by Nan Ryan
Kay knew.
She knew who was calling Sam Shults at the Turn of the Century. Cold fingers curled tightly around the fluted wineglass, she smiled calmly when Sam Shults returned, looking sheepish and embarrassed.
“That was Sullivan on the phone.” He glanced first at Kay, then at his wife. “He can’t make it this evening. He’s terribly sorry, but it seems…”
Kay never heard the rest of the explanation. Sullivan wasn’t coming. He wasn’t coming because he did not want to see her. She was both relieved and disappointed.
This was going to be harder than she thought.
Sullivan Ward slowly replaced the receiver, set the phone aside and frantically tore at the perfect knot in his silk tie. He shrugged out of his expensive suit coat, wadded it up as though it were a shapeless sweatshirt and threw it across the room. It fluttered down the pine-covered wall into a dark, discarded heap on the gray carpet. The maroon tie followed the jacket.
Jaw set, eyes cold, Sullivan jerked furiously at the buttons of his white dress shirt, sending a couple of the small pearly disks flying. He lifted the toe of his left shoe to the heel of his right, pushing it from his foot. He repeated the action on the other. From the glass-topped table he took a half empty package of cigarettes and a gold lighter. He jammed a cigarette between tight lips, flicked the lighter and inhaled. Slowly he lowered the slim lighter and stared at the shiny gold. A thumb idly rubbed back and forth over the small script on the lighter’s smooth surface. “SUL” was all it said. No one but Kay Clark had ever been allowed to call him that.
The tiny gold lighter was hurled after the coat and tie. When it hit the pine wall, it made a resounding thud that sounded like a minor explosion in the quiet, twilight-bathed room.
Sullivan Ward felt the explosion in his aching heart.
Feelings bruised by Sullivan’s obvious desire to put off their imminent reunion for as long as possible, Kay said breezily, “I’m just as glad Sullivan can’t make it, gives me the chance to visit with you two.” She smiled warmly at a frowning, flustered Sam Shults.
Lips pursed, a hint of satisfaction in her tone, Betty Shults looked accusingly at her displeased husband. “I told you he wouldn’t show up, Sam. I knew darned well he’d—”
“Betty, Sullivan didn’t come because something unexpected came up and—”
“Oh, sure,” she said flippantly, “the president and the first lady dropped by for drinks just as he was walking out the door.” She smiled at Kay. “Or his closet caught fire and he could find nothing to wear.”
“That’s enough.” Sam gave her a scathing look. “Let’s eat.”
The food at the Turn of the Century had always been superb, but tonight Kay had to struggle to eat enough to keep from arousing the suspicion of the two hearty eaters seated across from her. While the Shultses successfully dismissed the absent Sullivan from their minds, it was not so easy for Kay. Telling herself that perhaps he did have some unavoidable business, she knew, deep down, that he decided at the last minute not to join them because he dreaded seeing her again.
Kay felt relieved when the evening was finally over and the Shultses had dropped her back at the Brown Palace, and sighed when she stepped inside the suite and locked the door. Feeling weary and wilted, Kay kicked off her shoes and eagerly unzipped her silk dress, letting it slide down her arms and over her hips. In seconds she’d completely stripped and stood under a pelting shower, eyes closed, face turned up to the pounding spray.
Yawning, Kay toweled herself dry, slipped on a pair of eggshell crepe pajamas, sat down on the edge of the turned-down bed and stretched her arms lazily in the air. Certain she was so exhausted from the long, tiring day that she would fall immediately asleep, Kay switched off the lamp on the bedside table and crawled in between the cool, ice-blue sheets.
She’d left the drapes at the window across the room open. Only transparent sheers of filmy white covered the tall plate glass. The big, cool suite was suffused with soft light streaming from the tall downtown skyscrapers and into the quiet privacy of this fifth-floor room. Everything in the well-appointed suite took on a soft, ethereal form.
Kay, alone in the big blue bed, let her gaze slide slowly around the room. The scent of roses wafted to her from the big bouquet on the bureau, the fragrance but one more reminder of that other fateful night she’d spent here. Then, too, there’d been roses, dozens of roses, all sent by Sullivan Ward.
Roses and champagne and Sullivan. Tears slowly slipping down her cheeks, Kay, as she had a thousand times over the past five years, again let time turn back. She was nineteen years old and she was in this very room. Soft lights washed over the bed and the scent of roses made her dizzy. The taste of champagne was on the heated lips that kept kissing her. A deep male voice, its timbre caressing, persuasive, had murmured passionate words into her ear. Warm, sure hands had glided tenderly over her trembling flesh.
It had been her last night in Denver. She was to depart very early the next morning for Los Angeles and the new position at one of the top radio stations there. Sullivan had taken her out to dinner on that last evening, a night of dry August heat and bright moonlight. She’d worn a cool cotton sundress, its sheered bodice hugging her braless curves, narrow straps going over her tanned shoulders to tie in a bow at the back of her neck. Her almost waist-length hair had been pulled into a casual shiny twist and pinned atop her head.
Sullivan, boyishly handsome in a white knit shirt straining across his chest and faded jeans, had honored her wish to dine on sausage pizza at a little Italian place up in the foothills of west Denver. They’d laughed throughout the meal, joking and teasing one another, both cautiously avoiding the subject of Kay’s impending move.
Long before midnight, Sullivan, knowing she had to catch an early flight, agreed they should call it a night. Holding hands and growing increasingly silent, they exited from the creaking elevator on the fifth floor of the Brown and went to room 503. Sullivan unlocked the door, motioned Kay inside and followed her.
When she reached out to flip on the lights, Sullivan’s hand stopped her. His dark, sultry eyes on her mouth, he slowly pulled her fingers to his chest and said simply, “Kay.”
When his dark, handsome head descended slowly to her, Kay tilted hers back and her mouth eagerly parted to receive his kiss. Gentle, sculpted lips settled on hers, warm and undemanding. With his mouth covering hers, Sullivan again whispered, “Kay, oh, my Kay.”
Kay sighed as his kiss became more demanding, filling her with warmth, just as it always did. Her arms went up around his neck, her fingers anxiously twisting at the black, thick hair curling over the collar of his clean knit shirt.
She loved kissing Sullivan. His kisses set her afire; they had from the first time he’d unexpectedly kissed her one frigid winter morning. She had hurried into the control room, her nose red, her eyes smarting, her teeth chattering. He’d looked up at her, grinned, rose and came to her. Wordlessly he’d taken her in his arms, held her for a minute, put a thumb beneath her quivering chin and bent to her, his lips covering her cold ones in a rapidly heating kiss.
Since that cold, snowy morning, he’d kissed her often and she never failed to respond and glory in the feel of his mouth upon hers. More than once their hunger for each other had made kissing, no matter how wonderful, seem inadequate. Still, Sullivan, though his eyes had looked tortured and his body had trembled with his need, had many times thrust her away from him, stopping short of what they both wanted. Needed.
Not tonight.
Now he was kissing her with unbridled passion and she met his hunger with her own. When their heated lips separated for breath, Sullivan, his broad chest rising and falling rapidly, urged Kay toward the bed. She willingly took a seat on its edge and watched as he pulled off his shirt. He stood looking down at her and Kay’s eyes admiringly swept over the wide smooth shoulders and the hard, muscled chest covered with a mat of crisp, black hair that gradually narrowed to a thick line down his hard abdomen.
&n
bsp; Sullivan took a seat beside her, a long arm going around her shoulders. “Sweetheart,” he said huskily, as a big hand moved up to the swell of her breasts, “it’s our last night. Kiss me like it’s the last night, honey. Kiss me, baby.”
“Sul,” she murmured and put her palms to his smoothly shaven cheeks. Her soft, moist mouth, aggressively open, came up to his. She slowly ran the tip of her tongue inside his upper lip, just the way he’d taught her to do. He groaned and pulled her to him. Their mouths melded and while they hungrily kissed, Kay could feel the crinkly hair of Sullivan’s warm chest pleasantly tickling the rise of her breasts above the bodice of her sundress. She softly moaned as her nipples hardened and her breasts swelled. Instinctively, she pressed closer to the heat and hardness of that masculine chest.
At last Sullivan’s mouth left hers, trailing fiery kisses across her flushed cheek and finally coming to rest on her ear. “Kay, I want to feel your breasts against me. Just for a minute, sweetheart, just for a while,” he said.
Before she could answer, his mouth took hers again, his tongue thrusting between her parted lips to mate with hers. Deft fingers untied the bow at her nape and gentle, caring hands peeled down the white cotton barrier from between them as his lips left hers. He looked unwaveringly into her eyes while the dress—along with her inhibitions—was lowered.
Unhampered by clothes, Kay’s full, high breasts rose and fell with her rapid, nervous breaths, and her bottom lip trembled as she lowered her eyes from his. “Sul,” she began raggedly.
“Sweetheart,” he soothed softly, lean hands rising to cup the soft, warm mounds of creamy flesh. “You’re so very beautiful. Don’t be embarrassed with me, Kay. Look at me, darling.”
Slowly her eyes lifted to his. While his thumbs teased at the rose-hued crests, she sighed softly and shyly admitted, “That feels good, Sul. So good.”
“My sweet baby,” he murmured and slowly, gently pulled her against him. “Put your arms around me,” he instructed as his hands spread lightly on her back, pressing her tenderly to him.
Kay’s slender arms clasped him tightly as she gloried in the exquisite delight of Sullivan’s warm, hair-roughened chest touching her aching, swelling breasts. Automatically arching her back to press closer, she sighed and turned her face into his brown throat, inhaling deeply of his clean, masculine scent. While every part of her body glowed with delicious rising heat, Sullivan cradled her head in his hand and again took her mouth with his own.
In his kiss was all his love, all his passion, all his hunger. Kay reeled with the intensity of emotions he’d unleashed in her as well as himself. His kiss was hungry, demanding, devastating, and when their lips and tongues finally separated, his breath was labored, his bare chest heaving, his sultry eyes almost wild. Decisively, he pushed her slowly down across the bed, following her. Kay could feel the soft fabric of the bedspread beneath her naked back. Sullivan’s hard, handsome face was looking down at her. His weight supported on an elbow, he was leaning over her and saying things he’d never said to her before.
“My God,” he mused honestly, “have you any idea how long I’ve wanted to see you like this, to look at you?” A hand was at her breast, gently caressing, a thumb circling the hard peak.
“Sul,” she whispered, her fingers happily exploring the hard muscled chest above her, “I’ve wanted this, too, I’ve—”
Her sentence wasn’t finished. His lips were on hers again, nibbling, playing, tasting, while his broad chest pressed heavily down on her naked breasts. Kay’s hands were in the thick, dark hair of his head while her open mouth twisted under his and her tingling torso rubbed unashamedly on him. When a hand slipped from Kay’s narrow waist and down over the folds of her white cotton skirt, Kay made no move to stop him. Nor did she protest when that hand slid underneath her skirt and moved with slow determination up a smooth thigh.
Kay wasn’t quite certain how or when those practiced, persuasive hands managed to divest her of her lacy panties, but she fleetingly recalled them slipping over her hips, down her legs and fluttering through the air.
It was the last time she thought of her panties.
That warm male hand was again moving up a trembling thigh and a deep, drugging voice so familiarly dear was murmuring close to her face, “I have to touch you, Kay. I have to, honey. I won’t hurt you, I’d never hurt you.”
“Yes,” was all she could manage, as those long, lean fingers moved unerringly to that sensitive feminine flesh where no man’s hands had ever been before. “Yes, yes,” she whispered through fevered lips, her blue eyes widening with a new and unbelievable pleasure.
His eyes upon her sweet, flushed face, Sullivan stroked her gently, coaxingly. She writhed and clung to him and looked up with eyes both frightened and happy.
“There, sweetness,” he soothed softly, staying with her, tenderly caressing, patiently tutoring her, bringing her pleasure, possessively introducing her to the secrets of her beautiful body. While she tossed her head back and forth and murmured his name in wonder and fear, Sullivan continued to take her slowly. He caringly brought her toward release while the heart in his bare chest thudded with a heavy cadence and his tight jeans strained with the fullness of his aching arousal.
Finally her zenith began and Kay’s blue, shining eyes widened with shocked surprise. She clung to Sullivan’s bare wide shoulders so tightly her long nails cut into his flesh. He smiled down at her, his hand continuing rhythmically to stroke, his voice, deep and soft, saying lovingly, “Yes, my baby, I’m here. I won’t let you go.”
When she lay at last limp in Sullivan’s protective arms, Kay willingly let him finish undressing her. Moments later they were both naked upon the bed that Sullivan had turned down. With half emptied glasses of champagne beside them on the bedside table, soft music coming from the radio and the scent of roses sweetening the air, they completed the act of lovemaking upon sheets of ice blue. Kay knew as Sullivan lowered his sleek, bare body onto hers that the brief pain of his penetration would pale beside the pain of leaving him.
And she was right.
Kay blinked at the tears that had begun to slide down her cheeks. How right she had been on that long-ago night to realize leaving Sullivan would cause great pain. Pain for her. Pain for him.
Still she had recklessly walked away, telling herself it was really all his fault. He hadn’t asked her to stay. Hadn’t told her to stay. If he had, she would have snuggled happily into his strong arms and said worshipfully, “Yes, I’ll stay. I want only to be with you. I love you.”
Kay threw back the silky blue sheets and got up. Sighing wearily, she walked to the window and stood staring out at the twinkling Denver lights. Lights distorted by her tear-blurred vision.
The truth was painful, but it was time she faced it.
It was her fault. Nobody else’s. She had been head-over-heels in love with Sullivan Ward, but she was so young and so foolish. She had sacrificed what they had together for a glamorous, high-paying radio job in L.A. And through all these years of regretting her foolish choice, and longing for all that she had lost, she had soothed her wounded heart by telling herself it was as much Sullivan’s fault as her own.
That simply was not true.
She, of her own free will, had walked out on the most magnificent man she would ever meet, sacrificing a precious once-in-a-lifetime love to chase youthful dreams of fame and glory. She was responsible for their breakup. Her career had meant more to her than Sul.
“Dear God, what a little fool I was,” murmured Kay tearfully to the loneliness of the room where once she had known the ecstasy of Sullivan’s arms. “If I had it all to do over again…”
Tiredly, Kay went back to the big blue bed. Exhaustion soon blessedly overtook her and in minutes she was asleep.
Two
Kay was awakened the next morning by brilliant September sunshine streaming into the room. Pushing her long, sleep-tousled hair out of her eyes, she pushed a pillow against the headboard and sat up. Sleepy bl
ue eyes glanced to the night table beside her with its built-in radio below. Kay reached out and flipped the on button, filling the room with music. She leaned over, squinting, and smiled. The radio was tuned to Q102. Sullivan’s morning show. Any second now the record would end.
“That was the old Gloria Gaynor hit ‘I Will Survive.’” The deep unmistakable voice so affected Kay that she realized she was holding her breath. “Isn’t that a good song?” Sullivan asked his audience, his deep melodious voice like warm, smooth honey. Kay sank back against the pillows and commanded her pulse to slow down. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back and listened while that deep, naturally sensual voice effortlessly drew her to him, just as it did his other listeners. He was the best she’d ever heard. There’d been no one on the west coast to compare with this talented man. She’d like to tell him that when they met again, but she had a feeling Sullivan would no longer care what she thought of him.
By ten o’clock, Kay, dressed in a tailored suit of beige poplin with a wide multicolored belt adding a splash of color, walked through the glass double doors of radio station Q102, high atop the Petroleum Club building in downtown Denver. A fresh-faced young woman with hair of auburn and big green eyes looked up, smiled and said almost worshipfully, “You have to be Kay Clark!” The woman jumped up from her chair, pressing her palms to her coloring cheeks. “I’m Sherry Jones and I’ve heard so much about you, Ms. Clark. Why, it’s like having a movie star in the station. I want your autograph; I just have to…”
Shaking her head, Kay laughed good-naturedly. “Sherry, I’m flattered, but I’m hardly a star. Is Mr. Shults busy?”
“Follow me, Ms. Clark.” Sherry was smiling happily. “Gosh, you’re so pretty. You and Sullivan will make a pair. He’s so handsome, you know.”
“Yes.” Kay nodded. “I know.”
Kay followed the friendly young woman into Sam Shults’s big office. “She’s here,” Sherry announced to the stocky man rising from behind his heavy oak desk. “Shall I bring coffee?”
