Summer Heat

by Carly Phillips

  “There’s no one here.” He didn’t let go, only spread his fingers over her knuckles. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?” Tamara forced herself to look into his eyes. A mistake. She stood too close, and now she could read the puzzled little hurt, the passion, the yearning that burned in his irises. Irises that up close reminded her of a marble she’d once had, a blue one with floating streaks of amber. There was a whole universe contained in the bright, sharded color.

  He lowered his lashes. The tips were bleached golden, and showed clearly against the slash of sunburned cheekbone. His lower lip looked a little burned, too. Vulnerable.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, holding her hand in both of his, his index finger restlessly moving over her nails. “If you want to give me the brush-off you could just do it and spare me making a fool of myself like this.”

  From this angle, Tamara could see the burnished crown of his head, and she ached to put her hand against the thick hair, ached to feel it on her fingers. She ached to kiss that sunburned lip. “You scare me to death,” she heard herself say. “You’re way out of my league.”

  “No, sweetheart,” he said, and finally looked at her again. “You’ve got it backward. I’m the one way out of his league here.”

  And then, as if it were a movie, as if there weren’t a dozen people around, he looped a hand around her neck and pulled her down to kiss her.

  Caught off balance, Tamara nearly tumbled into him. She caught on his shoulders, trying to steady herself enough to pull away, to somehow extract herself—

  But his lips were hot with sunburn, and he hadn’t forgotten anything about kissing in two weeks’ time, and she felt bewitched by the glorious taste of him. He claimed her possessively, hungrily, with such mastery that she forgot why it mattered that he was kissing her here, in a public place, while she was on duty.

  There was only Lance, so big and so hungry, smelling of soap and a hint of after-shave and the evocative scent of the pine and sky and night that hung in his thick, clean hair. Against her palms, his shoulders were powerful and broad, and his strong thighs clasped the outside of her legs in an intimate embrace.

  She didn’t want to stop kissing him. His mouth was a wildly delicious place, and she wanted to explore all of it, wanted to stay forever clasped in the sinuous dance of their tongues. The more she tasted, the more she wanted to taste, the farther she slipped into the narcotic spell he cast over her senses. He smelled right. He tasted right. He felt right—

  She shoved away, ducking her head to hide the shame that flooded through her. “Stop,” she whispered, backing away. She covered her mouth, let her hair fall over her furiously hot face. “I can’t believe—”

  “Can’t believe what, Tamara?” he said in a dangerously low voice. “That you want me the way I want you? Can you please tell me exactly what is so wrong about that?”

  She yanked her hand away and whirled, taking refuge behind the bar. But once there, she couldn’t remember what to do. It all looked so alien. She chanced a scan around the rest of the room, but nothing seemed to have changed. No one seemed to have noticed—or maybe they just didn’t care—that the bartender was smooching with a customer.

  “Tamara,” Lance said. His voice was firm and low. “Stop running away and just face me with it, whatever it is.”

  For a moment she resisted. She tried to imagine there was some way out of this tangle of emotion. But there wasn’t. Setting her teeth, she took a deep breath and moved to face him across the bar.

  “You want the truth, Lance? This is the truth.” She gestured to encompass the bar. “This is my life. I’m a bartender. You are one of the richest men in the county, maybe even the state. You’re footloose and fancy-free, with no intention of ever settling down, and I’m a single mother with a child to raise.” Once she got going, she couldn’t stop. “I think you’re one of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen, but that’s not enough for me.” She stopped, and rushed on. “I can’t afford you.”

  He said nothing for a long space of time, only looked at her with an unreadable opaqueness on his face. Finally he pursed his lips, stood up and dug out a sheaf of bills. With strange control, he placed the bills on the bar, smoothing each one as he counted it. “I’ll leave you alone, then,” he said. “Have a nice life.”

  Tamara didn’t know what she had expected. Maybe that he would argue with her, or give her one of those charming smiles and play some silly word game.

  She didn’t expect him to just stand up and walk away. And she felt a deep, almost tearing kind of regret at the strange, abruptly controlled movements he made. If he were any other man in the world, she would have said he was trying to cover up hurt feelings. She would have interpreted that faint flush as one of embarrassment. She might have—

  “Lance,” she said, helplessly, and stopped.

  He looked at her, his beautiful mouth pulled to a tight smile. “Forget it, Tamara. It’s not that important.”

  With a lump in her chest, she watched him thrust his arms into his coat as he walked, watched as he stopped to put a hand on Marissa’s back and said something in her ear. Watched Marissa pat his hand and cast a covert look over her shoulder at Tamara.

  Watched him open the door and stalk out into the snowy night without a backward glance.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lance roamed his faceless apartment for hours, prowling the small, sterile living room with its rented furniture, to the kitchen with its single pot and plastic utensils, into the bedroom where not a single painting or photo broke the white walls. It was a sterile, lifeless place, and tonight it seemed to mock him.

  What did Tamara know about rich? Rich didn’t mean a damn thing. She was the rich one, with her warm, fragrant home, with its comfortable chairs and easy grace. With her son laughing, and the smell of dinner cooking and music playing.

  And maybe that was the point. Maybe she sensed the sterility of his inner life and wanted no part of it. He stared at his bare walls and knew she’d never live anywhere for more than a week without putting her stamp on it somehow, without finding some way to make it comfortable and cozy and warm.

  God, he ached for her. Her smell, her taste, her laughter. Her warmth. Even after the humiliating experience in the bar, he couldn’t stop wanting her. The yearning was vague, unfocused. It centered around having her close to him, holding her small neat body against his chest, in his arms. He just wanted to touch her. Kiss her.

  After four hours of pacing, he finally grabbed his coat and headed out into the night. Anything was better than pacing those same three rooms.

  The night was beautiful. The first snow of the year drifted from a leaden sky, only faintly tinged with pink from the town’s lights. He held up his face to the fat, twirling flakes and rejoiced in the fact that whatever else had gone wrong in his life, at least he was home again. Home where he belonged, where it snowed. He’d missed the hell out of winter in Houston. He’d been longing to come home for three years before his father’s death, but as soon as the telegram came, he’d known, instantly, it was time. People had urged him to reconsider, to think about what he was doing, but Lance didn’t go about life like that. He acted on instinct, and he’d rarely been proven wrong.

  He ambled for a long time, walking the perimeter of the town. And it was no surprise to him to find himself on Tamara’s walk, looking at her lighted living room window. She probably had not been home long—her car still ticked as it cooled, and there was only a light dusting of snow on the windshield.

  He stood on the sidewalk in the dark, with his hands in his pockets, staring at the glow of lamplight against her drawn curtains. Outside, the snow fell in utter stillness save for the lonely sound of a train whistle crying out in the night.

  Inside, he imagined she had brewed a cup of the lemony tea she’d given him once, and sat over her books. Maybe there were waltzes on the CD player. Cody would be asleep in his bed, tucked in and smelling of dampness from his b
ath. Or maybe she didn’t have time to give him a bath on Friday nights. Maybe it was too late when she got home.

  In the vague area of his chest was an ache he couldn’t name. The visions of her warm house made him feel things he didn’t know he’d ever felt—at least not since he was a child. His mother had made a warm, safe place for her children, as much as she’d been able to, anyway. His father had not always been the easiest man to please.

  But then, his father hadn’t been around much. He came home and raised hell, and went right back out again, and his mother smoothed things as well as she was able, making calm the stormy waters.

  Part of him was appalled that he was standing out here in front of Tamara’s house like a lovesick teenager. It wasn’t his style. But then, not much about this whole thing had been his style, had it?

  Snow dusted his hair, and his jacket, and still he did not move. Cold began to seep into his thighs through his jeans, and his ears and nose hurt. And he only stood there, staring at Tamara’s neat, warm house.

  Was he just grieving, was that what this weird loneliness was about? Was he realizing nothing lasted forever, that sooner or later it came down to the ties you made in your life? It was certainly one of the reasons he’d come back to Red Creek. He’d grown tired of being the alien, had wanted to come back to his own place, to the place where he knew things, knew the sky and the trees and the bugs and the smells.

  Maybe his wish for Tamara was just another part of that. She was a hometown girl, the kind of girl a wild boy didn’t notice, but got to wanting as he got older and realized he wasn’t going to be young forever.

  Abruptly, her porch light went off. It spurred Lance to action. He found himself moving up the walk, and almost rang the bell before he remembered Cody was sleeping, and knocked instead. There was an urgency in the sound of his hand against her screen door, and he stepped back, appalled. What was he doing?

  Then she opened the door, and he knew. Her face was bare of makeup, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore only a flannel shirt and jeans and socks. Ordinary things. And just looking at her took his breath away. It took him long moments to gather enough air to speak. Tamara simply looked at him with wariness and hunger in her big green eyes, a wistfulness on her mouth.

  At last he found his voice, though it was a roughened version. “Can I come in?”

  * * *

  Tamara stared at him with a mingling of terror and joy. His hair was damp with melted snow, and in his eyelashes, some of the thick flakes had stuck, giving his eyes a starry look. There was no smile on his mouth, no gleam in his eye. She might have been able to resist that.

  Instead, he wore tonight the same expression that had torn away her defenses the night of his father’s funeral. Lost. Lonely. Adrift. In desperate need of comfort and unable to ask it.

  She pushed open the screen door and let him in.

  He didn’t even close the door—just flowed to her and gathered her close, so very close, and kissed her. His mouth was cold and his nose nudged her cheek with an icy touch and his down jacket still held the winter night, but it didn’t matter. His kiss was hot, and his arms were enveloping and she sensed he would inhale her like oxygen if he could.

  No one had ever wanted her in her whole life the way Lance wanted her right then. And she’d never wanted so much to give anyone like she wanted to give him herself.

  Gently she moved away from him long enough to close the door. When she threw the dead bolt, he made a small, pained sound, and reached for her again. And again, she felt a sense of being wrapped, enfolded, truly embraced as he pulled her against his big, long body. He buried his face in her hair. “Oh, Tamara, I want you,” he whispered. “So much. Don’t send me away again. Let me love you.”

  She lifted her head and put her hands on his cold face, and pulled his head down to kiss him. “I won’t,” she promised. “I couldn’t.”

  With a rough groan, he kissed her. And it was an almost violent kiss—bruising teeth and fierce thrusts and a drawing, hungriness that set her blood aflame. She tilted her head to meet him with the same unfettered passion, pushing his coat from his shoulders. He let her tug it off his arms and let it fall to the floor without breaking the kiss. He touched her body, his hands roaming her back and her buttocks and her thighs and her waist, up to her head and down again, as if he would touch her everywhere simultaneously if he could.

  Tamara let everything go. Everything. For this one night, she was free of past or future, of hopes or wishes or dreams. There was only Lance, so beautiful and wounded and lost, needing her like she had never been needed, nor expected she ever would be again. Here was a man who asked nothing but her pleasure, who promised nothing but a full enjoyment of her passion.

  And passion she had. Oh, yes. It rushed through her limbs and into her throat and mouth. It swelled in her breasts and between her legs. It made her hands tingle with the need to feel his supple skin.

  She let her inhibitions fall away. Let herself feel him, all of him. His muscular back and the broad shoulders and his upper arms, so thick with his work. She kissed his clean-shaven, hard-cut chin and his neck that smelled of pine and snow and night, and the light furring of hair on his chest.

  With a sudden, swift move, he picked her up. “I want you in a bed, where it’s warm and comfortable. Tell me where.”

  Tamara pointed. “I can walk.”

  “Not tonight,” he said, and carried her through the living room and down the hall to her room. It was dark. He put her on the bed, and Tamara felt a strange, pulsing anticipation as he reached for the small bedside lamp.

  She had no time to protest. He tumbled her backward and straddled her thighs. The aggressive gesture thrilled her, and her breath caught high in her throat as she reached for him.

  He caught her hands. “No, let me touch you.” His hair fell forward around his face as he reached for the buttons on her shirt. Tamara, sensing his need, dug her fingers into the comforter, grabbing fistfuls so she could remain still.

  He took his time. One button at time, with no hurry, until they were all open, and she felt a slice of air touch her stomach and chest. With a single gesture of both hands, he pushed the fabric away.

  She watched him as he touched her stomach lightly, putting his palm against her belly. The expression on his face made her remember the night he’d kissed her outside the bar, as if he was truly seeing her, making himself slow down enough to be truly present in that very moment.

  But it was not easy to simply lie there, her hands to her sides, as he knelt above her looking windblown and glorious with his tousled hair and broad shoulders and thick, powerful thighs holding her own immobile.

  It was not easy to remain still when he reached for the front clasp of her bra and unhooked it, and then let the fabric lie there, as if he prepared himself for some greatly anticipated wish. She closed her eyes in a torrent of pleasure when he slid his hands under that scrap of fabric, brushing her aching nipples lightly, and pushed the bra away.

  For long moments, only air and his gaze touched her, both swirling over flesh unused to such attention. She clutched huge handfuls of the comforter in her fists, and opened her eyes, afraid of what she would see.

  “I wanted to see you like this, in the light,” he said raggedly. “And touch you.” To illustrate, he stroked each risen nipple with the tips of his index fingers. “I wanted to see your face when I did it,” he said.

  She met his gaze with effort, that blue, burning, hungry gaze. And all at once, she was fiercely glad to be with him like this, to see him shredded with desire for her. She reached for his thighs and curled her hands around them. “Lance,” she whispered, “please—”

  He bent over and kissed her, and his open shirt billowed out, letting his chest meet hers in an erotic brush of hair and masculine heat against soft female skin. He moved down her neck, to her breasts. “You’re all I’ve thought about,” he said. “For days. I can’t sleep.”

  She clasped him to her,
so overwhelmed with desire she wanted the clothes out of their way. “Please, Lance, I want to be naked with you. Take off these clothes.”

  He lifted himself up, still straddling her, and took off his shirt. Tamara touched his smooth, hard stomach. “You are the beautiful one,” she whispered. And wickedly, she smiled and let her hands fall lower, to stroke his rigid member through his jeans. He made a low sound, and his eyes closed, and she drank in the way his face looked now, sensually hazed and extraordinarily beautiful.

  He caught her hands and bent forward, pinning her completely, her hands on either side of her head, his legs firmly trapping hers, and kissed her. His chest rubbed her breasts, and she arched a little against him, needed more. He kissed her chin, and her throat, her collarbone and her chest.

  And at last he opened his mouth on her breast, hot and wet and wild. The sensation was so fierce, Tamara cried out softly. She freed her arms and he cupped her breasts, lifting them to his tantalizing tongue and lips, to the swirl and suckle and gentle nip of his mouth. His blond hair fell around his face and touched her flesh, and Tamara thought she could gladly die, right then and there.

  The urgency in her grew, and she could not bear to go so slowly. She reached for the button of his jeans. “Let’s take off the rest of our clothes,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah.” With a quick movement, he stood up and stripped off his jeans so fast, Tamara had barely shed her shirt and tangled bra before he was finished.

  And then she couldn’t move because she forgot what she was doing when he stood in front of her, splendidly nude. She could only stare.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered. He looked like a painting. Yellow lamplight caught on his exquisitely carved shoulders, and flowed down his torso, glinting against the golden hair scattered in an artful dusting on his chest. He was as golden as a god, made of sunlight and an exotic grace that seemed born of mountain winds. The sight of his arousal, rising from a thick nest of hair, full and slightly foolish and erotic all at once, only added to the almost painful impact of his beauty.