Jennifer Greene - Sunburst

“Mmm?”

He was exhausted, she knew that; it was the worst of times to bring up anything that mattered. Still, she couldn’t quite let it go. “When you were talking to Morgan,” she asked tentatively, “what did you mean? What was the promise you made to your father?”

“It doesn’t matter, Erica.”

But it did-to her. Leaning back in the shadows, she waited. Kyle shifted restlessly against the pillows. “My father told me the McCrery name meant nothing to me,” he said neutrally. “He died lonely, because of my pride. I misjudged him badly over the years…”

She shook her head violently, though he couldn’t see the gesture in the darkness. “Kyle, you were good to him,” she protested. “I know you lived far away, but that…just happens. You called; you always saw that he was cared for; you sent him money. Morgan told me once that you even built this house; you were in school, working three jobs, and he thought you were crazy to come back up here that summer… And you stayed with him that whole month before he died-”

“I left the minute I was eighteen and never really came back. I knew I was all he had. He knew how I felt; he told me so before he died. The respect of one man for another-I never had it for him, and I was wrong. But I didn’t know how much it mattered that he didn’t have it for me.”

“I don’t understand,” Erica said, her voice growing angry. “Kyle, I don’t have to understand. He was wrong.” She slipped the dress over her head impatiently. She shivered a little, but the cool night air was like silk on her skin. Moonlight brushed the delicate lines of her collarbone and shoulders, her long, slim thighs. Her mind was racing, trying to find the right words to say to Kyle, trying to understand how and why his feelings for his father had so painfully changed him from the man she had married.

Her hair fell in a slow-sweeping red-gold arc as she bent to remove her panties. When she straightened, her entire profile was illuminated, her skin tinged with the satin sheen of moonlight. “Listen,” she began.

He was out of bed, moving up behind her. He pulled her back against his chest, nuzzling her hair back with his chin so he could kiss the hollow in her shoulder. “We can’t have you standing in that window, love. Anyone passing by would undoubtedly have an accident. The look of you-that natural sensual grace of yours-could well cause a five-car pile-up.” His lips dipping for her shoulders again, he added gravely, “We can’t have that on your conscience.”

She remembered that low, vibrant tone of his all too well; her heart instinctively changed beats. She felt warmer suddenly, in a way she hadn’t felt warm for weeks, loving the feel of his calloused hands on the smooth skin of her stomach. “There’s never anyone out here at this hour. Except,” she qualified, “raccoons.” There were two tiny beacons that could have been raccoon eyes in the distance, bright pinpricks behind a giant oak.

“They’ll have to go. This is my view,” he asserted, and she chuckled, turning in his arms to face him.

He was naked. It seemed a century since she’d felt free simply to run her hands over his arms, over the smooth contours of his shoulders. “It never occurred to me that you might be jealous of raccoons,” she remarked innocently. “Do you have the same mistrust of foxes? Squirrels?”

He took a nip of the tender skin of her neck. “I’m jealous of the air that touches you, Erica. A well-kept secret.” His voice was so low she could barely hear it. His weariness seemed to have disappeared. The vibrant sheen in his eyes caressed her as intimately as his hands.

She hadn’t forgotten what they had been discussing; it mattered too much…yet she closed her eyes for a second at his seductive touch, savoring the sweet rush of heat in her limbs. This was Kyle again, not the stranger whose distant manner so frightened her. She craved his warmth, hungered for closeness, yet she wanted a mating of more than bodies. “Kyle…”

He pushed her gently toward the bed. The sheets felt oddly cool against her warmed skin. “Don’t talk.” He leaned over her, smoothing back her hair, stealing the pillow away from her head so she lay flat and vulnerable. His lips brushed hers fleetingly, his thumb tenderly caressing her cheek. “No more talk,” he whispered fiercely. “I know your loyalty, Erica. God, I never meant to drag you into this.” His mouth suddenly claimed hers, with a searing pressure of urgency and hunger. “When I first met you, you were like sunlight in a very dark world,” he murmured. “You’ve never changed, not for me. Sunlight and softness, elusive and fragile; I wanted to protect you, shelter you, in a way you can’t possibly understand. I need you as I need breath…”

“Kyle…” It wasn’t his words so much as the desperate intensity she sensed behind them. It was the words he wasn’t saying, didn’t know how to say; she felt frightened suddenly. As if he were talking about something that was irretrievably lost already… Fiercely, his lips settled on hers again, stifling the words she needed to say, and in spite of herself she felt a quiver of longing run through her like quicksilver. He was part of the night, her Kyle, part of every sensual dream she had ever had. Suddenly, it only made sense to reach out, to cleave to him, to try to bridge the distance between them at a level more basic than talk.

His eyes burned down to hers in the darkness in a way that made her tremble inside. He shifted still closer, pinning her with the solid weight of his thigh as the feather-light touch of his fingers skimmed over the delicate line of her collarbone. Then his head bent, his teeth nipping at her soft neck with a roughness that teased, his palm sweeping down the length of her, taking in breast and stomach and thigh. He knew her well. The contrast of rough and soft, gentle and fierce, ignited the most primitive needs, unleashed the kaleidoscope of fantasies secreted within her. Her mind spun in sweet, fierce splendor as she reached for him.

His hand clasped hers before she could touch him. “Let me. Just let me,” he murmured. In a light hold, he pinned her wrists above her head with one hand. His lips parted hers, his tongue stealing inside first to taste and savor, then to drain her special private flavor. She felt her blood race, a delicious sense of helplessness flooding through her that was potently erotic. His free hand teased at that forced submissiveness, pirating down slowly to knead one pillow-soft breast until it swelled and the peak firmed and hardened for him, pouting when his palm deserted it to move down her ribs, then lower.

The late hour, the long day of work, the tension he’d worn all day like an extra layer of clothes…he was in no hurry. For long moments, he seemed mesmerized by the play of moonlight on her skin, by the hollows and shadows the night created. Then his palm smoothed over the flat satin of her stomach and down to her thigh, so slowly that a whispery shudder seemed to take over her whole body. She longed to touch as well as be touched. She could feel his arousal throbbing against her thigh, could hear the change in his breathing. To share was to love, and he’d taught her all about that; passivity no longer pleased her. Desperately, she wanted to give as well as take, and her hands twisted…

His wrist tightened on them. “This one’s for you…”

“No,” she whispered. “For us. Please, Kyle…”

Again his mouth covered hers, drowning her words and her senses. Petal-soft, his fingertips grazed the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, his touch as tantalizingly light as his kiss was possessively firm. His lips gradually relinquished hers, only to trail lazy kisses down her throat and neck. Restlessly, she tossed her head from side to side as his mouth settled hungrily on one breast. His tongue lapped over and over until the nipple peaked and ached; she could feel her hands curl into fists above her head. “Kyle…”