by Leanne Banks
Sara felt a desperation to give and to take. Knowing this was the last time made it worse. She was totally sensitized to everything about him, the friction of his hair between her fingers, the scent of his aftershave, the distinctive minty flavor of his mouth. His warmth wrapped around her more effectively than the coat he’d pushed from her shoulders. When he pulled his mouth from hers, Sara buried her face in his neck, tasting his skin. She felt like a mass of bare nerve endings. Everything was too much, but not enough. And nothing was intimate enough.
He slid his hands under her skirt, and her temperature shot off the thermometer. She rubbed her thighs together to assuage the heavy ache between them.
His tongue scored a trail down her neck to her breast, where he took her nipple between his teeth. Sara jerked. Her breasts were more sensitive than usual.
Daniel paused. “Too rough?”
She shook her head, amazed at the surge of arousal that bucked through her. She was immediately needy. With another flick of his tongue she was near completion.
“You’ve got great breasts, Sara. Full and tender.” Daniel savored the sensation of her nipple in his mouth, sucking deep and long. He felt her body stiffen. “You like that, baby? You like the farmer’s mouth on you?”
“Yes. Oh, God!” Her voice was breathless and filled with shock.
Daniel felt her climax. He watched her throw her head back with a deep shudder that tore through her, and he experienced enormous satisfaction knowing he had brought her so far so quickly. It fed more than his ego. It pulled at his heart. His loins throbbed with need, but it was addicting to watch her rapture, to feel her come undone.
She bowed her head to his shoulder, and he slipped his hands past her thigh-high hose and lace panties to her core.
“Daniel,” she whispered.
“You’re wet. You feel like silk, and I want to taste you.”
The mere thought of that intimacy stopped her heart. Sara was still so aroused, she wasn’t sure she could bear it.
Daniel swore in frustration. “There’s no room. My hands will have to do. Tell me, Sara, do you like the way my hands feel on you?” He eased a finger inside her and pressed his thumb back and forth over her sensitive bead.
Sara cried out. “What are you doing?”
Daniel’s voice deepened. “I’m just making sure you don’t forget me.” Then he leaned forward and kissed her. His tongue plunged in the same mesmerizing rhythm as his finger, and soon Sara was scaling the jagged cliffs again.
He palmed her breast and it was too much. She went over the edge, brokenly calling his name. Tears seeped from her eyes as she struggled to catch her breath and equilibrium. Clinging to him for strength, she felt exquisitely seduced and vulnerable. Something inside her snapped, and suddenly nothing less than him, all of him, would do for her.
Daniel saw the sexual glitter in her eyes as she opened his shirt apart and ran her hands over his chest. Her touch was the match that lit the dynamite. And she had become his ultimate satisfaction.
In the cramped confines of the cab she wove her special version of show-and-tell with her hands and mouth. “You’re so strong,” she whispered, “so incredibly strong.”
She managed to make him feel humbled and ten feet tall at the same time. The knowledge that this was the last time hovered in his mind. Desperation trickled in, but he pushed it away. Sara was here, now. Later he’d find a way to make her stay. Later, God help him, he’d have to.
He sifted his fingers through her hair and watched her slant her eyes seductively at him. She slowly swirled her tongue across his nipple.
Daniel sucked in a quick breath. He didn’t know what affected him more, the touch of her tongue or the sensual expression on her face.
He shifted in the seat and undid his belt and the top button of his jeans. “Touch me.”
His low-voiced demand was like lightning in the charged atmosphere of the cab. Sara felt as if she had only this moment to bring him all the pleasure she could, this moment to give him everything. She vacillated between the rush of his blatant arousal, her own consuming desire and the pain that pricked her skin like thorns. She eased down his zipper and slipped her hands inside his jeans to cup his masculinity.
Daniel gave a guttural sound of pleasure. “You’ve got great hands, Sara.”
Sara took those great hands and rubbed and stroked the length of him until the back of his shirt stuck to him with damp perspiration. It was the pleasure of a lifetime to feel her adore him with her fingers. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes dark pools of arousal, and her breasts jiggled and swayed with her slightest move. Daniel was straining toward heaven.
She rubbed her thumb over his honeyed tip and lifted it to her tongue to lick. Daniel groaned. Suddenly his arousal grew more painful. “In my pocket,” he muttered.
Sara found the packet and opened it, but instead of putting it on, she lowered her head and took him fully into her mouth.
Daniel swore. “Oh, Sara! God, that feels good.” He felt himself swelling so much, he wondered if he would burst out of his skin. He held her head still for a moment, because the pleasure was so intense, he felt the tension in every part of his body.
Sara slowly lifted her head. Her gaze was warm and intimate, but honest. That was one of the things he craved about her, her honest need for him. “I like the way you taste,” she whispered.
Daniel closed his eyes and shuddered. It took him a full minute to get a grip on his self-control, but every time he looked at her, he felt himself losing it all over again. “I want to be inside you, Sara,” he said in a low, rough voice. “As deep as I can get.”
She put the condom on a little too slowly for him, and in his desperate haste Daniel ripped her panties. He positioned her over his swollen masculinity, and inch by excruciating inch Sara took all of him inside her.
He shifted beneath her and watched her mouth form a lovely O of pleasure. Her broken gasp was the only music he’d ever need. Feeling himself stretch and throb, he wrapped his hands around her rear end to adjust her movement. Her undulations provided just enough friction to make his whole body tense for his release.
Daniel licked his dry mouth and stared into Sara’s eyes. “You know what makes me weak for you?”
“What?” she asked in a husky voice. She lifted her hips and slid down his shaft again.
Daniel let out a hiss of breath between his teeth. Rocking beneath her, he watched her eyes turn hazy, the way they always did right before she climaxed. “The way you just can’t seem—oh, God.” She robbed his voice and breath with her tiny internal clenches. He growled, fighting his completion. He was determined to tell her, to make her see that she would have this with no other man and he with no other woman. “The—way—” he swallowed, feeling the first steaming surge “—you can’t resist me.” Wild and fierce, he crested and clung to her with all his strength and with his every secret hidden weakness.
Sara cuddled into his chest, a damp, limp puddle of spent femininity still intimately connected to him. Feeling a need to protect her and maintain their closeness, Daniel wrapped his arms around her. She trembled beneath his touch.
“Cold?” he asked, wondering why he always felt he’d been part of a cataclysmic explosion after he’d made love with Sara.
“Not really,” she murmured.
He scooped up a handful of hair. “Aftershocks?”
Sara let out a long sigh. “Probably.”
They huddled silently amid the scent of their lovemaking and the gradual slowing of their heartbeats. Then Sara tenderly kissed his throat and disentangled herself from him. Daniel was reluctant to release her, but he watched as she slid into the driver’s seat and tried to put her clothes in some kind of order.
He did the same with his, and as the silence lengthened between them, he felt the return of his uneasiness.
Covering her hand with his, he tugged her closer. “I lied. I don’t want this to be the last time.”
Her face clenched in pain, and
she dropped her gaze from his. “I thought you didn’t want to discuss this tonight.”
“It’s nuts for us to be apart. You want me and I want you. It’s more than sex, but God help me, Sara, I’ve never felt like I’ve gotten struck by lightning when making love except with you. And I know you feel the same way about me.”
Sara stiffened her resolve. After their incredible lovemaking she felt utterly exposed and defenseless. She felt a connection that ran true and deep. It was made more powerful by the fact that she carried his child. She would give Daniel anything. In her heart that was what she yearned to do, yet she knew she had to stand firm. It would be the most difficult thing she’d ever done. “Feelings aren’t everything. There are other considerations.” She shook her head in frustration. “Besides, we always knew I wasn’t right for you. I told you I didn’t want to ruin another good man, and Daniel Pendleton, I damn well will not ruin your life.”
Daniel stared at her in complete confusion. “What in hell are you talking about?”
Sara expelled a harsh breath, and despite the protest from her heart she forced herself to click into another mode. Bracing herself, she forced herself to begin the goodbye. “Okay. You’re always wanting to know my secrets. I told you about my husband, but I never told you what made him turn away from me, did I? I never told you that when I was eighteen, I became the mistress of a married senator in Minnesota.” She saw the look of disbelief in his eyes. “Oh, yes, I did. And, Daniel, I liked it. I liked the attention. I liked the expensive gifts. He liked teaching me about sex.” She paused and swallowed hard over the hard lump of regret in her throat. “And I liked learning.”
Daniel closed his eyes and turned his head. Sara could feel the beginning of his rejection of her. It hurt. Lord, it hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced, but she knew it was necessary. He needed to know, and Daniel was too decent not to feel complete repugnance for her when she finished.
“The senator had a very nice family. Two sons and a daughter. His wife was ill, so when he needed a woman, he came to me. The only problem was that the press found out.” Sara looked down, remembering the shock and pain again. “Can you guess what he did?”
Daniel said nothing, so she glanced up. “Go ahead, Daniel. Guess what he did.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered quietly. “Did he dump you?”
How she wished he’d done that. How she wished the man had possessed the sense to dump her.
“He committed suicide, and everyone knew why. Everyone knew he had a mistress, and everyone knew my name. People in Tennessee tend to ignore Minnesota politics, so after a few years I thought I’d shed the bad press. But it always catches up with me. Always. Even if people don’t learn by rumors, men seem to sense it. You did.”
He jerked his head up to stare at her.
“You knew what you wanted from me from the very beginning. You wanted a passionate affair with a wild woman. You wanted a mistress.”
“It’s been more than that,” he said angrily. “And I never asked you to be my mistress.”
“I’m not going to argue semantics with you. You’re missing the point. I agreed to see you on your terms. I—wanted you too.”
“If you think want is all there is to it, then you’re not just wild, you’re crazy. I—”
“No!” Sara sliced her hand through the air. She was terrified of hearing him talk about his feelings. There was no way she could finish this if he said the things she’d dreamed of hearing. “Don’t you dare say that to me. Do you really think I can believe it now? You’ve had dozens of opportunities before. Why now?”
Sara turned her head away from him and stared straight out the windshield. She concentrated hard on holding back the dry sob that threatened to break her voice. “I’m getting into the passenger seat and I want you to take me home. You asked me for one last time, and I gave it to you. I gave you everything—” She squinted her eyes at the slight waiver in her own voice and drew in a shallow breath. “Everything I could give. If you won’t drive me, I swear I’ll walk.”
“Sara.”
Emotionally wrought, she begged God to make him stop. “Take me home.”
Chapter Thirteen
Around 3:00 a.m. Daniel figured out that he never should have taken Sara home. He was still sitting in his truck, remembering her face and smelling her scent. Her eyes had been so empty, it was as if she’d crawled into herself to hide from him; she’d been like brittle spun glass. Her movements had been jerky as she’d left the car. She hadn’t looked at him, but she’d managed to whisper, “Goodbye.”
And Daniel had felt stunned and lost. His own motions, when he’d started his truck and driven home, had been automatic. His body performed the actions, but his mind was back at the lake with Sara.
He knew he should have told her how he felt about her earlier, but he’d never been good at discussing his feelings. And maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t wanted to face how much she’d grown to mean to him. When he thought back over the last several weeks with her, he realized that once she’d let him into her life, she’d never turned him away, not even when he’d shown up uninvited during her vacation. She’d always been there to listen to him and make him feel good. For the most part he’d initiated every time they got together. It underscored her inference that she’d been his mistress.
That stuck in his craw. Had she been right?
“Hell, no,” he said out loud. If she’d called, he would have come in a New York minute.
He hit the steering wheel with his fist. A bitter pain throbbed in his chest. He hurt. It wasn’t just a tingling little scrape. It was a monstrous, engulfing pain that seemed to take over his whole body. And it went deeper. It was almost as if his very soul were weeping. He didn’t want to lose her. Sara had given him something he needed, some elusive, indescribable something that he’d learned to crave once he’d been around her. She was incredibly caring. When she gave herself, she held nothing back. He wondered if she realized how precious that was to him. Just being in her presence gave him a sense of peace he’d never had.
He slumped his head into the cradle of his hands. It would be time to get up and get to work in a couple of hours. Spring was just around the corner, and there was plenty to do. But Daniel just didn’t have the stomach for it. Sara Kingston had slipped inside and taken his heart, and he didn’t want his heart back. He wanted her.
Lifting his head, he took a deep breath. He’d shouldered many burdens in his life, but nothing had ever felt as heavy nor as cumbersome as the prospect of not having Sara to talk to or touch. There was too much left unsaid between them, too much he hadn’t said. It was the challenge of a lifetime to find the right words. It would damn well probably take him the rest of the night. He felt his will harden like steel inside him.
By tomorrow morning, he decided, he was going to pay Sara a visit, and this time she would listen.
Sara turned the washcloth over and slapped it on her forehead again. She was clammy and weak from her first bout of morning sickness. She’d called Carly and told her she hoped to be in by lunchtime.
Lunch. She grimaced. At this point she never wanted to eat again. When Carly had asked about Daniel, Sara had given a vague reply. But he stayed in her mind. He didn’t so much whisper through her thoughts as stomp, leaving ripples of vibration and every heart-jerking emotion known to womankind.
Sara ached for him, and for the first time she wondered if she carried his son. Another Pendleton heartbreaker with naughty violet eyes and the will of ten men. Heaven help her. She traded the image of Daniel’s face full of disappointment with one of Daniel holding his son in his arms, full of adoration. It was sheer fantasy, but Sara needed anything but the truth this morning. Truth was the fact that she’d permanently severed her relationship with Daniel last night. Truth was that she’d destroyed any chances for a future with him. And the truth was that she felt more lost and more alone than she’d ever felt in her life.
She’d have to face up to the trut
h soon enough. For now she felt as if she were in mourning, but she needed a way to get through the day, and the fantasy of Daniel’s smile provided the way.
Holding him close in her mind, she shut her eyes and drifted asleep until the sound of the doorbell woke her. Turning her head, she glanced at the clock and noticed it was nearly one. It was probably Carly checking on her.
Sara eased out of bed and was pleased to find her equilibrium restored. She didn’t bother looking in the mirror. After the physical and emotional turmoil of the last twenty-four hours, she could imagine how she looked.
Pulling open the door, she lost her equilibrium all over again when she saw Daniel standing on her doorstep holding a bunch of violets. The sight of his big strong hand clenched around those fragile little flowers made her throat knot and tears spring to her eyes.
Daniel immediately looked alarmed. “It’s not the violets. Tell me it’s not the violets.”
Forcing her gaze away from the dainty flowers, Sara sniffed and blinked, determined not to cry. Why was he here? “I don’t feel very well,” she managed, and took a deep breath. “I’m not up to talking.”
She started to close the door, but he caught it with his boot. “Tough.” Then he shoved it open and walked straight into her living room.
“You have a bad habit of coming into my house when you’re not invited,” she said to his back.
He turned and met her gaze with frightening resolve. “Better get used to it.” He tossed the violets on the end table and unzipped his suede jacket.
Sara’s heart took a plunge. Daniel’s strength wasn’t in his charm. It was in his tenacity. He didn’t win by persuasion. He won by wearing the other person down, and right now Sara didn’t think she had far to go before she hit rock bottom. “If I’m not in Beulah County, I won’t have to get used to it.”
