by Sandra Brown
With the least persuasion of his fingertips, her nipples hardened. Infinitely careful lest he hurt her, he rolled them gently between his fingers.
“Does that feel as good to you as it does to me?” he asked in a seductive whisper.
The throaty murmur that escaped her lips became a beseeching whimper. Raising his head, he soothed the swollen buds with solicitous lips and tongue and, at the same time, satisfied his own need for her.
Her blouse hung on either side of his head as he drew on her sweetly. The metered flexing of his mouth pulled at her heartstrings. A floodgate was lifted and she was inundated with more love for this man than she had known herself capable of.
His hands slipped under her skirt and half-slip to glide up her thighs and over her bottom. Hooking his thumbs under the elastic of her panty hose, he pulled them down her legs. She completed the procedure when he eased her onto her back. The garment was negligently kicked free.
Leigh now became the aggressor. While Chad braced himself above her, she tugged the shirt from his waistband and unbuttoned it. Then, with fingers made daring by consuming passion, she unfastened his jeans and glided them over his hips. With eager hands they explored each other’s most intimate places.
“I want you so much, Leigh. So much, darling,” he groaned.
“Yes, Chad. Oh God, yes.”
He let his arms fold beneath him as he lowered his body onto her. A mutual sigh of gratification spiraled above them as he possessed her.
Long, glorious minutes later, they lay replete on the carpet, a heap of wrinkled clothing with arms and legs and two heads that seemed disinclined to separate.
“You look downright unkempt,” he observed teasingly.
“Do you mind?”
“You could be naked and I wouldn’t mind.” They laughed at the irony of that statement. “How long do you think Sarah will let this debauchery go on?”
“We’re on borrowed time already. She’ll be ready for her supper before too long.”
“Do we have time for a bath?”
She moved her head to look up at him. “A bath?”
“Come on,” he said on a sudden burst of inspiration. “I’ve had this seven-foot-long, four-foot-deep mosaic-tile bathtub for two years and I’ve never been in it.”
She let herself be led into the bathroom after first checking to see that Sarah was still sleeping. The bathroom was indeed decadent in its opulence. The tub was surrounded by plate glass that overlooked a private, fenced garden—except there were no plants growing in it.
“Chad, why haven’t you ever planted anything out there?”
“Because I never planned to entertain ladies in this bathtub. I promise if you’ll take a bath with me, by this time tomorrow there’ll be a tropical rain forest out there.” He spoke with his hand over his heart and with such sincerity that Leigh laughed.
“By all means, let’s initiate the bathtub.”
While the huge tub was filling up, they rid themselves of the mussed clothing. The process took an inordinate amount of time. They assisted each other, but prolonged kissing countered helping hands. When they were both naked and stepping into the tub, Leigh lamented, “It’s a shame you don’t have any bubble bath.”
Chad thought for a moment, then said, “Just a minute.” Undaunted by his nakedness and wet feet, he left the bathroom.
Leigh lowered herself into the tub, which was still only half-filled with warm water. Chad returned with a plastic bottle of dishwashing liquid. “You’ve got to be kidding!” Leigh cried as he stood over the tub and squirted a long stream of the liquid soap under the tap.
“When in need, improvise,” he quipped.
The dishwashing liquid made a mountain of suds over the surface of the water as they sat facing each other, Leigh’s legs lying over Chad’s. They luxuriated in the feel of wet skin under lathered hands. The bar of soap was often lost and searched for by hands that found more delightful quarry under the water. Lips were granted kisses for the most trifling of reasons.
One kiss lengthened to the point that Leigh forgot their bath, forgot everything but the mouth that wreaked havoc with all her senses. A hunger that should have been appeased only intensified, until she felt the pressure of his hands on her hips, drawing her closer. “Chad,” she said in wonder, freeing her mouth from his when she felt his tender probing between her thighs. “Is… is it even possible to do with… with the water… and…”
She had only an instant to marvel over a smile that could be both devilishly wicked and lovingly reassuring.
* * *
Sarah had cooperated and didn’t wake up until they were dressed, albeit in clothes somewhat the worse for wear. Chad, commiserating with the crying baby, declared that he was faint with hunger. Wrapping Sarah warmly, he took her and her mother outside for a brief glimpse of the Christmas lights that had come on automatically at dusk.
Sarah was fed first and then put on a pallet on the kitchen floor to play while Leigh and Chad ate omelets.
“I’ll have to buy a swing and a playpen or something, won’t I?” he mused between bites. “I sure can’t be hauling those things back and forth from your house in the Ferrari.”
“You could always use your truck,” Leigh said sweetly, batting her eyelashes. “But then, it’s always so cluttered, isn’t it?”
He shot her a killing look as he got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. “You’ll never let me live that down, will you?” He came back to the table with the full, steaming mug and slouched in his chair. “At the time it was safer for you to think I was a mechanic. I didn’t want to arouse your suspicions by driving up in a Ferrari. Besides,” he said with a lascivious wink, “I was too busy arousing everything else.”
“Stick to the subject please,” she said with mock severity. Then she shook her head in bafflement and idly played with the remaining food on her plate with her fork. “You’re quite wealthy, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been very lucky in some investments,” he hedged.
“And you get paid a lot for the work you do.”
“Yes.”
“The airplane business…?”
“A buddy and I started a charter service a few years ago with two planes. Now we have four. It’s been a lucrative sideline.”
“Yes, I can see it has,” she commented, her eyes taking in the evidence of his success. “You must stay busy all the time.”
He reached across the table to take her hand. “We’ll work it out, Leigh. It’s worth it, don’t you think, to try to work it out?”
She wouldn’t commit herself to an answer just yet, so she avoided it by asking another question. “What other enterprises do you have going?”
She knew he didn’t want to talk about his businesses by the way he avoided her eyes. “I own some land here and there. I haven’t had much to spend my money on, so I’ve invested it.”
“Land? Grazing land, commercial property, what?”
He shrugged self-effacingly. “A little of both I guess.”
“And your father’s cattle ranch and the oil wells?”
“I’m his partner.”
Her fingers covered her mouth and she expelled her breath on a long, shuddering sigh. “Leigh.” He took the hand she held against her mouth and grasped it hard. “Does my bank account bother you? Would you rather I were a mechanic and nothing more?”
“No, Chad, no it’s not that, though I admit I’m a little intimidated by… by all this. Greg, as dangerous as his job was, was still a government employee. I just can’t get used to the idea of such affluence.”
“Don’t think about it. It means nothing. If I were a mechanic barely scraping out a living from odd jobs and had you and Sarah, I’d feel like the richest man alive. And if I didn’t have you, none of this,” his hand swept the room, “would be worth a damn to me. Today, for the first time, this house has been important. And only then as a home to bring you and Sarah to.”
The blue eyes that could glow with passion
now shone with conviction. He meant what he said and she knew he meant it. Tears blurred his image as she reached out to touch his beautiful mouth. “Oh, Chad…”
* * *
At Leigh’s front door, he kissed her with a tenderness devoid of passion. “I hate to go. I want to spend the night, but I don’t want to gamble with your reputation. We’ve already given the gossip mongers material to last a month because of last night.”
“I’m willing to take a chance.”
He shook his head. “I’m not. Not with you. We won’t live together until you’re my wife. And you will be, Leigh. You will be.” He kissed her again before turning away.
Chapter Eight
He telephoned just as Leigh was snapping Sarah into her playsuit after her bath the next morning.
“Hi. Are you up?”
“You should know better than to ask. Sarah is a live-in alarm clock.”
He laughed. “We’ve been invited to a party this weekend. Friday night to be exact. Will you come?”
“What kind of party?”
“A dinner party for three friends of mine who coincidentally share the same birthday.”
She pieced together a mental image of a dining room full of people like Bubba’s wife and her friends. Sophisticated. Wealthy. She would have nothing suitable to wear.
“It’s to be sort of an indoor cookout. Very casual.”
Instead of gold and diamonds, they’d be wearing their silver and turquoise. Leigh hadn’t lived under a rock, and her mother, with all her pretentiousness, had drilled flawless social graces into her. Yet she knew she wouldn’t belong in a room with rich oil and cattle people. She’d felt intimidated enough visiting Chad’s house and seeing his wealth.
“I don’t know, Chad,” she hedged, groping for a reasonable excuse to say no. “I don’t know what I’d do with Sarah. She”
“Can go along. This is a family fling. Kids are invited, too. There’ll be hordes of them and Sarah will be by far the best behaved.”
“Well”
“End of discussion. I just wanted to let you know about it so you could plan on going. Now, what are you doing for lunch today?”
They spent more time together that week than they spent apart. He came to eat lunch with her every day, taking her out of the mall to a nearby restaurant or sharing sandwiches on a bench near the fountain in the shopping center.
He insisted on taking her and Sarah out to dinner rather than having Leigh cook each night. She was nervous the first time they took Sarah to a restaurant, but the baby surprised her and behaved remarkably well. While she and Chad ate Mexican food, Sarah gurgled happily to a piñata dangling from the ceiling.
“I told you so,” Chad said, nodding toward the contented baby.
“She’s only behaving well to spite me.”
Chad laughed and wrinkled his brow in perplexity. “I’m sure there’s some logic there, but I fail to see it.”
Leigh laughed with him. “You’d have to be a mother to understand. Don’t let me forget to thank Amelia for showing us how to secure Sarah in a high chair.”
Their evenings were quiet and intimate, though Chad always left early. Leave-taking was an almost painful ordeal and they clung to each other desperately. But Chad didn’t make any sexual overtures beyond warm kisses and close embraces. It was as though he wanted to show her that their sexual compatibility wasn’t the only reason he wanted to marry her.
Curled up together on her sofa, they watched television, though rarely could she have later said what the programming was about. She was conscious only of his nearness, the security she felt being held in his arms. His presence added a new dimension to her life, heightened it, broadened it.
Perversely, while she came to depend on and enjoy the luxury of ease he added to her life, she resented it, too.
He accompanied her to the grocery store, carrying Sarah on his shoulder when she became fussy riding in the cart. Leigh hated to admit how much less complicated things were to handle with four hands instead of two. He hauled in the sacks of groceries from the car trunk and put them away in the cupboards while she tended to a querulous baby. Before Chad, Leigh would have had to postpone one of those unpleasant jobs while doing the other. In the long run, she would have had to do both.
She was coming to depend on him, to miss him terribly when he wasn’t there. With his gentle, loving ways, he was convincing her that she should throw down her reservations and marry him as soon as possible.
Still, she was reluctant to commit herself totally. With one telephone call, he could rush out of her life and be away for months on end. Once she was married to him, she didn’t think she could bear to let him leave to fight a fire. She would live with the constant agony of wondering if he would ever come back. He had sworn to her that such wouldn’t be the case, that he would always come back. Greg had, too. She didn’t know if she had the stamina to live with that uncertainty again.
Moreover, she wasn’t sure she’d ever fit into his circle of friends. Surely they would wonder why Chad, who apparently could have any woman he wanted, would want to strap himself with a widow and baby. She wasn’t a former debutante. She was an air force brat. What would his friends think of that? She was still mulling it over as she dressed for the dreaded party on Friday night.
Chad had stressed that the party was casual, so she wore a midcalf-length denim skirt with a full flounce at the hem, brown leather boots, and a white cotton blouse that was reminiscent of the turn of the century with modified leg-o-mutton sleeves and a high, lace-edged collar. She dressed Sarah in her denim overalls.
“You two look terrific,” Chad said when Leigh answered his knock on the door. “But you’re overdressed.” He had on jeans, boots, and a western-cut shirt under a suede jacket.
The party was already underway when Chad pulled his car past a stately house situated on several acres just outside town. Behind it Leigh was surprised to see a barn—a well-painted, modern barn, but a barn just the same.
She looked at him with disbelief. He grinned. “Come on.”
Carrying both the baby and the diaper bag, he escorted her into the building, where several dozen people were already perspiring from their vigorous country-western dancing. A three-piece band was playing raucous music from a platform in one corner of the vast room.
“Chad!” The woman somehow made herself heard over the music, laughter, and chatter. Her face was open and friendly as she wove her way through the throng. Though her fingers were crusted with large diamond rings, she had on jeans and a shirt that shimmied with fringe on the yoke and sleeves. Her jeans weren’t the type that were bought in a designer boutique, but western work jeans.
“Leave it to you to find the prettiest girls to bring along,” she said loudly, hugging Chad and Sarah at the same time. “Hi,” she said to Leigh.
Chad introduced Leigh to their hostess and her husband, who joined them, carrying a long-neck bottle of beer in his beefy hand. He pumped Leigh’s hand in friendly welcome until her arm ached.
“Come meet everyone else,” he urged, taking Leigh by the hand. She watched helplessly as the lady took Sarah from Chad’s arms.
“Y’all go on. I’m going to get acquainted with Sarah.”
Within the next half-hour, Leigh was introduced to dozens of people who greeted her with the same enthusiasm as had the first couple. Periodically she glanced over her shoulder, worriedly trying to locate Sarah. The baby was always either being passed to another pair of eager arms to be hugged, or being studied by a group of curious older children. By her laughter and happy smile, Leigh could tell Sarah was reveling in her audience and all the attention they were paying her.
Leigh began to relax. This crowd wasn’t intimidating. Not in the least. Some of the men, she was told, worked with Chad. Others were friends he’d known since high school. Many were oil-field workers. One was a physician. Another a bank president. Yet there seemed to be no economic strata. Everyone was there to have a good time and she was soon ca
ught up in the gaiety.
“Having fun?” Chad came up behind her during a pause in the animated conversation she was having with a young woman who had produced twins several months older than Sarah. He encircled her with his arms, drawing her back against him.
She turned her head slightly. “Yes,” she surprised herself by saying. “I really am.”
“I’m glad one of us is,” he growled close to her ear. She spun around. “You’re not?”
“No. I haven’t kissed you all night.” Before she could prepare for it, his mouth swooped down to claim hers in a smoldering kiss. It was brief but took her breath away. She swayed slightly when he pulled back. There were broad grins on the faces of those standing nearby and Leigh blushed at some of the catcalls.
“Let’s dance,” Chad said, taking her arm and propelling her toward the spacious area in the center of the barn that had been designated as a dance floor.
Sarah was sitting in the lap of a grandmotherly lady, propped against her large bosom. The woman was patting Sarah’s hands to the beat of the music.
Leigh staggered slightly when she saw the couples linking arms to form lines radiating from the hub of a large circle.
“Chad, I can’t do that,” she said, pointing to the dancers engaged in the seemingly intricate, very energetic dance.
“Cotton-eyed Joe?”
“They didn’t teach that in the ballroom classes my mother forced on me.”
“I assure you, no finesse is required,” he laughed. “It’s not hard. Just hang onto my waist.”
Twenty minutes later they made their way from the dance floor to a secluded corner. Leigh was gasping for breath, her hand splayed over her chest. She leaned against the wall. “No more,” she wheezed.
Chad mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. “A cold drink and some food, and you’ll be ready to go again.”
She looked up at him doubtfully. “I haven’t had a workout like that since… I can’t remember if I’ve ever had one like that.”
He came to her, held her tight, and they laughed softly together. The scent of his cologne filled her head intoxicatingly. His strong hands roamed her back as his lips moved through her hair. “Do you like my friends?”
