Sunburst

Chapter 10

A single lamp burned in the living room when Erica opened the front door. The clock over the refrigerator told her it was eleven; the movie had been over long before ten. She glanced around seeking Kyle, but the room was empty.

For a moment, she was grateful. Her hands were trembling as she hung up her raincoat, something she wouldn’t have wanted Kyle to see. It was stupid, really. Morgan had obviously never intended to make a pass, and the entire way home he had talked of nothing but friendship…

She wandered to the bathroom and picked up a brush. The wind had tousled her hair and turned her cheeks to coral, adding a sensual blush to her features. All she really noticed were her eyes, huge and topaz, and as skittish as those of a doe caught in a hunter’s spotlight. It was that damned lonely road. It wasn’t the embrace, but the unshakable feeling that Morgan had manipulated her onto that isolated country road.

Which was absolutely ridiculous.

Restlessly crossing her arms under her breasts, she paced the living room for a few minutes. She wanted Kyle. Her head seemed to have jammed into reverse, because she couldn’t seem to care that they had argued or that she was the one who had cut off communication; she just wanted to be with him. Her heart kept beating like a ticker tape, adrenaline pumped through her veins as if she had something to be afraid of when she knew she didn’t. She paused by the window and saw a single beacon of light from a window of the old shop.

Shivering in the damp night air, Erica nearly raced across the yard. Branches sent down a spattering of rain on her hair and cheeks, and the darkness offered a number of obstacles to stumble over. Breathlessly, she opened the door to the old shop and hurriedly made her way toward that beacon of light in the back. Ghosts were on her tail, the kind of ghosts she’d had when she was seven on a very black night, and no amount of mature self-scolding seemed to chase them away. The adrenaline pump refused to slow down until she was actually standing in the doorway looking at Kyle. As if someone had slipped her a shot of brandy, she miraculously relaxed.

Kyle was bending over the wood lathe, tiny specks of wood shooting into the air around him as he worked with a familiar tense concentration. For a moment, she leaned back against the door and simply watched, loving the look of the man. She could swear Kyle’s energy flowed into the material he worked with. A thick, short, ordinary plank was stuck on the lathe; under his fingers the shape gradually took on a purity and grace of line… The machine stopped abruptly. Kyle wiped his hands absently on his jeans, and though he couldn’t possibly have heard her, he suddenly whirled around. Those turquoise eyes she loved fastened hard on hers, wary, tense, a shock of dark hair curling onto his forehead.

“Kyle?” she started hesitantly. “If I’m interrupting you…”

He shook his head, wiping his hands with a rag. He was staring at her, taking in that slight breathlessness, that whiplash of sensual swirl to her hair, her shivering form without a coat. “I didn’t hear the car come in.”

She thought he must have. If not heard, then seen; the car lights would have shone directly in the shop’s windows above his head. “I went into the house, but when you weren’t there… If you’re in the middle of something-”

“I was in the middle of working off a hell of a lot of mental wars, sweet.” He took a breath and suddenly smiled at her, the brusque tension leaving his face. “Which I no longer seem to have, thanks to the look of you. Come on over here and check this out. In fact, you can finish it, if you want to…”

“You mean work with the lathe?” She’d never touched it before, always terrified she would destroy something he was working on.

“I know you’ve been curious. There’s no reason you can’t fool around with it any time you want to.”

“Of course there is. Look, Kyle, in the eighth grade, on the aptitude tests for mechanical ability, I scored in the third percentile.”

Chuckling, he nudged her in front of him, explaining the slow-turning wheels. His hands followed hers as she gradually began to understand the rhythm and motion of the machine, fascinated. “What is this perfectly beautiful thing we’re creating?” she asked whimsically.

He chuckled again. “One perfectly symmetrical, uniquely crafted-” his hand smoothed her hair back to get closer as her hand slipped “-absolutely useless vase. It won’t even hold water. Not the point, though, sweet. The point is just getting the chance to work with a piece of catalpa, not exactly a common wood. I could tell you why a woodworker loves it in terms of its physical properties, but much more to the point-” he nudged her hand a second time “-is that catalpa is that big old kind of tree that bursts out with clusters of flower in the spring. They call them bridal bouquets…”

“Kyle!” she said a few minutes later. She was entranced as he took the vase off the lathe and held it up to the light. It was perfect, all thin, delicate fluted edges and intricately swirling grain. Well. Almost perfect, except where her hand had slipped twice.

“This is art,” she informed him impishly. “And you only get partial credit, Mr. McCrery.”

His eyes were dancing at her obvious pride. “Now don’t get all disappointed if it sits lopsided on a table.”

“It wouldn’t dare.” In a flash, she darted out the back door, and returned a few moments later with a handful of dandelions. “Just stop that,” she scolded Kyle, who had started laughing.

“Stop what? I always thought dandelions were classier than roses.”

She arched one intimidating eyebrow. “This vase is too classy for a rose.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Erica?” He turned away to do a quick cleanup around the lathe, and then switched out the light. “I’m glad you came home,” he said quietly.

She smiled curiously. “Of course I came home.”

They walked to the door. For a moment, Erica thought he was going to swing an arm around her shoulder, something he would automatically have done before they had started tearing each other apart with their arguments. He didn’t, but their eyes met that instant in the darkness, evocative somehow of the tension they both felt, a tension neither wanted to feel with the other. Yet for that short time working together, she had so easily forgotten…

“Of course you came home,” he echoed lightly, “and can I take it as an ‘of course’ that you still want to go away for a few days, Erica?”

She’d put the proposed vacation completely out of her mind. No, she didn’t want to go. She knew exactly how it would be, an idyll like their afternoon in the wheat field, destroyed hours later when he turned cold. Like the laughter when they’d climbed the tree at Martha’s, like the fun they’d just had in the shop. The smallest incidents recycled massive feelings of love for him, and then she was stuck on the downward swing of the yo-yo. No. Insanity would be kinder. “Convince me to go,” were the words that came from her mouth, which was obviously on another wavelength entirely.

“That may not be easy,” he said wryly. “I’m afraid Roman ruins and lush Corfu beaches aren’t exactly an option, Mrs. McCrery…” He talked on as they walked the leafy path back to the house and inside. When they were in the kitchen, he got out two wineglasses and poured the Pinot Noir she liked, leaning back against the counter. “Thursday’s the earliest we could take off, after the roof’s done. I had the Upper Peninsula in mind, Erica. If we rented a little two-seater Cessna, we could be in Newberry in four hours, where we could rent a Jeep. The kind of fancy entertainment I had in mind would start there.”

“In Newberry,” she said blankly, already starting to smile.

“In Newberry,” he echoed. “At the town dump.” He waved away her giggles with a mock scowl. “You think I’m not serious. Now most people think it’s only a little town with an airport, an unusually boring little country town. Not so. The bears all come down from the woods at night to raid their dump, you see, and the whole town brings popcorn and tries for ringside seats… Now that is an option,” he said gravely, “but to tell the truth I had in mind getting out of Newberry as fast as the speed limit will allow.”

She laughed again, taking a sip of wine. “Now wait just a minute-”

“Close by is Tahquamenon Falls. Deep forest country, the falls cascading down from sheer rock cliffs. You’d like that, Erica,” he coaxed gently, his voice a very soft, low baritone. “That’s Hiawatha land, where he supposedly built his birchbark canoe. Then up to Whitefish Point. You’ve heard Morgan and me talk a thousand times about ships that were lost on the Great Lakes. In college, we planned to become millionaires by retrieving some of the treasures that were sunk and never found there. We spent part of one summer scuba diving for treasures, practically living on the forty-foot sailboat that Morgan managed to talk his parents out of…”

He took a sip of wine, talking of ships. The Great Lakes were full of them, carrying the rich resources of the neighboring shores-iron ore and copper, lumber, furs and later, passengers and steel. The viciousness of sudden storms was legend on the lakes…so many lost and never heard of again. “If I had a map, you could see Whitefish Point. You could see how easily a ship might desperately try to hug the shore on a stormy night, be misled and end up smashed…but still, that’s not exactly where I want to take you, Erica. No, the destination I have in mind is Vermilion.”

“Vermilion.” She rolled the word on her tongue. “Now I know I haven’t seen that one on a map.”

“Because it isn’t there,” Kyle agreed. “There isn’t even a paved road for miles. It’s just a deserted beach in the middle of nowhere…but once it was a Coast Guard station with a lighthouse and life-saving boats ready to aid a foundering ship. I swear you can imagine it when you’re there, Erica…”

She could picture it now. A dozen times, without consciously listening, she’d heard the men talk on the subject, yet now the image caught-the history, the ships, the deserted beach, the ghosts of storms past in a lonely place, sunsets and silence… She looked at Kyle. “Let’s pack,” she suggested teasingly.

“You really want to go, Erica? I’m talking about camping out, not a luxury vacation…” He put down his glass and strode forward to lace his arms around her neck, to nudge his forehead against hers. “Let’s see how it is with us there. Alone, Erica…”

In principle, she wanted to stiffen when he touched her. Passion would only cloud the unresolved issues between them, and she hadn’t forgotten how he’d rejected her love and loyalty. In the back of her rational mind, she knew Kyle still felt attraction…but she doubted his love. She’d had too many ups and downs; Kyle had too much power to hurt her. She’d meant what she told him a few nights before, that if he no longer felt love, she just wanted to be left alone.

That was in principle. Reality was the mood he’d spun with the image of the two of them alone on a deserted beach. Another reality was the fruity taste of the wine that lingered on his lips as they touched hers. Once. Twice. Like an alcoholic, she wanted more of that taste, denying its effect as an intoxicant. She could always pull back in a moment. She was thirsty, that was all.

They were both thirsty. It seemed like a year since she’d felt the touch of his fingers in her hair, roughly brushing back the red-gold strands, cradling her head. A century. His lips rubbed on hers, then his teeth grazed her lower lips. She seemed to have caught a fever. Her breasts were suddenly swollen and too warm, aching against his sinewy chest. Everything ached. Her knees felt too shaky to support her. Her throat arched as his kiss deepened. “Kyle…”

“Don’t tell me we don’t have this,” he whispered roughly. “You make your damn choices, Erica, but don’t ever forget what we do have. I told myself I would give you all the space you needed, but that just won’t work, sweet. I’ll be damned if I’ll ever spend another night like this one. Waiting, thinking…”

The pressure of his mouth hurt her. It was the most delicious hurt. Her limbs tightened in familiar anticipation and her heart slowed down to savor it. Her head registered his strange choice of words, striking a single swift, painful chord of fear; for that instant, she thought he meant waiting for her because of Morgan, because he guessed…but he couldn’t possibly have guessed what Morgan had done. It didn’t make sense.

The feel of his springy hair beneath her fingers made sense. She felt sad and frightened and a little angry that he could pull her in so helplessly…but his holding her made sense. He was the cause of trouble…and its solution. Her heart found that perfectly rational; her heart had responded exactly that way from the moment she met him. They were standing in the kitchen; it didn’t matter. Moonlight touched the hollows of his face through the open window; his eyes were indigo and soft and deep, hovering over hers as he pulled her closer. The more he touched, the more she felt like liquid inside, like a stream that wanted to flow in, through, all around him, drown forever the problems they could not seem to solve between them.

Before she could think, they were on their way upstairs. She was standing by the bed; his knuckles were grazing the sides of her breasts as he unbuttoned her blouse. The material fell away; before she could breathe, he had slid the straps of her bra off her shoulders, loosened the clasp. Moonlight cast a warm glow on her bare breasts…and then his hands covered them as he lowered her to the quilted bed.

In seconds, he had taken off his clothes, then he finished that job for her as he pulled off her jeans. She closed her eyes, feeling the weight of his body sliding down next to hers, feeling a little more of her sanity slip away. Soft kiss followed soft kiss. His lips finally deepened on hers, his tongue probing the inside of her mouth, talking to hers in that sweet, silent language of intimacy.

For an instant, he stopped and just looked at her. Turquoise eyes met topaz. And then his lips lowered again, hovering at the sensitive spot behind her ears before touching down again. Nape, neck, throat. She found her voice.

“Listen,” she said weakly.

“I’m listening.”

“This isn’t going to solve anything.”

“It certainly isn’t,” he agreed. He kneaded her breasts together so that he could kiss both of them at the same time, concentrating on the furrow he had created directly over her heartbeat. She was trying very hard to remember exactly why it was such a terrible idea that they make love… Because it clouded up everything else, that was it. Because he thought so little of her love and loyalty; because at core she believed he no longer loved her, because he had been trying to push her away. Because passion was a mockery without commitment…

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.