White Hot

by Sandra Brown

  “If I don’t do what he says, you’ll lose your job. And I heard on the news that criminal charges could be filed against some of the management personnel. That’s you, George, especially if the Hoyles lay the blame with you. You could go to jail.” Her eyes began streaming again. “I’m sorry, George. This is all my fault. I’m sorry. Can you still love me?”

  Love her? He adored her. She was his sun and moon, the air he breathed. “I don’t blame you, honey,” he said repeatedly as he held her close, kissing her lips, her wet eyes, her tearstained cheeks.

  She would not go to the sheriff’s office on Monday morning. He didn’t want everybody in town to know that Chris Hoyle had fucked his wife. He wouldn’t be able to withstand the humiliation of everybody knowing that, when most people already looked upon him with derision.

  He didn’t blame Lila for her infidelity. She had to live with him, and for a vital, beautiful young woman, that couldn’t be very exciting. Chris had provided her with a thrill that he was incapable of providing.

  No, Chris was the one George blamed. And Chris was the one who had to be punished.

  chapter 32

  Sayre was roused from a light sleep by the sound of running water coming from Beck’s bathroom. She’d lain down on the living room sofa, intending only to rest, but apparently she had dozed off. Knowing that he was awake, she got up and felt her way through the darkness into the kitchen.

  By the time she entered his bedroom carrying a serving tray, he was coming out of the bathroom, a towel around his hips, his hair wet.

  “You showered?” she asked, surprised.

  “I woke up in a puddle of sweat.”

  She glanced up at the ceiling fan, which was still turning. “I guess I should have had the thermostat set lower.”

  “Wasn’t that. I was dreaming.”

  She set the tray on an ottoman in front of the love seat that was positioned diagonally in the corner. “About what?” When he didn’t say anything, she glanced at him over her shoulder.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You’re standing upright. How do you feel?”

  “The hot shower actually worked out some of the soreness. Why are the lights off?”

  “I closed all the blinds at sunset and have been using candlelight. From the road it will look like no one’s here.”

  “Good thinking.” He switched off the light in the bathroom.

  Sayre struck a match to the candle on the tray she’d carried in. “I fixed you some supper. Tomato soup. Cheese and crackers.”

  “You shouldn’t be waiting on me, but I’m too hungry to scold.”

  She motioned him toward the love seat, and he sat down, modestly tucking the towel between his thighs, then taking the tray onto his lap. She sat on the ottoman. He picked up the spoon and dipped it into the bowl of soup, then remembered his manners. “Have you had anything?”

  “A while ago.”

  He took a sip of soup and bit into a slice of cheddar. “How’s Frito?”

  “He feasted on bacon and eggs and is presently sleeping it off.”

  “Bacon? Thanks a lot. Now he’ll never settle for eggs alone.”

  “I felt he deserved a treat. He kept vigil over you most of the afternoon.”

  He stopped eating and looked across at her. “Apparently so did you.”

  Suddenly the room seemed too dark, too hushed, and Beck was too naked. She stood up quickly and, despite his protests, stripped the damp sheets off the bed and remade it with fresh ones. By the time she had finished, he was washing his supper down with a glass of milk.

  She carried the tray back into the kitchen and returned with several Hershey’s Kisses. “I thought you might want a sweet.”

  “Thanks.” He removed the foil from a chocolate and popped it into his mouth. “What did you mean earlier when you said that Chris wasn’t my friend? Or did I imagine that?”

  She resumed her seat on the ottoman. “No, I said it. He stood by and did nothing while you took a beating.”

  “There wasn’t much he could do, Sayre.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said heatedly. “Even if he didn’t want to fight, he held back Fred Decluette from helping you. I saw him do it.”

  “I volunteered to go out and talk to Luce Daly. Chris advised against it. He told me to wait until Red arrived with reinforcements. I guess he thought I got what I asked for. I was trying to be a hero.”

  His explanation didn’t change her mind. It had some basis, she supposed. But she had seen the look on Chris’s face, and it hadn’t been the anxious expression of someone watching his friend being overpowered by a mob.

  “If the situation had been reversed, could wild horses have held you back?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you have leaped to Chris’s defense?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do. You joined him and Danny in the fight three years ago at the Razorback.”

  “Which, in hindsight, was reckless. And we weren’t up against a mob, only Slap Watkins.”

  At the mention of his name, chill bumps broke out on her arms. She chafed them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have reminded you of him.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t suppose he’s been captured while I was sleeping the day away.”

  “Not that I’ve heard.” She noticed how neatly he had diverted the subject away from Chris, but she allowed it. “I rather imagine the sheriff’s office had its hands full with the situation at the foundry.”

  “Did you call Nielson back?”

  “I talked to his receptionist. She thanked me for returning her call. Word had reached them about what happened to you this morning. They regretted it, said violence wasn’t Nielson’s style, and asked how you were faring.”

  “Maybe he’ll feel sorry for me and keep our next appointment.”

  “Maybe. However—”

  “Uh-oh. There’s a however?”

  She nibbled at one of the chocolates. “Nielson is a moot point, Beck.”

  “Since when?”

  Uncertain how he would receive the news, she broke it to him as gently as she could. “OSHA shut down Hoyle Enterprises today.” She related to him what she’d heard on the newscasts and later from Huff.

  “And,” she added after taking a deep breath, “the agency spokesperson hinted that in addition to the fines that will almost certainly be assessed, probably into the millions of dollars, the Justice Department is conducting its own investigation. Hoyle may yet face criminal charges.”

  “I’ve got to get down there.”

  He attempted to stand up, but she laid a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back down onto the love seat. “Huff doesn’t want you there.”

  “Doesn’t want me there?”

  “After I heard the news story on TV, I called him. He was in quite a state, so furious he was barely coherent. But on one point—well, two actually—he was emphatic. He wants you to stay away until the smoke clears.”

  “Why?”

  She looked down at her hands as they rolled the foil candy wrapper into a tight ball. “He said you could do more harm than good. That you knew too much and . . . and that it would be best if you were indisposed by the injuries you received today and therefore unavailable to answer the questions put to you by the prying sons of bitches. I quote.”

  Beck thought it over for several moments, then said, “He’s right, Sayre. I’d be placed in the position of either incriminating my employer or equivocating to the federal boys and consequently incriminating myself.”

  Sayre didn’t say anything, but it disappointed her to hear him admit his culpability.

  “What was the second point Huff was emphatic about?”

  “That I should be ashamed for picketing against my own flesh and blood, and that I’m no doubt gloating over the shutdown.”

  He opened another candy and put it in his mouth. “Are you gloating?”

  “No. I’m glad Huff is being f
orced to make improvements. Whether the pressure was applied by the government, or Nielson and the labor unions, or by me, it had to be done, Beck. Things had to change.”

  She smiled sadly. “I just wish it could have been accomplished without anyone getting hurt. I was responsible for the attack on Clark and, indirectly, for the one on you. I refused to heed your warnings, and both of you suffered injuries because of it.”

  “I’m not sure major change can come about without conflict, Sayre. Progress usually has a price tag attached. Maybe not physical injury, but some form of strife.”

  “But you suffered physical injury. Does it still hurt?”

  Just below his heart there was a bruise on his rib cage as wide as her palm, visible even in the flickering light of the single candle. She reached out and touched it with her fingertips.

  She meant only to examine it briefly but found herself reluctant to break contact with his warm skin. In that spot it was smooth, although the rest of his chest and stomach were dusted with light brown hair.

  Barely touching him, her fingertips moved across his stomach to a similar bruise on the other side. Several inches below that, there was another on his hip bone, half hidden by the towel around his waist. She touched it gently, then returned to the first bruise beneath his left breast.

  She kept her hand there, watching her fingertips as they lightly rubbed the discolored spot. Then acting on impulse, she leaned across his lap and replaced her fingers with her lips. She kissed the bruise several times with pecks almost as light as air.

  Tilting her head, she kissed the one on the other side of his rib cage, her lips scarcely glancing his skin. She nuzzled her way down to his hip bone and kissed the bruise there. Once. Then lifting the towel, she touched her lips to it a second time.

  Beck made a low sound. Taking her head between his hands, he pulled her up. He searched her face, his eyes lighting briefly on every feature. He combed his fingers through her hair, holding it away from her head, then letting it drift back into place. He spoke her name on a ragged sigh.

  A heartbeat later his mouth was on hers. Being careful of the cut on his cheekbone, she placed her hands against his face and gave herself over to the kiss.

  Passion was so explosive and so well matched, it was almost competitive. Their mouths became fully engaged with each other, and the more each tasted of the other, the more they both wanted.

  He drew her up to straddle his lap and fit himself into the notch of her thighs. He was surprisingly hard, his erection imperative. She tore her mouth away from his and looked at him with shock.

  “My dream,” he said breathlessly, “. . . the one that made me sweat . . . I was making love to you. I’m not dreaming now.”

  “It could be painful.”

  “I’m already in pain.”

  Then he reclaimed her mouth and, if it was possible, kissed her even more urgently than before. They broke apart only long enough for him to pull her top over her head. Reaching behind her, he unhooked her bra and removed it, then pressed his head between her breasts and rested there for a time to catch his breath.

  She folded her arms around his head, rubbed her cheek against his hair, which was still damp from his shower. The scent of his skin and the soap he’d used, the chocolate flavor of his breath, were intoxicants.

  She rocked her hips forward, rubbing herself against him. “God, yes, again,” he groaned, and she did.

  When she felt his tongue against her nipple, she thought she would dissolve with pleasure. Encouraged by her involuntary murmurs, he kissed it sweetly before sucking it into his mouth and pressing it against his palate with his tongue.

  He unfastened her slacks and slid his hands inside the back of them, kneading her, pressing, separating, making her thrill to her feminine vulnerability, making her ache with wanting him to exploit it.

  “Beck, let me . . .” She eased herself off his lap and began undressing. When she was down to her lace bikini, she hesitated, afflicted with a sudden and uncharacteristic bashfulness.

  He looked at her imploringly. “You’re killing me.”

  She removed the panties. He pushed aside the towel at his waist. His sex was full, beautiful, and Sayre felt a primal reaction to it deep inside her own body.

  He brushed his fingers through the gingery patch of hair between her thighs, then placed his hands on either side of her waist and pulled her forward. On her knees, she straddled his legs. He pressed his face into the giving softness of her belly and kissed it, then lower, and lower still until he was tasting her, and she was melting against his lips and tongue, quivering to have him inside her, and she told him so.

  Given his recent injuries, the coupling wasn’t vigorous . . . and was better for it. She sank onto him by degrees, because each sensation was new and exciting and too remarkable not to be savored. If he was impatient, he hid it well and seemed to enjoy her self-indulgent lack of haste.

  When it seemed to her that they couldn’t possibly be more intimately joined, he cradled her hips between his strong hands and held her in place as he pushed himself higher, making her softly cry out in surprised delight.

  Their movements were subtle and slow, but so intense they held their breath through most of it, gasping for air only when reminded that they must. Their kisses were a carnal commingling of mouths. His fingers made deep impressions in the flesh of her hips and held her tightly to him, but her hands were never idle. They moved over his shoulders and arms, the back of his head and neck, his chest. Arching her back and reaching behind her, she ran her hands along his thighs, then caressed him between them. He groaned inarticulate ecstasy.

  When he came, he wrapped his arms around her and laid his fevered cheek on her breast. His lips moved against her raised nipple. She couldn’t understand the words he whispered, but they were spoken in such a sexy undertone and with a desperation for release so intense, they induced her own.

  • • •

  Later, they lay facing each other in his bed.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “When?”

  She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

  “Oh. A string of dirty words, I think.”

  “Very erotic,” she murmured, nudging his sex with her knee.

  “Then I’ll say them out loud next time.”

  He felt his nipple tighten at the touch of her fingertip, then to his supreme pleasure, she placed her open mouth over it and stroked it gently with her tongue. Keeping her lips against him, she said, “You knew I wanted this all along, didn’t you?”

  He was slow to find his voice but finally said, “I thought you might.”

  “You knew from the start?”

  “From the piano bench.”

  She looked up at him. “On the piano bench, I thought you were one of the most arrogant bastards I’d ever had the misfortune to meet.” Drawing her finger vertically down his chin, she added, “Also one of the most attractive.”

  “On the piano bench I was wondering how I was going to keep myself from groping you just to see if you were real. You were the sexiest woman I’d ever laid eyes on. Also one of the snootiest.”

  She laughed softly. “I wanted so badly to hate you.” Then her expression changed and her tone became serious. “I want so badly to hate you now.”

  “You want to hate me for all the dirty work I do for Huff.”

  “Yes.”

  “I admire your integrity.”

  “Do you, Beck?”

  “Yes. But can we leave your integrity and my shortage of it outside for a while?” he whispered. “At least until morning.”

  “You want me to stay?”

  He hugged her closer. “Just try to leave.”

  They kissed long and leisurely while his hand moved from her breast to the soft, humid mystery of her sex, back to her breast and its hard tip. Since he’d met her, he’d entertained a thousand fantasies of her lying naked with him. But the reality far surpassed even his most arousing daydream
s. Now that it was happening, he couldn’t get enough of merely touching her.

  When they pulled apart, he looked down the length of her. “You’re beautiful, Sayre.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Not a single flaw.”

  That comment caused her drowsy smile to fade gradually. He felt her emotional withdrawal even before she sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, propping her chin on them.

  “I’m flawed, Beck. You’d have been better off never to have met me.”

  “Not true.”

  “It is. I leave destruction in my wake. We Hoyles are notorious for that. It’s our specialty. We leave people broken, irreparably damaged.”

  He placed his hand on her back. Her skin was incredibly smooth, pale compared to his. Her hips swelled gracefully out of her waist. On each side of her cleft was a shallow dimple, and that feminine trait made him ache with a tender longing he’d never felt before. He’d experienced desire too many times to count. Lust, shamefully often. But never this yearning to possess a woman’s body, to know and have the entirety of her.

  “What have you done that’s destructive, Sayre?”

  “I married two men I didn’t love. I spent their money. Slept in their beds. And I barely remember what they looked like.”

  She turned her head to read his reaction, but he kept his features carefully schooled. He wanted her to elaborate on that period of her life. He wanted to know all the ugly details of it.

  Turning away again, she spoke slowly and with seeming difficulty. “I wrecked their lives. Deliberately and with wanton self-interest. I had nothing against them personally, but I used them without regard or mercy. I was trying to punish Huff for taking Clark and my baby from me.

  “I no longer cared about my own life, so long as I could make Huff’s miserable. When he said marry, I married, with the sole intention of wreaking havoc that would ultimately affect him. Those two men were victims of the infamous Hoyles and our talent for ruining lives.”

  “I don’t feel a bit sorry for your so-called husbands,” he said bitterly. “They married you knowing you didn’t love them. They begged to be used. In return for their trouble, they had you in their beds. How old were you?”