Sunny Chandler's Return (16 page)

“Oh, God, you’re wonderful,” he murmured. “Someday I’ll taste your milk.”

Sunny gasped, first at the startling thing he’d said, then at the sudden pain of his entering her. But she clung to him tightly, lifting her hips off the bed to greet him.

“You’re so small.” His breath was a gentle wind in her ear.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

Their mouths met in an ardent kiss as he pressed deeper. When the kiss ended, he was gazing down at her. His eyes were deeply blue and very gentle. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you, Sunny?”

Lying about it would be ridiculous when the proof was undeniably hindering his entrance. “Technically.”

“That’s the only way that counts.”

“I don’t know why you should be surprised,” she said with asperity. “You heard the rumors that I’d never gone all the way.”

He grinned. “Mind you, I’m not complaining.”

“You’re not?”

His eyes shone with a fierce light as he withdrew. “No.”

“Then what are you ... ? Don’t stop, Ty.”

“I’m not,” he assured her, affectionately running his hand over her hair, her cheek. “I’m just going to make it easier for both of us.”

He gave her exposed breast a fond kiss, then lightly fanned his thumb over the wet nipple while his mouth moved to her bare stomach. One deep, damp kiss after another was planted in the erotically fertile softness of her belly. He playfully nipped at the lace trim on her satin garter belt and blew against the crinkly blond down.

Then he lowered his head between her thighs. His hair tickled the supersensitive skin. He pressed his mouth against her. It was open, warm, giving.

Sunny clutched handfuls of his hair. Her head thrashed upon the pillow. Her feet were arched to a ballerina’s point. She followed the groove of his spine with her toes, the gold chain around her ankle dancing along his skin.

They were unimaginable, these tidal waves of sensation that originated at the tip of his nimble tongue and rippled through her entire body to the very furthest extremity of her soul. When they gained enough impetus to engulf her, she rode them with ageless undulating motions. They came upon her as rhythmically as heat waves rose out of the ground in the summertime and were just as shimmering.

By the time she collected her scattered sensibilities, Ty was fully imbedded inside her, stretching her accommodating body. In fact, it was greedy and squeezed him higher inside her than he had anticipated going.

He grunted his pleasure. “Don’t let me hurt you, sweetheart.”

“You won’t.”

“Can you feel that?”

He moved. Sunny sucked in her breath sharply, not in pain but with renewed passion. “Yes.”

“Hurt?”

“No, no.”

“Feel good?”

“Yes.”

“Should I do it again?”

“Yes, again. Yes, Ty, yes ...”

“Cold? Want me to pull the sheet up?”

“No.” Sunny sighed contentedly.

Lying naked in Ty’s embrace was so splendid that she didn’t want either of them to move for a very long time. Eternity, perhaps. He had finished undressing her with such tender care that it seemed incongruous with the hot glow of desire that was still burning in his blue eyes.

“You’ve got goose bumps.”

“That’s because that tickles.”

“What? This?” He trailed his fingers down her side again, from beneath her arm to her waist. She giggled and broke out in another case of cold chills. “Sorry, but I like the side effects too much to stop.”

“The side effects?” she asked. He touched the rosy, pointed tip of her breast. Sunny moaned with pleasure. “Hmm, yes, the side effects are wonderful.”

“There are marks on them. Was I too rough? Did my beard scratch?”

“Yes, and it was delicious.” Her grin was that of a very naughty girl.

Ty continued to fondle her, immensely pleased that she afforded him the access to her body that he craved. She made no pretense of being modest. Their nakedness seemed to delight, not distress, her. She hadn’t rushed from the bed to wash right after their lovemaking. Instead she had curled up against him like the affectionate, sensual woman he had always known she would be.

Now, propped up against the wall behind him and gazing down at her head where it rested on his stomach, Ty spread her hair out over his middle, rearranging the curls frequently, knowing that it would be impossible to discover a finer form of entertainment.

This languid aftermath to lovemaking was new to him. Even with his wife sex had always been a culmination, an ending, not a beginning. Not so with Sunny. He knew that when, eventually, they would have to leave the bed, he would do so with tremendous regret.

“Why didn’t you ever sleep with Don, Sunny?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“No.”

“So?”

“I’m curious.”

She ran her fingers through the soft body hair that grew toward the satiny stripe which bisected his stomach. “I wanted to. He thought we should wait.”

Ty’s laugh was unkind and unflattering to the other man. “I don’t wonder. He was afraid he couldn’t measure up.”

Impishly, she touched the part of him that was now taking a well-earned rest. “I didn’t know until now that the saying had a literal application.”

Ty winced with pleasure, but continued with his train of thought. “He wasn’t the man for you and he knew it. He didn’t want you to find it out until after he had married you. You were what he wanted, but everything that attracted him to you also scared him.”

She leaned her head back and looked up at him. “Am I so scary?”

“You would be to a man who’s afraid to call your bluff.”

She gave him a dirty look, but replaced her head in his lap. “If you’re so expert on the whys and wherefores of marriage, why haven’t you tried it again?”

“I never found the right woman.”

“Latham Green has a limited selection. The city would have afforded you more choices.”

“But I couldn’t stay in the city.”

She heard the change in his voice. The words were spoken with clipped emphasis. They were harshly, bitterly spoken. Sunny hated to disrupt the mellow mood, but she wanted to know what haunted him. He had helped her unlock her own emotions, to correctly label them and deal with them. Maybe she could help him in the same way.

“What happened, Ty?”

“I left.”

“But why? Tell me.”

She felt the muscles beneath her head contract as he wrestled with his decision. Finally his stomach muscles relaxed and he began talking.

“My partner and I, who was also my best friend, were put on this top-level case. Security was high. Very few people knew about it.

“We understood from the beginning that it was a dangerous assignment. We were to smoke out the leaders of a dope ring, who were suspected to be within the department itself.”

Sunny soothingly strummed his thigh with her fingertips. He was still tense, and she knew what an effort it was for him to talk about this painful episode in his life. Yet she felt that it was a catharsis he needed.

“Our investigation went on for months. One night my partner called me at home. He was excited. A paid informer had given him some news that wouldn’t keep. I agreed to meet him in a coffee shop. We were careful not to discuss anything over the phone. There was always a chance that our quarry was on to us.”

He fell silent. Several moments passed. Sunny could feel his fingers moving through her hair, otherwise she might have thought he had fallen asleep; he was lying that still.

“Apparently they were,” he said. “My partner hailed me from across the coffee-shop parking lot as soon as I pulled in. I went toward him.” His voice cracked. “The first bullet hit him right between the eyes. Then the others, one right after the other, slamming into him—”

“Don’t, Ty.” Sunny turned her face into his stomach, pressing it into the hair-dappled skin. Her arms went around his waist and hugged him tight. “Don’t think about it anymore. I’m sorry I asked you.”

“No. I’ve needed to talk about it for a long time.” He drew in several deep breaths. “After he was murdered, I doubled my efforts to find the bastards who were responsible.” He snorted a bitter laugh. “The main culprit ended up being the head of the Vice department, the very one who had sent us out to crack the case.”

Sunny made a sympathetic sound. “What happened?”

“I nailed him. He’s serving time. They couldn’t pin my partner’s murder on him, so he got away with that. They offered me his job.”

“Why didn’t you take it?”

“I didn’t want it. I was sick of it all. Sick of the administrators who would just as soon have slapped his hands and said ‘No-no,’ than have the department’s corruption exposed.” He heaved a sigh. “So I left and came here, where I might still do some good.”

“You’re a man of integrity.”

“Or a fool.”

She looked up at him with unwavering, unqualified admiration. “A man of integrity.”

“Thanks.”

She kissed the pink scar in his side. “They tried to kill you, too, didn’t they?”

“Yeah. The same night they shot my partner.”

“And that’s when your wife left you?”

“She issued me an ultimatum. If I went back on the case, she would leave me.” He stroked the top of Sunny’s head. “I couldn’t just walk away and leave it unfinished. I had to get to the bottom of it.”

“Why didn’t you bring her here with you when it was all over?”

He tugged on one of Sunny’s curls. “By then I realized we weren’t right for each other under any circumstances.” His eyes danced with teasing lights. “She wasn’t as hot as you are.”

She started to protest but changed her mind and smiled seductively. “I haven’t even warmed up yet.”

She lowered her lips to his stomach and dusted it with airy kisses. The smell of his skin was intoxicating and she longed to taste it. Her tongue touched him tentatively, then became so ambitious that it left the whorls of dark gold hair damp.

“Sunny,” Ty ground out. His hands slid beneath her hair and loosely clasped her head. He allowed it freedom to move from spot to spot. There was only a slight tensing of his fingers against her scalp when she lowered her head to his thighs. She kissed them. Then between them. And her lips stayed until his need was desperate.

“No, Sunny,” he said raggedly when she moved to straddle his lap. “I’m too hard. I’ll hurt you.”

Shaking her head no, she slowly lowered herself upon him.

Lying face-to-face with her in blissful lassitude several minutes later, Ty pushed the damp curls off her cheeks. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said softly.

“You didn’t like it?”

“You know better. But you could have hurt yourself.”

“I was having too good a time to notice any discomfort.” She kissed his lips softly. “While we’re remonstrating, you shouldn’t have done what you did, either.”

“Putting my finger there?”

She blushed. “I went a little mad, didn’t I?”

“Yes, and it was beautiful.” He pondered her face as though seeing it for the first time. “
You
are beautiful, Sunny.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t mean it lightly. And I’m not just talking about the way you look. It should be obvious to you by now that I like the way you look very much.” He traced the shape of her chin with his finger. “But I also like and admire the person you are.”

Sunny’s eyes misted with tears. “You do?”

“Very much,” he whispered. Then he cocked his head to one side. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

“I might.”

“No crying allowed in my bed. Guess I’ll have to think up something to divert you.”

He was extremely gifted at creating diversions.

Ten

Sunny woke up before Ty did. She came awake slowly, deliciously, with a Sunday morning languor that brought a smile to her lips even before she opened her eyes.

Slanting beams of sunlight were striping the hardwood floor. Dust motes filled the room like fairy dust. Outside, birds were chirping happily. Sunny could believe that this perfect morning was the continuation of a fantasy were it not for the man lying beside her.

He was breathing deeply and evenly. She lay there, listening to his breathing and loving the masculine, snuffling sound of it. She basked in the heat his long, hard body radiated. They were curled together like two kittens. Her cheek was resting against his ribs. His fingers were ensnared in her hair.

From now on, for every day of her life that she didn’t wake up beside Ty Beaumont, she would miss this feeling of oneness.

The thought of living without him was a dismal one.

Three years ago she had thought she was dying of a broken heart when she escaped to New Orleans. Now, she realized she had only been suffering from shattered pride. Leaving today, leaving Ty,
that
would be heart-breaking.

She loved him.

And she was angry at him over it. The arrogant, aggravating cad had made her fall in love with him.

She moved her head just enough to enable her to look into his sleeping face. In spite of herself she smiled. He was breathing through his mouth; his lips were slightly parted. Her tummy fluttered with remembrance of all the pleasure those lips were capable of giving her.

Was that all she felt for him, sexual infatuation?

She answered the question before it was completely formed in her mind. No, it wasn’t just sexual attraction. She liked his sense of humor, though at times over the past week, his laughter had been at her expense. She liked his sense of fair play and his innate kindness.

He was sensitive. Last night he’d been a big brother before he’d been a lover because he had intuitively known that’s what she had needed. She appreciated the confidence he showed in her skill as a businesswoman. He didn’t scoff at her ideas. He wasn’t condescending. He offered advice, but didn’t preach.

She admired him for picking up his own life after it had fallen apart. Faced with political corruption, he hadn’t turned his head and looked the other way, though the temptation to do so must have been great. Against incredible odds and without a single ally, he had withstood adversity until he had seen justice done. He was a man of integrity and high moral character. He held himself accountable for his own mistakes and didn’t pass the blame to someone else. He was certainly a man worthy of love.

Between him and Don Jenkins there was no comparison.

Sunny knew that if she lay beside him much longer, she would touch him, and touching him, as she knew from experience, led to making love. She didn’t want to make love right now. She needed time to sort out her feelings, to think, evaluate, plan.

Without rousing him, she slid from the bed and crossed the room on tiptoe. She dressed quickly and quietly in a pair of shorts and a loose cotton top and silently left the room. Ty was still sleeping.

Going into the bright living room, Sunny hugged herself, barely able to contain the happiness that bubbled like champagne inside her. She was in love! After years of loneliness and bitterness, she felt vitally, vibrantly alive.

But what was she going to do with this newfound love? Pack it with her other belongings and return to New Orleans? This was Sunday. Her week in Latham Green was officially over. She was free from obligation to stay.

But now, instead of looking forward to leaving, she was reluctant to. Didn’t her ambiguous feelings toward Ty Beaumont warrant at least another week of testing? Surely. However, she’d made such a point about leaving on Sunday that he would wonder why she had suddenly changed her mind. And out of sheer cussedness, she wasn’t about to be the first one to broach the subject of love.

Deep in thought as to what excuse she could use for staying, she wandered out to the front porch. Maybe she could say that her parents had asked her to oversee some renovations on the cabin. Or maybe—

A case of Wild Turkey was sitting on the second step.

Warm as the morning was, Sunny went cold at the sight of it. She stared down at the case of bourbon as though it were the most repulsive thing she’d ever seen. Something hideous. Foul. Too vile to look at.

That bastard!

At some imprecise moment in time, she had reached the conclusion that there had never been a bet between him and George Henderson. She had decided the wager was just Ty’s clever excuse to keep pestering her until he had indeed gotten into her bed.

To discover now that there
had
been a wager, and that it
had
been taken seriously by both parties, was almost as shattering as finding Don in bed with Gretchen.

When had Ty claimed his victory? When he finally went to close the front door they had negligently left standing open? Had he crept to the telephone and placed a gloating phone call to George then? While she was lying in bed, stretching in languid sublimity over what had already happened and in anticipation of what was yet to come, had he telephoned George and heckled him about being the loser?

Her heart was tearing in two, but Sunny stubbornly refused to let her stinging tears of humiliation and disillusionment fall. Barefoot, she stamped back through the house and into the dim kitchen. She yanked drawers open, noisily rattling their utilitarian contents as she searched through them, then slamming them closed when she didn’t find what she was looking for.

When she did, she stalked back out to the porch and bent over the heavy cardboard carton. Dangerously wielding the screwdriver, she pried the industrial staples out of the cardboard, then tore into the box.

The first bottle of whiskey to be hurled at the wall of the house made a racket as loud as a blast of dynamite in the quiet morning peacefulness. Glass flew everywhere. Whiskey splattered everywhere. The aroma was pungent.

Sunny, far from satisfied, didn’t stop with that one. In quick succession she broke three more bottles. She was furious over being deceived again, and even angrier at her own naïveté. After shattering four bottles, she paused for breath, her chest billowing in and out from exertion and rage.

“If this is how you intend to wake me up every morning, we’re off to a rocky beginning.”

She spun around at the sound of his voice. Ty was leaning on the doorjamb, ankles crossed, one shoulder propped against the bare wood. He was wearing only his briefs and they rode low on his narrow hips. His hair was adorably tousled. The lower part of his face was smudged with whiskers. She could barely see his eyes because he was squinting against the bright sunlight and his brows were pulled down into a deep frown.

“You’ve got your nerve,” she ground out, “to even show your face to me.”

“How come?”

She spread her arms wide to encompass the case of whiskey and the fragrant mess she’d made. “This is all last night meant to you, isn’t it?”

His scowl deepened. He shook his head with what appeared to be disgust, then said, “I’m gonna make some coffee.”

A second later Sunny was staring at the gaping front door.

Her temper exploded. How dare he turn and walk away when she hadn’t even begun to tell him how contemptible she thought he was! She strode into the kitchen. Ty was measuring coffee into the metal basket of the percolator. While she stood there fuming, he filled it with water, then struck a match and held it to the gas burner. Only when he was satisfied that the flame was right did he turn and look at her inquiringly.

“Get out of my house.”

“Sunny,” he said on a long-suffering sigh as he leaned against the draining board and folded his arms over his naked chest, “let me give you a lesson in morning-after etiquette. The least you can do to repay a man who gave you seven orgasms—or was it eight? It’s hard to tell with a woman as lusty as you—anyway, the least you can offer me in return this morning is a cup of coffee.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“You didn’t seem to think so last night,” he said blandly. “And just for the record book, last night had
everything
to do with you and me and
nothing
to do with my bet with George.”

“Isn’t that why you slept with me?”

“No.”

“Then how do you explain that case of Wild Turkey on my front porch?” She made an arrow out of her arm and accusingly pointed toward the front of the house.

“I can’t. I don’t know how George found out I was here. Maybe he saw me leave the church driving like a madman, followed me out here, and drew his own conclusions.”

“Or maybe once you’d scored, you sneaked out of bed and came in here to call him.”

Ty balefully stared at her for several seconds, then turned his back to take a coffee mug out of the cabinet. Finally, the coffee was ready. Only after he had poured his coffee and taken several scalding sips did he look at her again. “I didn’t.”

“I don’t know that.”

“Well, you should. You had your hands on me practically all night.” His eyelids lowered sexily. “And what you usually had a hold of I could hardly take out of your clutches without both of us noticing.”

Her cheeks filled with color and heat. She lowered her gaze, floundering for something to say. She could feel herself rapidly losing ground and didn’t know how to get it back.

“Well, it’s over and done with anyway. You won your bet. My week here is up. As soon as my
guest,
” she stressed scathingly, “finishes his coffee, I’m leaving for home.”

“For New Orleans?”

“Where else?”

“And go back to what?”

“What do you mean by that?” She was immediately on the defensive.

“Back to all those lovers that never existed?”

She had no response to that, so she avoided addressing it at all. “Back to my career.”

“A career you could just as easily handle from here.” Ty set his empty cup down. “All you’ll be going back to is your self-imposed loneliness. You exiled yourself from everything that was familiar and dear to you because you didn’t have the guts to stay and face what is so evidently clear.”

“That my fiancé chose my bridesmaid over me!”

“No, that you chose the wrong man to begin with. You didn’t want to admit to everybody that your judgment had been so far off.”

“After what happened, I didn’t have any choice but to leave.”

“You had plenty of choices!” he shouted. “For one, you could have stayed and married Jenkins. For another, you could have exposed him and Gretchen instead of taking the rap yourself.”

“I loved him too much for that,” she fired back. She knew it wasn’t true; Ty knew it wasn’t true. But she wanted to provoke him.

It didn’t work. “That’s crap, Sunny,” he said mildly. “Just like it’s crap that your parents left here because of your disgrace.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I talked to Fran. She said your dad was offered a fantastic job in Jackson. Their leaving here had nothing to do with you. But you chose to believe it did to justify your own leaving. For the benefit of everybody in Latham Green, you’ve painted yourself as being an independent career girl with a string of lovers and a devil-take-tomorrow attitude. You started believing in that false image yourself.

“But we both know that woman doesn’t exist. That isn’t the life you want. When you left here, you weren’t running
toward
something. You were running
away
. And if you leave today, that’s what you’ll be doing again.”

Sunny was so angry she was rocking back and forth slightly. “Take your half-baked psychology and go straight to hell, Sheriff Beaumont. I can’t wait to get back to New Orleans. I’m leaving as soon as you dress and get out of here.”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug, “leave. But I’ll only come after you.”

“What for?”

He moved forward and didn’t stop until he was toe to toe with her. “Because I want you. I must be crazy, but I do. I’ve wanted you since I first saw you eating those damn strawberries. Last night you proved to be the woman I had guessed you were, the woman I’ve needed and wanted for a long time.”

“Well, I hope you enjoyed me because that’s the last chance you’ll ever get.”

He laughed. “Far from it, Sunny. You can run off today, but I’ll just chase you down. Remember when I told you that Jenkins was the greater fool for letting you walk through the church door? Well, I’m not Jenkins. I’m gonna stay hot on your saucy little tail until you’re in my life, in my house, and in my bed for good.”

For a moment Sunny was speechless. “You actually think I would live with you? Here in Latham Green?”

“Husbands and wives usually, not always of course, but usually, live together.”

“Husbands and—you think I’m going to marry you?”

He grinned confidently. “Not think. Know.”

“You
are
crazy.”

“I’m afraid you’re right. Most men wouldn’t want a firebrand like you around, but I kinda like the excitement. I’ve been with many women, not a single one of whom has ever gotten me out of bed by flooding the front porch with Wild Turkey,” he said, laughing.