ONE EAGER BRIDE TO GO

by Pamela Burford

  "Relax," he said. "Just let me make you feel good."

  Kirk slipped his hand inside the top edge of Sunny's panties. He found her drenched with her passion, slick and hot and ready for him.

  Suddenly he was tempted to take what her body offered, to seek the release he so desperately craved. She wouldn't blame him, he knew; she'd enjoy it as much as he. But it would bring them no closer to a true reconciliation, might even push them further apart. Exercising restraint had never been harder, even when he'd been a horny teenage virgin impatiently waiting for Sunny to give him the green light.

  She squirmed in his lap as he stroked her saturated entrance, teased the stiff little nub. Her gasps fed his own hunger, clawing at him from the inside.

  Glancing down, he saw his own deeply suntanned hand, looking big and dark and rough against the delicate blue-and-white fabric that half concealed it. The triangle of auburn curls was visible, her panties having been pushed halfway down her hips, now rocking in time to his rhythmic caress.

  His gaze returned to her flushed face as he slowly pushed his finger into her. Her mouth parted on a ragged sigh. His hand moved in imitation of the act being denied that painfully tumescent part of him that leaped and twitched under Sunny's writhing bottom.

  He said, "Open your bra."

  She blinked. He saw the words register, saw her mull them over for a second before shaking her head.

  "Do it," he commanded, never ceasing his probing caress. "Unhook it."

  Sunny's fingers trembled as she obeyed. It was a front-clasp bra. The cups parted and he drank in the sight of her lovely full breasts, their rosy tips tightly erect and irresistible. He bent his head and sucked a nipple into his mouth, and felt her body's pumping response as her internal muscles contracted.

  Kirk eased a second finger into her, as his thumb circled and stroked her clitoris. And all the while he fed on her delectable breasts, licking and suckling and lightly biting, letting her hoarse cries of pleasure guide his actions.

  Sunny clung harder to Kirk; her nails dug into his arms. Her body strained and bowed as her climax rocketed through her. Kirk raised his head and watched it happen, watched her features contort as if she were in the throes of agony. He felt the gripping force of her orgasm as he continued to stoke it, heard it in the strangled gasps that escaped her. Nothing had ever sounded sweeter.

  She collapsed in his arms, spent. He soothed her with whispered endearments, his gentle touch. Her eyelids fluttered open. He smiled with his eyes, releasing a pent-up breath only when he saw her answering smile. Leaning down, he kissed her mouth.

  Sunny said, "I take it back, Professor."

  "What do you take back?"

  Smiling wider, she stretched like a supremely satisfied cat. "It was the best idea you had all day."

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  «^»

  "I wish I'd never heard of the damn Wedding Ring. Cantaloupe or yogurt?"

  Sunny stood with order pad and pencil in hand, while Amanda decided what to have for breakfast. It was always one or the other for the slender blonde, half a cantaloupe with low-fat cottage cheese, or a bowl of low-fat vanilla yogurt with granola and banana slices sprinkled on top. With jasmine tea. No caffeine for Ms. Coppersmith, thank you. Sunny wondered how much more opinionated her friend might get after chewing a mug or two of Wafflemania's nerve-jangling java, and decided it was just as well Amanda was hooked on the flowery beverage. The diner kept jasmine tea in stock expressly for this one discriminating customer.

  "Yogurt." Amanda lounged like a queen in the sun-splashed corner booth she preferred when dining alone. The various sections of the Sunday New York Times were spread out on the table in front of her; the business section lay on top.

  Sunny had been a waitress long enough to know that most people hated to eat alone in a restaurant, and were conspicuously self-conscious when forced to do so. Not Amanda, who was sublimely comfortable with her own company, in whatever setting she found herself. Far from fearing that other diners were staring at her, she probably assumed they were, and why shouldn't they? It was as if she took for granted that she was the most attractive, interesting person in the room.

  Sunny felt sorry for the occasional hapless, hopeful gentleman who approached Amanda to strike up a conversation. If her dismissive stare didn't scare him off, the deed could always be accomplished with a handful of well-chosen words that, though outwardly polite, were guaranteed to make the would-be Lothario slink away, mumbling apologies.

  "You don't mean that about the Wedding Ring," Amanda said.

  "The hell I don't."

  "Well then, think about Raven and Charli. If it weren't for the Wedding Ring, they wouldn't have met Hunter and Grant."

  And if it hadn't been for the Wedding Ring, Sunny thought, she herself wouldn't be trying to go about her usual day-to-day activities with this yawning emptiness inside.

  Sunny was even more confused after last night. She should never have remained at Kirk's house after his parents left—there was a reason she'd avoided being alone with him. That reason became painfully clear when the afterglow wore off and she found herself nearly naked in the arms of the man she'd sworn to cut out of her life forever.

  The man she loved.

  She couldn't get his words out of her head. No one could love you more. She wished she didn't believe him. She wished she could cast him out of her mind and heart and look for someone else to fill that yawning emptiness.

  The fact was, last night's sensual interlude had only served to further erode her determination to do just that. How was she supposed to stick to her guns when, hours later, she could still feel the heated imprint of his hands on her body?

  "Sit down." Amanda nodded toward the bench seat opposite her.

  Automatically Sunny glanced around for Mike, her boss.

  "I just saw him go into the men's room with his crossword magazine." Amanda lifted her tea mug to her mouth. "He's good for twenty minutes at least. And the place is quiet for the moment. Sit."

  Sunny sat. After patronizing Wafflemania for her entire life, Amanda knew its owner and his habits almost as well as his employees did.

  "How's the archaeology dig going?" Amanda asked.

  "It's grimy and exhausting and I absolutely love it. And I've also started to audit a class on the history of Long Island."

  "Those two kind of dovetail, don't they? Local history and the excavation of a Native American village?"

  Sunny nodded. "I've always been fascinated by that stuff. And to be able to do this hands-on work… I only wish I'd acted on it years ago."

  "Well, you're doing it now. Look forward, not back." Amanda was silent for several moments, fiddling with her spoon. "You know, you were wrong."

  Sunny frowned. "Wrong about what?"

  "When you said that whatever I wanted, I'd gotten."

  Amanda had to be referring to that conversation in the backyard of Charli's parents' house, Sunny remembered, when Amanda had painted Mrs. Rossi's fingernails.

  "You know what I meant," Sunny said.

  "I know what you meant, and you were wrong."

  "But look at you." Sunny gestured toward her friend, elegantly turned out even on a Sunday in crisp twill slacks and a silk designer polo shirt. "You're beautiful, smart, you have a career anyone would envy. You own a popular, profitable children's magazine, for heaven's sake!"

  Amanda turned bleak eyes on Sunny. In a quiet voice she said, "My second divorce… There was a time there I thought I just wouldn't make it. It was like I was stuck in this bottomless pit…"

  "I know," Sunny murmured.

  "No, you don't know." Amanda sat straighter; she pasted a thin smile on her face. "You knew what I would let you see. Most of it I kept…" She didn't finish.

  Sunny swallowed hard. She'd known her friend had been in pain, and she'd guessed that pain went deeper than she'd admitted at the time. But Amanda had blustered her way through it as she did with everything else. Sunny and Raven a
nd Charli had been supportive of Amanda; they'd been there for her. Perhaps they should have tried even harder.

  Amanda seemed to sense the direction of her thoughts. "You guys did everything you could for me. It was me. I wouldn't let anyone see how depressed I was, I was afraid that if I let myself unwind too much, I'd just, well, I'd fly apart." She shrugged. "Anyway, I got through it."

  Sunny reached across the table and placed her hand on Amanda's. "Why are you telling me this now?"

  "I told you before, you have no idea how lucky you are. If either of my ex-husbands had loved me half as much as Kirk obviously loves you…" Amanda smiled sadly; her eyes were moist. "I would have given up a lot for that kind of devotion. It's rare and it's special and that's all I'm going to say about it." She pulled back. Her chin trembled just slightly, as if her control hung on a thread.

  Amanda didn't usually open herself up like this, Sunny knew, even to her beloved Wedding Ring pals. The fact that she had chosen to do so now touched Sunny deeply.

  Sunny said, "I just wish this whole thing weren't so…"

  "Complicated?"

  She nodded.

  "Welcome to adulthood. Land of tough choices."

  "Maybe that's my problem," Sunny grumbled. "Maybe I'm just too immature to appreciate what I have."

  Amanda's lopsided smile told Sunny she heard the important part: that Sunny did, on some level, appreciate what she had. "No one can accuse you of being immature," Amanda said. "Pigheaded, obstreperous and downright clueless at times, but never immature."

  "Well, thank you," Sunny said dryly. "I feel much better now."

  Amanda's gaze lit on something behind Sunny. "Break time's over. You've got customers."

  Sunny glanced behind her. And smiled. "My Sunday morning regulars. The MacLeods." Rising, she squeezed Amanda's hand again; she looked her in the eye. "Thanks."

  Amanda winked at her. "Remember, yogurt, not cantaloupe."

  "Gotcha."

  Sunny grabbed menus and the coffee carafe and made her way to the booth where Jim, Emily and little Davey MacLeod were getting settled. Emily set something on the bench seat next to her. It took Sunny a moment to realize she was looking at an infant carrier, the kind that doubles as a seat. And bundied in the carrier was…

  A baby! An Asian infant who appeared to be three months old at most.

  "Who's decided to tag along today?" Sunny handed vinyl-bound menus to Davey and his parents, and poured coffee. Were the MacLeods babysitting?

  Davey, seated on the opposite bench next to his father, bounced on his knees. "She's my new sister and her name is Jennifer and she doesn't eat real food or use the potty, she just drinks out of a bottle and poops in a diaper!"

  "Your new sister?" Sunny shifted her quizzical gaze from Davey's excited face to his parents' broad smiles. "Oh. Is she adopted?" Sunny immediately felt foolish for asking. What other explanation could there be?

  "That's right." Jim beamed at Jennifer, now sucking a pacifier and blinking at her surroundings. "We waited a long time for this little treasure."

  "But not nearly as long as we had to wait for Davey," Emily added.

  Sunny mentally tripped over that statement. Emily had to mean it had taken her a long time to get pregnant with Davey. These were the MacLeods, for heaven's sake! The picture-perfect, Norman Rockwell family that had been making Sunny jealous since Davey himself had been a newborn. Adoption was all well and good, but a family like this was the genuine article. You didn't get this kind of togetherness through—

  "Jennifer's adopted just like me," Davey boasted, "but she, only came from Korea. I came all the way from New Jersey!"

  Jim and Emily laughed, and Jim ruffled the boy's hair. "This guy is the best big brother. Tell Sunny what you did this morning."

  "I gave Jennifer her bottle!"

  "You did?" Sunny's tone of voice told him how impressed she was by his maturity. "Did she drink it all?"

  "Yep. And Mommy put a towel on my shoulder and she put Jennifer on my shoulder and I patted her back and she spit up and some of it got on my shirt. Yech!" He slapped his forehead, hamming it up for his audience. "It was disgusting!"

  "All right, let's hold it down a little," Emily said, chuckling. "People are trying to eat. They don't want to hear about spit-up."

  Jennifer started to fuss. Her mother reached for her. On impulse Sunny said, "May I?"

  "Of course. I think she just wants to get a better look around," Emily said as Sunny set down the coffee carafe and carefully lifted Jennifer out of the carrier. "This is the most inquisitive baby," Emily continued. "Always needs to know what's going on. Always needs to be in the thick of things."

  "Davey was just like that," Jim said with a proud smile.

  "Is that right?" Sunny asked the baby, as she cradled the solid weight of her in her arms. "Are you a Curious George? Curious Georgina?"

  "Curious Georgina!" Davey cried, delighted.

  Jennifer stared fixedly at Sunny, her dark eyes alert and, yes, inquisitive. This tiny new person reminded her so much of Ian; not in physical appearance, certainly, but in the irrepressible exuberance with which she took in everything around her.

  "She's beautiful," Sunny breathed, more to herself than to the MacLeods. Reverently she stroked the downy black hair on the baby's crown.

  Something dislodged inside Sunny then, settling into its proper place like a well-oiled gear. A tightness she hadn't been aware of before this moment suddenly eased, leaving her wondering how she could have lived with it all this time.

  And she knew what she had to do.

  Jennifer's mouth opened in a huge yawn, displaying pink gums north and south. Sunny bit back a watery chuckle, shocked to find her vision swimming. She blinked back the film of tears and handed the infant to her mother.

  "You're a natural," Emily said, her eyes too knowing.

  Sunny dragged in an unsteady breath. "So I've been told."

  "I want a waffle!" Davey hollered. "With blueberry syrup and sausages and grapefruit juice!"

  Jim's mouth quirked. "What a shock." His son was nothing if not consistent.

  Sunny felt more buoyant than she had in years. "Coming right up."

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  «^»

  Sunny slipped into the lecture hall through its rear enhance and moved to the middle of the back wall. It was nine-thirty on Monday morning and she was already dressed for work, though she didn't have to be at Wafflemania until noon.

  About two hundred students packed the hall. Kirk stood at the front of the room, his back to his Physics 101 class as he wrote on the chalkboard. "Force, in newtons," he said, scrawling an f on the board, followed by an equal sign and an m, "equals mass, in kilograms—"

  This is so boring, Sunny thought, watching the students diligently scribble in their notebooks. How do they all stand it?

  "—times acceleration, in meters per second squared." Kirk added an a next to the m, and turned to face the class. His ice-blue gaze immediately homed in on Sunny, leaning against the back wall. Surprise flashed across his face, causing most of his students to turn and see what had distracted him.

  Sunny gave everyone a cheery smile and a little wave.

  "Um…" Kirk glanced at the board, as if to remind himself of what he was supposed to be teaching. "For example—yes?" A student in the front row had shot his hand up and now asked an incomprehensible question—incomprehensible to Sunny, at least, who began to fan herself with her hand. After a few cooler days and refreshing mid-September breezes, summer had reasserted itself this morning, with the mercury hovering around the eighty-degree mark. The lecture hall was uncomfortably warm and stuffy.

  Kirk droned on in scientific gibberish, answering the student's question, his gaze occasionally flicking to Sunny in the back. They really should install air conditioning in here, she thought, reaching up to unfasten the top button on her waitress uniform. Watching her, Kirk stumbled over his words, managing to reestablish his train of thought o
nly with a conspicuous effort.

  "Yes. So. For example," he continued, "if a five-newton force is applied to a three-kilogram object in a friction-free environment—"

  Sunny popped another button free.

  "—the object, uh…"

  The students waited. A few followed his line of sight to where Sunny stood in the rear, now in maximum cleavage mode, fanning herself and taking deep, deep breaths

  "The object, uh… If a five, uh, newton force is applied to a three-kilogram object in a, um, friction-free environment, the object will accelerate…" He paused, his gaze locked on Sunny, now executing a full body stretch, her back arched, her torso twisting this way and that. One of his students took his silence as a cue to complete the statement.

  "Five-thirds meters per second squared."

  Kirk blinked at the student. "What?"

  "Five-thirds meters per second squared!" The kid raised his hands as if to say, Right?

  "Yes," Kirk managed to answer. "Correct. Um … I think we'll knock off a little early today."

  A grateful murmur arose from the students, who lost no time shoving books, pens and handouts into their backpacks and heading for the exits, as Kirk rattled off a homework assignment. A doughy young man with greasy hair winked at Sunny and thanked her as he passed.

  Finally the last student filed out and Sunny had Kirk to herself. He slipped his notes into his battered leather briefcase and made his way to the back of the room. He stood in front of Sunny for several moments, his expression inscrutable. Finally he said, "I had no idea you were so interested in physics."

  "Didn't I tell you I intended to audit some classes?"

  "Well, if you ever decide to pull another stunt like this one, just warn me ahead of time so I can wear a blindfold." He set the briefcase at his feet and refastened her buttons. Slowly. Sunny wondered if he could feel her thunderous heartbeat under the hot-pink polyester. She closed her hands over his and looked into his eyes.

  "I don't deserve you," she said, "but if you still want me…"