Sunburst (11 page)

He shifted just a little, his palm lazily teasing the length of her, over breast and down to the smooth silk of her flat stomach, to the slim roundness of her hip, to the long expanse of her thigh. She could feel the helplessness invade her like sweet heat in her bloodstream.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he murmured.

“Pardon?”

“Do you want me to stop, Erica?” he asked gravely.

She heard that somber note in his voice. Her eyes flickered open. His were just above her, full of the very devil. He knew exactly what he was doing to her.

“Let’s discuss it…in a little while,” she suggested, just as gravely. “Like nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

He smiled, his touch softening, his hand gently combing her hair. “Erica. If you really…” he said seriously.

He deserved a little of his own medicine. Her fingers inched up to his chest, to his broad neck, to the silky thickness of his hair. Gradually, her hands found their way back down again, taking in the long slope of his shoulders, the way his supple flesh lent itself to kneading in her hands. She loved his skin. She loved the way his body responded to her simplest touch. She loved the way he was made, his thighs as taut as iron, his hips so narrow, the spirals of hair covering his chest. She knew exactly what to do to send this man over the edge, and she loved doing it.

Something changed along the way. Kyle had never been happy unless he was active. His hand found its way to the soft skin of her inner thighs, fingers seeking secrets, finding them. His mouth covered hers and didn’t let go. She found herself holding on, off-balance, her breathing hard and erratic; she had the sensation of being halfway through a roller coaster ride where the next slope was dizzyingly in sight. It was forever before he ended that kiss, something started in exquisite tenderness blending with a fierce erotic pressure that demanded her response. Demanded…yet coaxed.

Gradually, his mouth left hers again, and his palm slid back up the length of her, a fingertip smoothing her bruised lips, which his own had just left. “I really don’t think you want to do this,” he murmured huskily. “You wouldn’t have been sleeping alone if you wanted to do this…”

She reached up to silence him with her lips on his. Finally releasing his mouth, she said, “You said something disgustingly similar the first night I woke up next to you.”

“You were a virgin.” He nibbled at her neck. “God knows how you had maintained that status.” He nibbled at the other side of her neck. “Actually, it scared the hell out of me.”

“You never told me that.”

“What if I had hurt you? The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you, sweet. I just wanted to make love to you. Twenty-four hours a day.”

“You did,” she commented idly, loving his smile. But he didn’t really mean that smile. They were both trying to prolong a pleasure that could have erupted too easily and been lost. Part of the sweetness of marriage was knowing each other that way, and that well. There was a time for a fifteen-minute love session, and a time for lovemaking that took hours. “Kyle…”

She didn’t want to wait for hours. She wanted him at that moment more than life. He shifted over her, crushing her swollen breasts to his chest. Her hands were feverish up and down his back, the longing an insistent rhythm, a bittersweet anguish of need. His skin was so warm, both familiar and brand-new, his arousal like fire between them.

For one last instant, he drew back to look at her. The teasing in his eyes had been replaced by an intensity that burned as he surveyed the restless color in her cheeks, the luminous gold in her eyes, the moonlight burnishing a gold on the cream of her skin. For a moment, they were both still, and Erica felt a shiver that trembled all through her. Suddenly she was unsure. They both knew what was to happen; it wasn’t that. It was the sudden fierce possessiveness in his eyes, a need so stark it seemed almost desperate… Instinctively, she reached up to touch his cheek in the darkness. “Kyle, you didn’t force me here. I wanted to be here, with you…like this.”

“God, I need you. I don’t know how to tell you, Erica…”

There was no more play, no more languid, sensual climb. The urge was to join, a mutually primitive drive as basic as breath…as love. Their mating was how she had always understood their marriage at core. He was the stronger, with powers distinctly male, his control dominant and deliberate in love as it was in life…but it was when he lost his control that Erica burst inside.

She complemented him perfectly. Her powers were distinctly feminine. She could cloak his strength inside her softness, take his fierce drive within her. She gave him everything; it was her nature. She drew from him his strength, his power, his control, his protection. Her trust was total, and had been from the beginning; she felt cherished in his keeping, which was the reason he was able to take her so high, the reason she felt freed in loving…

He brought tears to her eyes, a cry from her lips…and then he simply held her, their bodies still joined, their hearts beating in the same triumphant rhythm, gradually slowing at the same pace.

The night finally settled silence on both of them. Erica’s cheek rested on his shoulder, her limbs were entwined with his, and the cool sheet cocooned them in a private world. Kyle slept. She thought again, her eyes wide open in the darkness, that their mating was their marriage. Their lovemaking had always worked; at the worst of times, other emotions had intruded, but he had never failed to demand—and receive—the most from her, knowing her secrets. A woman’s body was created with secrets, none of which she could keep and be a woman. That he understood, and she understood, too, that her loving him was right, so enmeshed in her nature that it was as instinctive as desire, as wanting and needing and breathing.

It would not just…smash. If there was really so much terribly wrong with their marriage, their loving should not have worked. It made no sense. Kyle’s touch was loving, had never failed to be loving through their whole crisis together. She held on to that long into the night.

It was just past three. Erica could not remember a Wednesday so quiet. Kyle had sent the men home, this time for good. Whatever still had to be finished on the new building they could do themselves. An hour before there had been shouts of congratulations and satisfaction, and then sounds of engines starting as the men left.

Now there was no one but herself, not even a sign of Morgan or Kyle. Erica had grown so accustomed to the sounds made by hammers and saws and power tools that the quiet seemed strange. She’d stood in the doorway for an age watching the men take off in their trucks. They were mostly college students. It wasn’t a town that had an abundance of summer employment for school kids, beyond those whose parents needed them on their own farms. They had been a good group. They had complained loudly that Kyle was a slave driver, and he had complained loudly that they didn’t know a nail from a screwdriver, which they had vigorously and in detail protested when Erica was not supposed to be within hearing range.

She’d offered to make lunch for the entire group more than once, but they’d preferred to cart their girlfriends to the site, eating sandwiches sprawled on the grass, preferably as nearly naked as possible. They worked the same way, though she guessed the heat wave was not so much a factor as their vanity. They wanted to get the darkest tan possible to impress the girls. On the job, though, they had caved under to Kyle, put their all into the work, and what good-natured complaints had been shouted did not take away from the essential respect they had shown him.

He’d earned that. She’d never seen him fail to earn the respect of the people he worked with, but the kids were still something special. They were amateurs, and they made mistakes, but Kyle had developed a sense of pride in them as they learned. It was
their
building; she knew they felt that way as she walked toward it now. The anticipation and frenetic pace of weeks had finally peaked.

Lord, she was proud of him.

The lemon sun shimmered on the new windowpanes, on the rough grayish siding that blended right into the wooded area beyond. Kyle had known exactly what he wanted and had done it, and the new building was a fine, tasteful structure that still had the scent of newness to it, the stuff of which dreams are made. She opened the door, imagining a customer doing it, imagining a hundred customers doing it. Teak and mahogany, catalpa and pine, oak, of course, even wicker from willows… First, the customer would see finished products, from sculptures to cabinets, each fashioned from the wood that most suited its form and function.

A compact, well-lit office was just beyond. Erica walked through, imagining the finished floor where there were only bare boards now, seeing in her mind’s eye displays on the walls where there was nothing yet, imagining samples of wood, the unique tools of the trade… Her sandals clicked on the floor as she walked through.

Kyle was standing at the very back of the building, staring out the window with his hands on his hips and his head high. He turned when he heard her footstep. There was no smile on his face, but a look of satisfaction was in his eyes. The moment’s triumph and his dreams were emblazoned there. She caught her breath when he so naturally reached out his hand for her.

She covered the last few steps with a radiant smile and took his hand.

“You see my lumberyard, don’t you? That’ll be part of it, in the long run.” He pointed out the window. There was, of course, nothing there. A cleared space where a good-sized truck could back in to unload supplies. The drive was gravel, not asphalt yet. A rather scruffy stand of poplars was beyond that, and then a nice little stand of oak, hickory and maple.

“I see it.”

“It’s so damned big it cuts out my view of the woods,” he complained.

She reached up to hug him, long and hard, and then moved away quickly, not wanting anything that was between them to spoil his moment of dreams.

Both men were in the backyard when she came out with a tray of lemonade at four-thirty. They were both lying back in lounge chairs, half in shade, half in sun, both stripped down to cutoff jeans and bare feet. Both claimed they were moving nowhere for the rest of the day, but they energetically hooted down her lemonade in favor of something alcoholic.

She returned a few minutes later with a second tray, bearing glasses and a full pitcher of celebratory screwdrivers, more vodka than orange juice, and again faced the two stretched-out figures who refused even to open their eyes. “Will this suit?” She pressed an ice-cold glass directly to Kyle’s stomach. He groaned just as Morgan did with similar treatment. “Do you think you can rouse enough energy to drink it? I mean, you’ll actually have to raise your heads,” she said with mock sympathy.

“Sit down and relax, General,” Morgan ordered.

“Actually…” Her eye rested on a monarch butterfly as it flitted gracefully through the yard. Then on Kyle, who had been so relaxed with her today that she felt the delicious urge to pounce on him, liberated hormones like tantrums in her bloodstream. Then she looked at Morgan, whose eyes had slitted open just enough to take in the snug white shorts she wore, and the bright yellow top that showed every curve. Quickly, her eyes skimmed away from Morgan to rosebushes she had been trying to grow. She had planted some delicate white flowers, whose name eluded her for the moment, as well. The scent of the white flowers came out only at night, an overpowering perfume next to the window. Then her glance flickered back to Kyle again, to the way his jeans fit over his thighs, to his smooth forehead with its boyish shock of black hair, to his fine Irish nose and the broad bones in his cheeks, to his dark eyebrows so shaggy that they shaded his eyes in sunlight. As if he knew she was watching him, Kyle suddenly opened his eyes, a startling turquoise next to his tanned skin. To her dying day, those eyes would evoke bedrooms. She glanced deliberately back to the garden. “Actually, I think I’ll do a turn at those weeds in the garden…”

Morgan groaned. “Where did you
get
her?” he complained to Kyle.

“Where did I get her?” Kyle echoed lazily, and leaned back with his arms behind his head, eyes closed. “I picked her up at a third and seventeen in the fourth quarter of a Cotton Bowl game. Literally. Surrounding her was the cream of the freshman class, the female portion, all dressed to the teeth and demurely chugging their sterling flasks. Not Erica. She was standing on the bench shouting her head off. Do you have any rope?”

Morgan denied it. “There might be some in the shop.”

“Too far to move, unfortunately. We could have tied her to the chair. Erica, just
see
if you can manage to sit still for a full fifteen minutes. You might even decide it feels good for a change. As I was saying…”

She threw a look of mock disgust at both of them. After a moment, she poured herself a screwdriver and flopped obediently into a lounge chair between them. It was so poignantly reminiscent of other times, when there were no troubled waters, no ships floundering. She would have stood on her head to ensure that nothing marred this day for Kyle, feeling the simplest pleasure at just seeing him being lazy and…easy. Leaning back, she closed her eyes.

“Some drunk was trying to get past her, and Erica didn’t see him. She was too busy shouting down to the coach, telling him how to run his team—”

“Kyle,” she scolded absently. Morgan was already chuckling. God knew why. He had heard the story a thousand times before.

“I was just passing, but I’d stopped at the rail to watch that critical play before I went back to my seat—which, you may remember, Shane, I worked night and day to pay for, and it was still nowhere
near
the fifty-yard line where Erica and her upper-crust friends were sitting. Anyway, the next thing I know she’s flying off the seat—”

“Gross exaggeration,” Erica murmured.

“There’s no point in interrupting,” Morgan scolded wryly.

“No one else,”
Kyle said loudly, “seemed to know what to do with her. I mean, what
do
you do with a girl who seems to be upside down in the middle of the stadium where the rest of the crowd—even the drunks—are right-side up and screaming… One of the classic pass interceptions in football history, and I missed it. In fact, I missed the entire rest of the game.
Someone
had to sponge her off. Half the sterling flasks in the crowd had contributed a dribble or two on her way down. She had a bump on her forehead the size of a goose egg—”

“Have you noticed how the size of that bump grows from year to year?” Morgan muttered in an aside to Erica.

“…smelled like a liquor factory, had a run in her stockings and was so hoarse from all her solo cheerleading that she could barely croak for the next two hours. I had to carry her fireman-style to the first-aid station…”

“
Why
did you have to get him started?” Erica demanded plaintively to Morgan.

She should not have sat down. There had been too many weeks of almost nonstop work; now her limbs felt glued to the lounge. She felt cradled in, cocooned both by simple tiredness and by the memories Kyle was invoking. She could so easily close her eyes and see the Kyle McCrery of nine years ago, wickedly attractive, looking far too old for her at first glance, and very definitely a total stranger. He had not carried her fireman-style, but he might as well have, ignoring her hoarse objections as he hustled her through the crowds, burrowed her into a little room she would never have guessed existed, and brushed the first-aid attendant’s administrations aside in favor of his own. He had made her lie down on the cot and told her to close her eyes. Then he had gently placed a damp cloth on the bump on her forehead, and suddenly he was unbuttoning her beautiful aquamarine suit, and her eyes had opened as wide as saucers.

“The front of your suit was all damp. I was just trying to…” She hadn’t believed him then, and she didn’t now, but he had buttoned the suit up again…for a time. They were both students at the University of South Florida in Tampa, so it was not all that surprising they had found their way to the Cotton Bowl at the same time. What was surprising was how fast it all happened. At the time, in that little first-aid station, she was mortified at being such a mess and exasperated at missing the game…and completely captivated by those Irish blue eyes, so possessive on hers. She knew in every virginal bone exactly what he had in mind…

“She’s asleep,” Morgan said quietly.

“She’s exhausted.”

“She’s lost weight; there are hollows under her eyes, and she’s been trying to work until she drops, McCrery. Naturally, she’s exhausted.”

But she didn’t hear Morgan’s low digs, couldn’t hear the subtle note in his voice that had dug under Kyle’s skin over and over, didn’t see the look on Kyle’s face, the sudden tension. She was replaying that moment in the past, dreaming it over and over again. The suit had been a favorite but too warm for the day; she had worn no blouse, only a silky little camisole beneath it that hugged every womanly curve. Someone
had
spilled whisky on the lapel; the scent
was
strong; it was not inconceivable that Kyle had unbuttoned her jacket only to sponge it off. Nor would a little silk camisole have shocked a fast-moving man like Kyle McCrery; she owned bikinis that showed a great deal more of her. But the feeling was there, that instant. The feeling that her innocence was laid bare to him, and Kyle told her with his eyes that he was claiming that innocence. She recalled that delicious sense of fear and anticipation in her mind, remembering the silent little speech she had delivered to herself, that there was no excuse for naiveté in this life, that rockets didn’t really go off…

A shotgun exploded, and then another and another. Erica’s eyes flew open. The other two lounge chairs creaked as Kyle and Morgan launched themselves out of them and took off at a dead run for the new building. There was another volley of gunshots and then a crazy, raucous hooting of horns—car horns, truck horns, hunters’ duck horns, whistles, cat calls—so absurdly grating on the ears that Erica covered hers as she started running, too. She had in mind bombs, robbers, terrorists…

Suddenly, she saw Martha Calhoun coming toward her. Erica could hear Martha’s laughter even above all the other noises. “Come
on!
” she exhorted with a wild motioning of her hands.

“What on
earth
is going on?” There were people everywhere suddenly: the boys Kyle had hired and their girlfriends, their parents, Martha’s family, vaguely remembered faces like Mr. Hendriks from the grocery and the mailman, a Mrs. Polanataz who had brought them a cake the day they had moved here, neighbors and customers… Fireworks were being set off in the yard, and the new building was still surrounded by men with guns. None of the people were empty-handed; they were carting everything from packaged potato chips to homemade potato salad. One pickup truck had been backed up to the front door of the new building and clearly held a keg of beer, the bed of the truck dripping with ice blocks to keep it cold. Kyle and Morgan were already there, laughing, their heads thrown back—and a roar of approval went up when they enthusiastically downed the first paper cupful of beer. Kyle caught sight of her and motioned her to his side, but it just wasn’t that easy to get through the people in an instant.

Martha grabbed Erica’s arm and hugged her with excitement, shouting at the top of her lungs for her son to keep away from the beer. “It’s a belling,” she announced. “An old German custom—though, as you know, I haven’t a drop of German blood, but then the Irish were never ones to be prejudiced where a party was concerned. The idea is a surprise welcome to the newcomers in a neighborhood, usually honeymooners. Oh, well, I had to twist the rules a bit in other ways, too. A belling’s supposed to take place after dark, but Leonard has to be back for the milking by seven. And it’s hardly your first day in the neighborhood, but we thought that new building needed a christening and maybe we just all needed an excuse to support you two. Anyway, if you can picture how it’s supposed to be—the husband-to-be with his virgin bride; he’s finally got the lights out and her clothes off, and all of a sudden there’s an explosion of noise, and they’re expected to come down pronto, entertain perhaps fifty people who all bring food and drinks and are prepared to keep the couple from…uh…”