flexed until his fingertips sank into her thighs, holding her utterly captive. He felt her fingers thrusting into his hair, her nails flexing against his scalp as she shivered within his loving grasp.

The thought of thrusting himself into the center of Mandy’s gathering storm dragged a thick groan from Sutter. He was on fire for her, hard and thick to the point of agony, needing her until it was tearing him apart; but he didn’t want to take her just yet. The consuming sensuality he had discovered within her and himself was too new, too hot, too elemental for him to bring to an end. There had been no woman for him like Mandy, and he sensed at some deep level of his mind that there never would be one like her for him again. Whatever he didn’t know or do or feel or be with her right now might never happen for him at all.

Mandy moaned as she felt the shivering forerunners of intense consummation surge through her again and again, drawn by Sutter’s exquisite caresses. She called his name in a broken sigh and was answered by the hot perfection of his mouth and the sweet power of his hands holding her helpless. A wave of pleasure ripped through her, followed by another and then another, matching the primal masculine sensuality of the lover who was bringing her closer and closer to the kind of passionate discovery she wasn’t sure she could survive.

“Stop,“ Mandy cried finally, her voice hoarse, low, shattered. “It’s too much…I can’t bear any more!“

“Not even this?“ Sutter murmured, caressing the velvet bud of her passion.

Her answer was a tiny, ecstatic convulsion that stripped away his restraint. With a thick cry he knelt between her legs and fitted himself to her, feeling the hot, slick perfection of her cling to him as he sank deeply into her. He held himself utterly still, every muscle in his body rigid with restraint as he absorbed the wild shivering of her body, heard the breathless cries of her ecstasy, drank the sensations of her climax into himself, feeding on her satin fire.

And then, when the last of her cries faded, he began to move within her.

Mandy’s eyes opened, dazed, golden. Disbelief and searing pleasure exploded through her violently sensitized body. The sweet friction of Sutter within her brought with it a ravishing heat that grew greater with every motion of the man who filled her so completely, so perfectly.

Sutter’s eyes were a blaze of green, watching her as he moved, his body advancing and retreating in ancient, always new rhythms. Looking at him, utterly lost to him, she moaned and convulsed softly around him with each measured penetration, each slow withdrawal, each motion a new revelation as her body learned that rapture had no beginning and no end, existing beyond place, beyond time. She was in the fiery, luminous center of ecstasy and it was in her very core, and there was nothing left of reality but the man whose body had become part of her own.

“Damon?“ she gasped, frightened.

“Love me, Mandy,“ he said hoarsely, bending down to join their mouths as deeply as he had joined their bodies. ‘
‘Love me.’’

Mandy tasted herself and the sea and Sutter all at once, felt him driving into her even as her hips strained upward to claim him, to hold him fiercely inside her, all of him. He arched into her again and again, each time harder, deeper, and he felt the sweet violence take her, racking her with pleasure at each powerful stroke of his body until she wept and called out his name with every broken breath. Suddenly she gave a raw cry and went rigid, transfixed by unbearable pleasure. Her satin convulsions ripped the world away from Sutter. He knew nothing but the hot, intense pulses of completion pouring endlessly from him until he could bear no more…and then he tasted her tears and his own while chain lightning pulsed between then-joined bodies once again, a rapture so fierce he had no choice but to give himself to it and to the woman who had become part of him in the free-fall through fiery oblivion.

Morning had filled the tent with a soundless tide of light, illuminating every shadowed comer. Sutter looked across the tent at Mandy’s relaxed, sleeping body concealed by the sheet he had pulled over her a few minutes before to prevent himself from stroking her into wakefulness and passion once again. With a silent, searing curse he looked away from her and pulled on his clammy swimsuit. He had been awake for half an hour, cursing Anthea’s meddling and his own baffling lack of self-control, wishing that he could change what he had done, knowing that he couldn’t, wondering how he would prevent himself from making the same mistake all over again as long as Mandy was within reach.

Sutter knew that no decent man would have taken advantage of a frightened woman who had turned to him for help, and that knowledge sent self-contempt twisting within him. But nothing was as painful as the visceral certainty that he would do it all again if he were offered the least excuse. In the bleak light of day he knew he would have killed or died to be inside her once again. She was a sweet, honeyed fire and he was a man who had discovered yesterday that he had lived his life in darkness and bitter cold.

He didn’t know how long he would feel as he did about Mandy; he only knew that while he felt this way he must have her. Yet she wasn’t the type of woman who slept with a man casually. He had known that before he touched her, yet he had seduced her anyway. Being the kind of woman she was, she would have to call what had happened between them last night “love,“ and then he would feel an even more ruthless predator than he already did.

Mandy stirred, seeking the powerful body of the man who had held her through the long night, coming to her for the last time just before dawn set the sky ablaze. Her moving hand met only emptiness. There was no one next to her on the single mattress.

“Love?“ she asked sleepily. “Where are you?“

Sutter closed his eyes against the pain of the first word she spoke.

“Mandy,“ he said, “we’ve got to talk.“

She woke up instantly. Sutter’s voice was too low, too tight, almost harsh. It belonged to a different man than the one who had taught her the torrid, consuming, unspeakably beautiful ecstasy a man and a woman could share with each other. There was no teasing lilt in Sutter’s tone that morning, no husky hunger, no hoarse delight, nothing but… anger?

Mandy’s eyes focused on Sutter. His mouth was tight, flat, and his eyes were opaque. He looked even more angry than he sounded.

“Do you always wake up in a good mood,“ she asked, “or is this a special effort on my behalf?“

Sutter shot Mandy a sideways glance out of bleak green eyes as he kicked into his sandals.

“Will coffee improve your mood?“ she continued.

“Mandy – “ he began grimly, wanting to get it over with.

“I thought so,“ she interrupted, sighing. “Waking up vicious is genetic, you know.“

“Like stupidity?“ he retorted. “Like doing my part and then some when it comes to paving the road to hell with good intentions?“

Mandy closed her eyes, knowing she wasn’t going to like what would happen next, and knowing that didn’t matter; it would happen, willy-nilly, whether her eyes were closed or wide open. Her long lashes lifted as she rolled onto her side to confront Sutter, the man she had stupidly fallen in love with.

The man who clearly wasn’t thrilled to have become her lover.

“I can’t vouch for my intentions,“ Mandy said neutrally, “but when it comes to sheer stupidity, I can hold up my end of any paving operation.“

As Sutter looked into Mandy’s luminous golden eyes he felt a shaft of regret and something much stronger, much deeper, raw need twisting through his guts. The realization that he wanted her again both baffled and angered him. He shouldn’t want a woman at all. Not after last night. He had barely been able to drag himself out of bed a few minutes ago. Yet when he looked at Mandy’s slender, bare shoulders and the black bikini bottom thrown carelessly onto the floor of the tent, he felt passion’s white-hot claws raking his loins into readiness, torrents of blood pouring through him, hardening him in a single wild rush.

“I came to Lady Elliot Island to go scuba diving, not to seduce a frightened innocent,“ Sutter said harshly, as much to himself as to Mandy.

“Congratulations. You’ve achieved the first and avoided the second.“

“Mandy – “

“So relax,“ she continued, ignoring Sutter’s attempt to speak. “Divorcees are hardly classified among the world’s innocents, and the fact that my husband died before I could divorce him is a mere technicality.“

Sutter’s head snapped up. He hadn’t known that Mandy’s husband was dead. He wanted to say something, to ask questions, to find out more about the woman who destroyed his steel self-control with such baffling ease. But she was talking quickly, not allowing him to speak, as though she were afraid of what he would say.

“As for diving, have at it,“ Mandy continued. “I don’t expect you to drop everything and build shell castles on the beach with me just because we’re lovers. I can amuse myself quite nicely during the day. I’ve been doing it for years.“

“So have I. At night, as well as during the day.“

Mandy flinched, telling Sutter of her vulnerability. He swore explosively, knowing he was making a hash of what should have been a simple, adult explanation of what had happened last night and why it couldn’t happen again.

“Look, Mandy, I’m sorry about last night. I only meant to calm you down and give you a little comfort after Ray scared you, but once I started touching you…“ Sutter made an oddly helpless gesture with one big hand. “It’s my fault. I lost control, I took advantage of you, and I feel guilty as hell about it. It never should have happened. It won’t happen again.“

Mandy’s mouth drew into a thin line as she understood what Sutter was saying: he had made love to her out of pity not desire, and now he regretted it.

“Save your guilt for one of your many worthy causes,“ she said in a voice that was too calm. “We aren’t the first adults in creation to have a one-night stand and we won’t be the last.“

“That wasn’t a one-night stand and you know it!“

“You’re so right,“ she retorted. “We did it every way
but
standing.“

Even as Mandy spoke she was swamped beneath a flood of sensual memories – Sutter’s eyes a passionate green blaze, his hands and mouth and body touching her exquisitely, drawing from her depths an untamed sensuality she had never imagined to be part of her, showing her an ecstasy whose sweet aftershocks still echoed through her memories.

With memories came the realization that no matter why Sutter had made love to her, he had given far more than he had taken. He deserved better from her than the cutting edge of her dismay that he had found less to enjoy than she had.

After a moment Mandy found the strength to turn back toward Sutter. Her barb had indeed gone into its target; the bleak lines on Sutter’s face were deeper and his mouth had flattened as though he were in pain. He hissed a curse between his clenched teeth when he met her eyes.

“Sorry,“ Mandy said, keeping her voice neutral as she lay back and closed her eyes. “I guess I’m not at my best in the morning, either. In any case, there’s not a damn thing for you to feel guilty about. Before last night I often wondered what all the hoopla between the sexes was about. Now I know. So accept my profound gratitude, forget your guilt and go diving with a squeaky-clean conscience.“

For a long moment Sutter stared at Mandy, silently willing her to explain what she meant; but she neither spoke nor opened her eyes. She looked tired, fragile, far too tightly strung. Guilt coiled coldly in his stomach. He should never have touched her. She had needed reassurance last night, not sex.

We did it every way but standing.

Sutter winced as Mandy’s words echoed painfully in his mind. “Please don’t think less of yourself,“ he said, his voice gentling. “What happened was my fault, not yours. You were too frightened to act rationally. I wasn’t.“

“Hold it. Let me get this straight,“ Mandy said, trying to curb her tongue and her rising anger at the same time. She doubted that she was being successful. The knowledge that her night of love had been Sutter’s night of pity was simply too bitter to wholly conceal or absorb. “Are you saying that last night I was in the same category as one of the children you’re saving the world for?“

“If you had been a child, last night never would have gone beyond comfort,“ Sutter said keeping his voice calm with an effort.

“Comfort,“ Mandy repeated bleakly. “Ah, Sutter, what a diplomat you’ve become. The word you’re too polite to say is pity.“

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,“ he retorted, feeling his uncertain grip on his temper slipping away.

“Wrong. It was precisely what you meant.“

Sutter closed his eyes, unable to watch Mandy’s unhappiness any longer, knowing that his own lack of control had caused it. “What I meant was simply that I knew you weren’t a woman for casual affairs but I took you anyway. My fault, not yours. I knew what I was doing. You didn’t.“

Mandy flinched again. “Sorry my technique wasn’t up to yours.“

“Damn it!“ exploded Sutter. “Stop taking my words and twisting them! All I’m trying to say is that I don’t think any less of you for what happened last night and you shouldn’t think any less of yourself, either!“

“Save your pity for the children of the world. They need it. All I need is a few hours of sleep.“

“Mandy – “

She interrupted without hesitation. “You’d better hurry, Sutter, or you’ll miss the dive boat.“

“Mandy, listen to me. It wasn’t your – “

“No! You listen to me, D. M. Sutter,“ she said, slicing across his words as she came up on one elbow to confront him, ignoring the sheet that slid off her bare breasts. “I don’t want your pity. I had one hell of a good time last night. I’m sorry you didn’t, but when it comes to sex, one out of two ain’t bad. It’s sure better than my husband and I ever managed!“

“What the hell are you talking about?“

“Read my lips. You have nothing to feel guilty about. Not… one… thing.“

“Oh, sure,“ Sutter agreed caustically, his fists clenched on his lean hips. “I carry a hysterical woman off into the night and seduce her repeatedly, but I have nothing to feel guilty about the next morning when she wants to talk about love and I know there’s not a damn thing to talk about but white-hot sex!“

A moment of quivering silence was followed by another and then another.

Finally Mandy spoke very softly. “There’s a whole ocean waiting out there for you, Sutter. Go soak your white-hot rooster in it.“

It was several hours before Mandy got out of bed. Sutter hadn’t returned. Nor had she expected him to. She pulled on a white bikini and left the tent. Someone had found her sandals and placed them neatly next to the path. She kicked into them and went to the shower.

By the time she emerged she felt more in control of herself. At least she wasn’t blushing every time she saw the faint bruises on her thighs and remembered how she had gotten the loving marks. Now if she could just stop her breath from unraveling and her bones from going soft every time images from last night surfaced in her memory, she might be able to get through today. As for tonight…

One thing at a time. Right now it’s food. Then it’s the Fish Pond. Then it’s…

One thing at a time.

Mandy kept lecturing herself because it was preferable to having her mind revolve around what had happened the previous night. Every time she thought of what it had been like to be Sutter’s lover she would stumble or drop something or stand as still as a coral lump in the lagoon. The only thing that saved her from embarrassing herself was the fact that nearly everyone else was out diving on the reef, trying to beat the storm that was surely brewing within the towering clouds.

With a determined set to her mouth, Mandy walked up to the Fish Pond. Crusts of bread stuck out every which way from her clenched fingers. The fish, which had been on short rations since the Townehome kids had left, came to meet her in a glittering wave. Deliberately she walked into the water up to her knees before she knelt down and thrust her fists beneath the surface of the warm lagoon.

“All right, you little beggars. Come and get it.“

Mandy’s voice was strained almost to breaking and her heart was hammering much too hard, shaking her, adrenaline pouring through her in a tidal wave of irrational fright. The warm, crystalline water just barely reached her hips. She knew that all she had to do was stand up and the water would only reach to her knees once more. She was as safe as though she were standing on the beach.

And that was where she desperately wanted to be.

But first you feed the fish,
Mandy told herself, clenching her teeth until her jaw ached.
What are you afraid of anyway? You were in deeper than this with Sutter last night and you barely noticed. Hell, you were in way over your head with Sutter and fear was the last thing that crossed your tiny little mind.

Little fish darted and feinted, but few came to eat from Mandy’s hands. She might have fooled herself about the depth of the water by kneeling, but the fish knew that the lagoon where Mandy waited was far too shallow to protect them from feathered predators. When Mandy finally admitted to herself what was holding back the fish, she came to her feet and walked forward until the water slid up her thighs to her hips and then beyond, not stopping until she was waist-deep in the lagoon’s liquid embrace.

For the first few minutes her hands were so tightly clenched that no bread oozed out between her fingers. Fish swept around her in flashing clouds, secure in the deeper water and driven wild by the scent of withheld food. When her initial burst of fear finally ebbed, Mandy drew a slow, ragged breath and forced her fingers to relax. She was rewarded by a swirling, nibbling mass of reef fish skimming over her fingers. Within moments her hands were empty of all but the tactile memory of tiny mouths vacuuming her palms.