A Memorable Man

by Joan Hohl

  While her rationale made sense on the surface, Adam still found the concept troubling. The very idea that he would initiate a mere child was repugnant.

  “But...thirteen?” he said, shaking his head in disbelief and negation.

  “I was a woman, fully grown and fully developed.” Her smile somehow managed to appear both compassionate and sensual. “You were gentle... and wonderful.”

  “I was?” Adam’s voice was rough, and he was unaware of revealing his acceptance of her claim.

  “Oh, yes.” The tones of compassion were gone, leaving her voice rich with sensuality. “After the first time, the piercing pain and adjustment of your invasion, I loved, craved the feeling of you inside me, the thrilling sensations created by your stroking hands, your mouth suckling at my breasts, your slim, hard body between my thighs.”

  Oh, sweet agony. Adam’s mouth and throat were bone-dry, his palms and forehead damp with sweat. His hardening body was gripped by the delicious ache of arousal. He wanted Sunny, right there, right then, hurt with the need to act out the scenario she had made almost visual with her explicitly descriptive words.

  Without thought or pause to reflect, he reached for her, pulling her roughly into his embrace. She came willingly, sighing as he crushed her breasts against his chest.

  “I want you, too.”

  Her murmured confession shattered what was left of his restraint. Adam was too far gone to realize that the vaguely heard growl-like sound came from his own throat. All he knew and understood was the luscious temptation of her mouth, her lips quivering in anticipation, the enticement of the tip of her tongue gliding along the edge of her teeth.

  Lowering his head, he fit his mouth to hers, plunged his tongue deep, in a thrust evocative of a fuller, more meaningful possession.

  Sunny responded by engaging his tongue in a sensual duel, tasting him as he tasted her.

  His heart thumping, Adam thrilled to the possessive curl of her arms around his taut neck, the spear of her slender fingers into his hair.

  He had to get closer, closer to her. Tightening his hold on her, Adam slid his aching body over the side of the settee and onto the floor. Sunny made a soft landing on top of him, the juncture of her thighs in contact with his rigid, straining manhood. Her long hair fell forward, curtaining his head in strands of gold-streaked silk.

  His mouth clinging to hers, he grasped her by the hips and rolled over, settling his body in the cradle of her thighs. There was the grating sound of ripping, and he knew the skirt seams had given way at the side slits from calf to mid-thigh, for his manhood was suddenly pressed to the mound of her femininity.

  It was heaven and it was hell, heaven because it was where he wanted to be, hell because their clothing barred the way to the desired feel of skin on skin.

  Adam moved his hands in a restless quest along the sides of her body, skimming the fullness of her breasts, the indentation of her waist, the curve of her hips and bottom. He wanted to touch her everywhere but...

  His chest was on fire, his lungs protesting a need to breathe. Reluctantly, he raised his hands to her head, cupping her face as he slid his mouth from hers.

  “Yes,” she murmured on a heartfelt sigh of relief. “You haven’t changed. You are still my hotblooded, impatient and wonderful lover.”

  Five

  Damn.

  Square one.

  Adam groaned. This was nuts, he thought, despair dulling the edge of his arousal. This entire experience, from their first encounter in the street to his body pressing hers into the carpet was purely and simply nuts.

  But he wanted her more intensely than he had ever before wanted any other woman. The realization was sobering, almost frightening.

  Heaving a sigh, Adam rolled off the soft and tempting cushion of Sunny’s body and onto his back on the floor beside her. He drew several deep breaths, repeatedly swallowing before attempting to speak.

  “I’m going out of my mind here,” he muttered, staring at the ceiling. “Totally insane.”

  “My poor darling,” Sunny murmured, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She gazed down at him with eyes softened by compassion. “Acceptance comes hard, I know.”

  Acceptance wasn’t the only thing hard, Adam ridiculed himself in select frustration. Telling himself to get up off the floor, yet lacking the energy to move, he stared at her narrowly, fighting the urge to pull her down on top of him again, lose himself in her cool eyes and hot mouth.

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s all right.” She smiled. “It’s natural.”

  He frowned. “What is?”

  “Wanting to be with me, hurting with the need to be joined with me, body and soul.”

  Geeze. Body and soul, yet. The jury’s in, he mused. Total insanity, without doubt.

  Adam felt torn by conflicting desires, a part of him demanding he play the gentleman, take her home, get her out of his life, while another part of him, a part he didn’t recognize, cautioned him against taking a precipitous action that just might impact his entire future.

  Rendered inert by the inner conflict, he stared at Sunny in mute appeal.

  Her eyes revealing her concern for his personal struggle, Sunny shifted, drawing her legs up closer to her body, exposing her silky thighs through the tear in her skirt seam.

  “I’m sorry for causing the rip in your skirt,” he muttered. “Of course, I’ll pay for the repairs.”

  “The skirt is unimportant, Adam.” She gave the tear a negligent glance. “It’s material—” she smiled “—or, in this instance, immaterial.”

  “What is material, then?”

  “You and me and a love centuries old, yet ever new and renewing.”

  New Age hogwash or... Adam restlessly moved his head, finding comfort in the reality of the carpet fibers scraping against his scalp.

  “Sunny, I cannot buy into this concept of reincar—” he began, only to be silenced by the fingers she pressed against his lips.

  “It’ll take time, love,” she said, giving a quick, impatient shake of her head. “I’m moving too fast for you. It took me years to assimilate, believe and accept the memory images.”

  “A young girl’s fairy tales, not memories of past lives,” he said, his voice made harsh by disappointment. He jolted up to sit facing her. “Sunny, I doubt I’ll ever believe that you and I—or anyone else for that matter—have shared experiences of other lives.”

  “But you promised.”

  Oh, hell. Adam detected the onset of a headache, very likely, he presumed, from beating his head against the stone wall of Sunny’s persistence.

  Feeling his resistance wavering, he ran a thoughtful look over her enticing form. Sunny might be a genuine cuckoo bird, but she certainly was one tempting cuckoo bird.

  “Will you allow me to finish my story?” she asked in imploring tones. “All my stories?”

  Temptation decided the issue. Raking a hand through his already disheveled hair, Adam surrendered his rational self to his sensual nature.

  “Might as well,” he said, rising, then offering a hand to help her up. “You’ve got one week. But for now, I want to hear about this supposed promise.”

  The smile Sunny blessed him with was almost worth his surrender. Almost, but not quite. Adam didn’t, would not grant complete surrender, not even to his damnable sensuous nature, without a fight. On the spot, he decided that Miss Sunny Dase was in for the battle of her life. She would have to struggle mightily for every inch he gave her—literally, as well as figuratively.

  As if exhausted by their exchange, Sunny dropped like a stone onto the settee and groped for the glass of wine she had set aside.

  Following her lead, Adam settled beside her. Reaching for his own glass, he drained the warm red wine without pausing for breath. The glass empty, he set it down with a thunk, then gave a flick of his hand.

  “Please, continue.”

  A frown crinkled her smooth brow. “Yes... er...where was I, do you re
call?”

  Adam’s smile was blatant with suggestion. “You were loving the feel of my hard body between your thighs.” If he had thought to rattle her, and he had, his shot went wide of its intended target.

  Sunny’s smile was smug with satisfaction. “Yes, and you assumed that position—eagerly and a lot.”

  The tightness in Adam’s body, his loins, had just begun to ease somewhat; her assertion tightened him again like an overwound watch spring.

  “Careful, lady,” he murmured in warning. “You’re stomping on uncertain and shaky ground.”

  Sunny apparently felt confident enough to laugh at him. Her laughter rippled through the quiet room, swirling around him, an unabrasive, gentle invitation to him to join in, share the moment of mutual enjoyment with her.

  Adam couldn’t resist her sweet call to amusement. A soft chuckle rumbled in his chest, expanding into a full-throated laugh as it burst from his smiling lips.

  “You’re a witch,” he accused, shaking his head in amused despair at his own weakness.

  Sunny mirrored his action, not in despair but in negation of his charge. “No, just a woman,” she murmured. “A one-man-forever kind of woman.”

  Her claim sobered him at once, and laced his voice with cynicism. “You’ve never been with another man?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Although his voice maintained a cynical edge, Adam felt a perplexing sense of betrayal. He exhaled a harsh breath, unconsciously reflecting the sudden deflated sensation inside his body and mind. Knowing it was irrational, if not plain stupid, he felt hurt, wounded by her admission, and he wanted to lash out, inflict pain on her in retaliation. “Doesn’t say much for the loyalty of a forever kind of woman, does it?”

  “Oh, Adam,” Sunny murmured, her smile gently chiding. “Still quick to jealously and judgment?”

  “What do you mean?” he snapped, uncomfortably recalling the flashes of jealously he’d felt over her innocent exchange with the waiter at dinner.

  Her smile taunted. “Your ongoing tendency toward possessiveness.”

  A denial sprang to Adam’s lips. Self-knowledge kept him from uttering it. Her assertion was true, as far as it went. He was possessive, and protective, about his family and their jointly owned corporation. But Adam had never in his life experienced even a twinge of jealousy, never mind a streak of possessiveness in regard to a woman. And the only woman he had ever felt protective of was his mother.

  “I have never been jealous, judgmental or possessive of any woman,” he said with cool conviction.

  “Maybe not,” she responded with unruffled calm. “At least, not this time around.”

  Around. And around. And around, Adam thought, beginning to feel a mite dizzy. Time to get off this particular merry-go-round.

  “Finish your story,” he said, suppressing a sigh of weariness—or was it regret?

  “We had two wonderful years together.” Once again, Sunny startled him with the abruptness of her launch into her recitation. “Two years of loving and laughter in relative peace and prosperity.”

  “And then?” Adam prompted, made anxious by the sorrow that dimmed, darkened her eyes.

  “We, our tribe, were under attack.”

  Though she continued to look straight at him, Adam had the distinct and uneasy sensation that Sunny no longer saw him but a scene visible only to her.

  “The smoke and scent of our cooking fires drew a Roman patrol to our campsite.” She blinked, and focused on him. A smile of sad acceptance curved her soft lips. “You rallied our warriors. Fighting fiercely, you drove them off...then followed in hot pursuit.”

  Something in her tone, her expression, instilled a sense of dread in Adam. “Go on,” he said, spurred on by a ballooning urgency.

  “You didn’t come back.”

  The pervasive dread inside Adam stilled his thoughts, dried his throat. “Wh-why not?” he asked in a raw whisper, hating the unsteadiness of his voice, yet unable to control the fearful tremor.

  Sunny’s eyes were wide, staring; staring at scenes only she could visualize.

  “Why not?” Adam’s voice was stronger, harsh with a demand for an answer.

  “Many of our warriors were slain,” she said in tones of sheer agony. “The few that managed to escape stumbled, wounded and bleeding, into camp. They reported that you had been captured by the invaders.”

  “Go on,” Adam urged, shaken by the expression of horror in her staring eyes.

  “Our remaining tribe members were shocked and enraged, unable to believe our bravest had been torn from us.”

  Her eyes glittered with a strange light, a look of madness that caused a clenching sensation in Adam. He opened his mouth to ask her to continue, but no words came.

  “I was distraught, crazed,” she went on, her voice growing stronger with emotional fury. “I snatched a sword from the wounded bloody hand of a warrior, and ran screaming from the campsite, vowing vengeance.”

  Good Lord. Without conscious thought, Adam pressed back against the settee, distancing himself from the hate blazing from Sunny’s eyes.

  “They stopped me,” she said, her voice a gritty, snarling cry of resentment. “The elders, the women, my aged parents, caught me and brought me back.” Her eyes were wild, terrifying. “Oh, I fought them. Kicking and screaming invectives, calling upon our gods to intercede, I fought them. But there were too many, and they subdued me. At first I had to be physically restrained, to keep me from running again, to find your abductors, to kill and be killed.”

  “Sunny,” he said sharply, repelled by the pure malice firing her eyes.

  She lowered her head. A shudder rippled the length of her slender body. When she raised her head moments later, her eyes were clear of the blistering hate but dark, dark green pools of unspeakable sorrow.

  “And...” Adam had to pause to swallow, moisten his parched throat. “And then?”

  “All the fight went out of me and I withdrew inside myself.” Sunny sighed; it made a heartwrenching sound. “I lay for some months, listless and uncaring. I was unaware and unconcerned when the decision was made to strike camp, move on to a hopefully safer location closer to the sea.”

  Adam frowned. “The sea?”

  “Yes...somewhere along the Brittany coast.” Sunny’s voice was dull, as unconcerned as she claimed to have been. “My mother and the women of the tribe cared for me, or I surely would have starved to death, as I had longed to do.”

  “No.” The protest erupted from his throat.

  “Yes.” Her smile pained him. “It was the first faint movements of the babe that cleared my mind, brought me back to my senses.”

  Adam jolted. “Babe?”

  “Yes. I was with child...” Sunny stared directly into his startled eyes. “Your child.”

  A child. His child. Suddenly, Adam felt as though he couldn’t breathe, as if his chest was being compressed, squeezing all the air from his body. The mere act of speaking, forming the words seemed an insurmountable task. Yet for some inexplicable reason, his mind demanded he ask, know the sex of the child she claimed was his.

  “A...a...son or a...daughter?” he finally managed to squeak through his constricted throat.

  Sunny’s eyes. Her eyes. Those beautiful, expressive, mountain-glen-green eyes had the power to claw at his heart and soul with the depths of their reflected sadness.

  “I don’t know...and therein lies the tragedy.”

  “Explain,” he cried, so enmeshed in her tale, he was numb to the fact of being caught up in it. “What tragedy?”

  She exhaled another shattering sigh. “There was a man, another warrior of our tribe, your friend and soul brother. He had survived the fray, although he had been sorely wounded. He approached my parents, offered to take me to wife, raise your child as his own.”

  Once again that flame of jealousy flared hot and bright inside Adam, shocking him with its intensity. Making a concentrated effort, he tamped it down enough to ask
with a degree of steadiness, “You accepted?”

  “No!” Sunny exclaimed, giving a violent shake of her head. “I was your woman...yours alone.”

  While Adam felt somewhat shamed by the sense of relief that washed over him, he felt an equal sense of satisfaction on hearing her declare herself as his woman. Pitiable as he knew himself to be, he savored the thrill just the same.

  “But the tragedy you mentioned...?”

  “My parents gratefully accepted your friend’s offer.” A tired smile shadowed her lips. “They hastened to arrange for the ceremony, because by then my body was big with your growing child.” Her eyes grew stormy, reflecting the rebellion fermenting her thoughts. “I could not bear it, could not tolerate the thought of a man, however kind and good, other than you, laying between my thighs.”

  “But what could you do?” Adam asked, denying himself another thrill at her assertion. “What could you possibly do to prevent the ceremony and the subsequent results?”

  Sunny’s eyes narrowed, sending a premonitory shiver through him. When at last she spoke, her voice was low, her tone dangerous, her words measured. “I pleaded with my parents to reverse their decision, and when they refused in the cause of doing what was best for me I flung myself from the cliffs, into the waves crashing onto the shore below.”

  “Good God.” Stunned, Adam’s voice was little more than a shocked whisper.

  She didn’t seem to hear. “I lived for two days after they discovered me on the beach, my broken body in agony, injured muscles straining in desperate contraction to expel the babe from my womb.”

  His throat constricted, unable to speak, Adam reached out to grasp her hands; they felt like ice.

  Tears welled in her eyes and flowed down her cheeks. “Vitally alive and glowing with an inner light, you knelt beside my—our—sleeping pallet mere hours before I died.”

  “What?” Adam unknowingly crushed her hands with his tight grip. Her wince brought him to the realization that he was hurting her and he eased his grip. “What?” he repeated, shaking his head. “Had I escaped my captors?”

  “No.” Sunny shook her head, seeming to accept as natural his apparent suspension of skepticism. “During the long months of your captivity, you had come to accept their Christian beliefs and their Savior. In a show of trust, they allowed you to leave, accepting your vow to return with your wife.”