by Jackie Black
“Thanks for being such a good sport about Maggie’s behavior,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry she can be such a pill, but . . .”
“But she loved her mother,” Elizabeth gently interrupted, “and she doesn’t want anyone taking her place. Nor does she want to share the only parent she has left with anyone else. There’s no need to apologize for her, Sonny. I would probably have felt the way she does if my father had dated aftex Mother died. I’m not even sure why he didn’t.” She shrugged, her gaze thoughtful. “Maybe he was waiting for me to be out on my own . . . but then it got to be too late.”
Sonny reached over and covered Elizabeth’s hand with his own. “You still miss him, don’t you?” he asked softly.
Drawn by the gentle sympathy she heard in his voice, Elizabeth made the mistake of looking into his eyes, and found herself caught by the warmth of his gaze.
“Yes ... I still miss him,” she said unsteadily and forced herself to look away. It was time she stopped enjoying Sonny’s company so much and said what she had to.
“Sonny, there’s something I have to tell you . . . ,” she started to say, but Sonny gently raised her hand to his mouth at that moment and placed a warm kiss in her palm, making a frisson of pleasure spread immediately throughout her body.
“Sonny, don’t—” she said weakly and tried to draw her hand away.
But Sonny sensed what she wanted to say and wanted to head her off. He had also felt her reaction to his kiss, and that was more than enough to keep him from letting her go. Instead, he moved his lips to her wrist, placing them with unerring accuracy over the pulse point there.
Elizabeth knew he felt the leap in her pulse and she curled her fingers together and tried again to pull free of him.
“Sonny, just because . . . well, it doesn’t mean very much that . . . that there’s a certain physical awareness between us,” she said, but Sonny lifted his head at that instant and caught her gaze. Elizabeth swallowed when she saw the heat of arousal flickering in the blue of his eyes.
“Doesn’t it?” he asked so softly she barely heard him.
She refused to answer, and she couldn’t look away, and before she knew what he intended, Sonny was on his feet and had drawn her up into his arms.
He gave her no time to protest before his mouth took hers with hungry roughness, while his arms imprisoned her tightly against him. And as had happened each time he kissed her, Elizabeth found herself getting caught up in a now predictable response to his lovemaking.
She tried to stop it. Breaking away from his devouring mouth, she gasped, “Sonny, no . . . please ... I need to talk to you, not—”
But Sonny was in no mood for talk, and his mouth covered hers again before she got any further with her protest. After two years of self-denial, he wanted nothing other than to plunder Lissa’s soft mouth with his own and to feel her warm body melt against his. A dam was breaking inside him, and it was beyond Sonny to exercise the sort of self-control Lissa wanted from him . . . if that was what she really wanted, judging from the way she was beginning to respond to him.
Sonny was communicating his overpowering need for her to an extent that Lissa’s senses, already vulnerable because of her very real attraction to him, were literally catching fire from his. No man had ever kissed her this hungrily or molded her against his body in such a way that Lissa felt as if they were becoming one entity.
Her mouth and body began to ache with a need to touch and explore his heated skin and the secrets of his maleness without the barrier of their clothing, and to have him touch her in the same way. She wanted to feel the pressure of his body over her ... to experience a complete joining with this man whose throbbing need for her was so explosive it could awaken urgent needs of her own.
Sonny drew back slightly and gazed into her passion-clouded eyes, his own blazing with blue fire. “God, Lissa . . . ,” he grated thickly between brief, biting kisses, “I’m on fire ... I have to . . .”
At that instant, a young voice interrupted him. “Daddy, I—”
Maggie stopped short as she appeared in the doorway and saw the two of them locked in one another’s arms.
Sonny immediately turned to look at his daughter, but Elizabeth, dazed herself, could tell that he was momentarily disoriented. And when she turned and saw the look of shocked hurt on Maggie’s young face, she felt the same, as well as the beginnings of a deep sense of shame.
“Oh, Daddy, how could you!” Maggie choked out, and with tears brimming in her eyes, she whirled away to run toward the stairs.
Sonny stared after his daughter for a long moment, then turned back to Elizabeth with such confusion in his face that Elizabeth could tell he was torn between frustration and guilt.
Elizabeth quickly stepped out of his arms. “Go to her, Sonny,” she said shakenly.
Sonny shut his eyes and raked a trembling hand through his hair. Then he shook his head and looked at her with torment in his eyes.
“Lissa, I don’t want to hurt her, but she’s got to understand—” he started to say.
Elizabeth shook her head. “But she needs time, Sonny,” she said, and took a deep breath to try to quell the shaking inside her.
“Just go to her, Sonny,” she repeated. “You’re all she’s got, and she needs to be reassured that you aren’t going to abandon her. It’s hard to be rational about something like that at her age.”
Or any age, she added silently as a sudden longing for her own father welled up inside her. If he were here to advise her . . . or jtist to listen to her . . . But there was no sense wishing for the impossible, so she merely stepped forward and gave Sonny a gentle push in the direction Maggie had taken.
“All right, Lissa,” Sonny finally agreed in a gruff way that told her he was feeling very frustrated. “Wait for me. I’ll be down after I’ve talked to Maggie.”
Instead of agreeing, Elizabeth simply repeated, “Go on, Sonny. She needs you.”
Before he left her, however, Sonny raised his hand and placed it against Elizabeth’s flushed cheek, telling her with his eyes how much he regretted the interruption in what had been happening between them.
Elizabeth felt an almost overwhelming desire to cling to him and keep him with her, but she forced herself to keep her hands at her side.
Then she watched as he walked away to go to Maggie. And the moment she heard a door close upstairs, she went to the closet in the' front hall, got her coat, and quietly let herself out of the house. She knew if she stayed and waited for him, he would hold her forever.
Chapter Ten
Elizabeth had finally fallen into a restless sleep when the sound of the doorbell startled her awake again. Confused, she glanced at the clock radio on her bedside table, and when she saw that it was eleven o’clock, she frowned. Who could be at her door at this hour?
Elizabeth was alone in the house and she was not the type to get nervous about it usually, but then usually no one rang her doorbell this late.
Throwing the covers back, she got up and slipped her arms in the sleeves of a terry-cloth robe and as she walked toward her bedroom door, it finally dawned on her who it might be, and she hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. The last thing she needed right then was a conversation with Sonny . . . especially when she doubted conversation was all he had in mind.
The sound of the doorbell echoed through the house twice more in rapid succession, and Elizabeth, who had been thinking about ignoring the summons, found she couldn’t do it and jerked the bedroom door open.
She made her way downstairs, during which time the doorbell rang again, and when she’d crossed the living room, she turned on the porch light, then peeked through the hole in the door and found that, just as she’d feared, it was Sonny standing there.
Reluctantly, she unlocked the inner door, opened it, and stood facing him through the glass of the storm door.
“I know it’s late, Lissa,” Sonny said as she stood frowning at him. “But it’s important. I need to talk to you.”
Elizabeth very much doubted if talking was all he had in mind, and she didn’t feel up to the struggle of fighting herself as well as him, but there didn’t seem anything else to do but let him in, so she silently opened the storm door and Sonny stepped across the threshold.
“Thanks, Lissa,” he said when the door was closed behind him and they stood facing one another, Sonny in his topcoat and Lissa in her robe. “But I wouldn’t be here if you’d waited for me earlier,” he added in a tone of gentle remonstrance.
Elizabeth sighed tiredly. “I didn’t see the point, Sonny,” she said simply. Then she nodded at his coat. “Take your coat off, and I’ll fix us some hot chocolate.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Sonny said as he slipped out of his coat.
Elizabeth didn’t answer. She merely took his coat, hung it up in the hall closet, then led the way to the kitchen.
Sonny didn’t sit down as Elizabeth got milk out of the refrigerator, poured it in a pan and set it on the stove to heat, then got a can of chocolate mix and two mugs out of the cabinet. He stood near her, his eyes taking a warmly affectionate inventory of her tousled hair, clean face and sleepy eyes, short white terry-cloth robe and fluffy pink slippers.
When Elizabeth glanced at him inquiringly, he smiled.
“I thought you said you didn’t always look beautiful.” His voice was soft and deep, and thoroughly alarming to Elizabeth in her groggy state.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” she asked, refusing to deal with his compliment. “My dad never got enough sleep.”
Sonny’s gaze was purposeful. “Some things are more important than sleep, Lissa,” he said quietly, “and believe me, I couldn’t have slept tonight before talking to you even if I’d felt inclined to try.”
Elizabeth quickly looked away and started fumbling in a drawer for a couple of spoons.
“How’s Maggie?” she tried to delay what she was positive was coming.
Sonny’s expression sobered. “I think she cried herself to sleep after we had our little talk.”
Elizabeth glanced at him again before moving to the stove to see if the milk was hot yet.
“Sonny, I don’t want to cause Maggie pain,” she said, staring down at the milk in the pan. “Especially when there’s no reason for it.” Sonny ignored the last sentence. “I don’t want to cause Maggie pain either,” he said quietly, “but I don’t see any way around it. It doesn’t really have anything to do with you specifically. Maggie would try to sabotage any relationship I had with a woman. And since I have no intention of remaining single for the rest of my life, I can’t let her think she’s going to be able to prevent me from marrying again.” Elizabeth privately agreed with Sonny’s position, but she hadn’t liked one little bit being the cause of the look she’d seen on Maggie’s young face that evening.
The milk started simmering, so Elizabeth turned off the stove, spooned some chocolate mix into the mugs, then poured the milk over it and stirred it. “Here, Sonny,” she said as she handed him his mug and led the way to the table in the breakfast nook.
When they were seated across from one another, Sonny made no effort to drink his hot chocolate, while Elizabeth sipped hers more out of nervousness than thirst.
The silence between them grew, and every time Elizabeth gave Sonny a quick glance, the look on his face increased her nervousness. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Sonny, you know why I left earlier instead of waiting for you,” she said hurriedly. “Please . . . let it go. Don’t . . . don’t keep asking me for something I can’t give you.”
“I wouldn’t if I really thought you couldn’t,” he replied calmly. “But you keep giving me double messages, Lissa. Which do you want me to believe? Your words or the way you respond when I touch you?”
Lissa closed her eyes and gave a weary sigh. Sonny had a point. Opening her eyes, she gazed at him beseechingly.
“Sonny, I admit it . . . when you kiss me and hold me, I go a little crazy. But there are reasons . . She caught herself, bit her lip and looked away, unaware that to Sonny, she looked as though she were hiding a guilty secret.
Frowning, he leaned forward and put his hand over hers. The contact made Elizabeth jerk and she quickly turned to face him again.
“I’d like to hear those reasons, Lissa,” he said quietly. “I’d like to know what’s more important than what happens between us when we touch.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to repeat the weak excuse that she wanted to concentrate exclusively on her medical studies, but something in Sonny’s face told her such an effort would be useless. Which left what? She couldn’t lie and say she had no interest in him whatsoever because he knew better.
“I . . . don’t think we’re compatible other than physically, Sonny,” she said, groping for something he might believe.
“How can you possibly know that, Lissa?” Sonny responded with muted impatience. “That’s not a reason, that’s a copout! We haven’t had time to learn enough about one another for you to come to such a conclusion. In fact, if I wanted to jump to a conclusion of my own at this early stage of our relationship, I’d say just the opposite . . . that our mutual love of medicine and the way we react to one another physically gives us a very real basis for thinking we’ll be compatible in other ways.”
He paused, then gave her a searching look. “But are you thinking that two physicians in the same family is one too much? Does that worry you?”
Elizabeth mutely shook her head, and Sonny shook his head in frustrated puzzlement.
“Then what is it, Lissa? It isn’t the demands of medical school, it isn’t because you aren’t attracted to me, and it isn’t Maggie either. You’ve been resisting the pull between us almost from the moment we met, and I don’t understand it when there’s such a powerful magnetism between us ... so powerful that we deserve a chance to see if there can be more!”
Elizabeth hated being backed into a corner, and she was growing angry with Sonny because if he weren’t such a rigid, prejudiced stuffed shirt, neither of them would be in this position. They could have done exactly what Sonny was trying to persuade her to do . . . begun to see one another and perhaps had a chance for a wonderful relationship! Instead, because of the sort of man he was, she couldn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth. She was almost positive the truth was the last thing he wanted to hear!
Jerking her hand from beneath his, she clenched it into a fist and lashed out at him.
“I can’t explain, Sonny! Now stop badgering me!”
The outburst sounded so desperate and Lissa’s manner was so strange that Sonny was taken completely by surprise. Then he frowned as a possible explanation for her behavior hit him.
“Lissa . . . he said slowly, dread in his voice, “is there someone else? Is that why . . . ?”
“No!” she burst out, much too quickly to sound convincing. Then she made things worse, from Sonny’s point of view, by adding indignantly, “And anyway, my private life is no concern of yours!”
Of course, Elizabeth meant something entirely different from the way Sonny took her words, and he sat back and just looked at her in silence while he tried to absorb the blow she’d just dealt him.
Elizabeth could tell from the expression on his face how much she’d hurt him, and she was torn between a strong desire to ease his hurt and an equally strong desire to remain quiet and let him think whatever he liked. Perhaps it would be better if Sonny thought there was another man in her life. Maybe then he’d leave her alone. But such a solution to her dilemma left a bad taste in her mouth. She was becoming thoroughly sick of secrets and lies and having to behave contrary to her basic nature.
While she wavered, unable to look Sonny in the eye, Sonny digested the fact that he might very well have a rival and, for whatever reason, Lissa wanted to keep his identity a secret, and he tried to deal with the torrent of jealousy suffusing him.
He wondered why the possibility that she had another man in her life hadn’t occurred to him bef
ore. After all, a beautiful woman like Lissa must collect admirers by the dozens. But of course, she hadn’t said so before and she wasn’t saying so now. In fact, she’d pretended she didn’t want a serious relationship with anyone for the present. Why?
A possibility occurred to Sonny that he didn’t want to deal with.
Nor could he really accept it. Lissa just wasn’t the type of woman to become involved with a married man, even if that might explain why she was behaving so secretively.
That led to another possibility, however, that gave Sonny some hope. If she was involved with someone else, that didn’t mean she was irrevocably committed to him yet, did it? If she was, wouldn’t she say so? And if she wasn’t, he still had a chance with her. Even if she thought she was committed to someone else, Sonny couldn’t accept that she could respond to him the way she did if that other commitment was valid.
As he looked at her and saw the trapped expression in her eyes, Sonny cursed himself for the way he’d been pressuring her. If he was going to win her, it wouldn’t be by making her so unhappy. It was time to lighten up and make her glad to be with him instead of dreading his presence.
A trace of a smile began to tug at his mouth as he reached over and took her hand in his again. She looked at him with a startled expression, and when she saw his smile, her eyes widened in puzzlement.
“Lissa, perhaps because I’ve already got my life pretty much in order, I’ve been forgetting that you aren’t in the same position and I’ve been pressuring you too hard and too soon to do things my way. That isn’t fair. I realize that now. Would you consider continuing to see me if I were more patient and less intense about our relationship?”
Elizabeth stared at him, impressed by his apparent sincerity and his willingness to try to see things from her point of view. A tiny flicker of hope that he might not be as rigid as she’d presumed he was began to glow inside her, fanned by the stark truth that, despite all the objective reasons she had for thinking it would be best to steer clear of Sonny, she didn’t really want to. He was right about the powerful magnetism between them.