by JoAnn Ross
It was only last year he’d discovered why she’d gone home with her father that long-ago day. Swann had threatened her in the one way guaranteed to ensure her compliance. He’d said if she didn’t obey him, he’d have her new, nineteen-year-old groom arrested for statutory rape, which Clint had no doubt the man would have done. But even if he’d ended up serving jail time, once he’d been released, he and Laura could have been together.
After years of resenting her for turning her back on the life they could have had together, it had come as an unpleasant revelation to discover that she’d been trying to protect him.
Clint dragged his hands down his face. “So many damn years wasted,” he muttered.
But that had been about to change. Because Laura had changed. No longer the submissive daughter, and tired of playing the role of the silent, acquiescent senatorial wife willing to turn a blind eye to her husband’s infidelity, she’d come back to him determined to grasp happiness with both hands.
The months they’d spent together had been the most glorious and frustrating of Clint’s life. Glorious because he was finally back in the arms of the woman he’d always loved. And he had loved her, dammit, even during those years when he’d tried to hate her. But they’d also been frustra ting because of the way she’d kept putting off filing for divorce. Until it was too late.
He shook his head and desperately wished for a drink. There must be a bottle somewhere in the house. He was about to go look for one, when he decided that since he’d gone this long without whiskey, he might as well wait a little longer.
Saving the data, he closed the files and turned off the computer. Then he decided to see how Sunny was getting along in the kitchen.
The soapsuds were gone. The groceries he’d dumped on the table had been put away. And a chocolate cake with fudge frosting was on a plate on the counter. She was standing in front of the sink peeling potatoes. Although he fought against it, Clint found the domestic scene, not to mention the mouthwatering aroma coming from the oven, more than a little pleasant.
“Is that roast chicken?” he asked.
“With sausage dressing,” she agreed. “I usually use wild rice, but you don’t have any.”
“You could have just wiggled your nose and conjured some up.”
“I told you-”
“That’s right, for some reason, your powers have been taken away.”
“Because I wished it.”
“Why the hell would you wish to lose your powers?”
“Well, of course I didn’t wish for that to happen. But when you went out into that storm, I was worried about you, and was thinking if only I were a mortal woman, I could…”
Realizing what she’d been about to say, Sunny quickly closed her mouth. Color flooded into her cheeks. Once again, against his better judgement, Clint was intrigued.
“If you were a mortal woman,” he coaxed, conveniently overlooking the fact that since there was no way in hell he was going to buy that fairy godmother story, he didn’t believe she’d had any powers to begin with. “You could…what?”
He was suddenly too close. And she was suddenly feeling too mortal. And vulnerable. “I don’t think this is relevant…”
“Sure it is.” He touched her face, then traced a line from cheek to jaw. “If what you say is true, yesterday you were my fairy godmother. But now, since you’ve lost your powers, you’re not.”
His fingers cupped her chin while his thumb brushed against her tightly set lips. “Because of me.” His eyes on hers, he lowered his head until his mouth was a breath away from hers. “I think, Sunny, that makes it very relevant.”
She lifted a hand to his wrist, then, as something warm rose inside her, she found she lacked the strength to pull his hand away. “I don’t understand.” She was entranced by his low, utterly compelling voice. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
“Like what?” He could see the reluctant desire rising in her eyes, could feel it in the heat beneath her skin, but some perverse instinct, some deep-seated need for control made him want to hear her say the words out loud. “How do you feel?”
“Shaky.” Her tremulous voice confirmed that. She also wished his fingers hadn’t brushed her neck. “As if I’m burning up from the inside out.”
She tried to look away from his intensely probing gaze, but his eyes were holding hers with the sheer strength of his will. Never had Sunny felt so helpless. She swallowed as that skillful hand stroked her throat with a touch that started every nerve ending in her body tingling.
“Afraid,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Aw, Sunny.” His fingers continued their sensual assault across the slope of her breasts. “You don’t have to feel afraid around me.”
That said, he brushed his lips against hers. Lightly, but without a hint of hesitation. “You taste just like I’ve imagined.”
“What have you imagined?” she whispered as her lips parted beneath his. The feel of his mouth on hers was the most intimate sensation Sunny had ever experienced. A dazzling, devastating dizziness washed over her.
“That you’d be delectable.” He retreated briefly as if to assure her that he had no intention of plundering, then let his mouth touch hers again. “Delicious.” And again. “Delightful.”
He could feel her imminent surrender. Her body, which had been as stiff as cold steel when he’d first touched her began to heat. And soften. Her hands, which she’d pressed against his chest, as if to push him away, began to open and close, gathering up his sweater. Her eyelids had drifted closed, her lashes rested on her cheeks.
Clint knew that it wouldn’t take much more to get her upstairs and into his bed. But as his own senses began to fog, he realized there was something strange about Sunny’s kiss.
Other women—at least all the ones Clint had known over the years—would have responded in one of two ways: either by breaking off the kiss, or by kissing him back. But Sunny was doing neither. Instead, she was simply standing still, her fingers clutching his sweater, seemingly stunned by the touch of his mouth on hers.
Wanting to assure himself that he was just imagining this strange innocence, he pulled back and framed her face between his hands.
Sunny felt a distant twinge of regret as he took his warm, clever mouth from hers. Murmuring a faint protest, she lifted her hands and linked her fingers together around his neck. The unconscious gesture caused her breasts to press against his chest, making Clint’s inner fires burn a little hotter. Flame a little higher.
“Open your eyes,” he managed to whisper in a rough, raspy voice even as he was wondering about the chances of taking her right here atop the table to ease the ache inside him.
She did as he asked, but as he looked down into her eyes and viewed the confusion shadowing the sherry-hued depths, Clint cursed inwardly.
“You’ve never done this before, have you?”
Sunny knew she could never lie about this. “I’ve never made love with a man, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He was afraid of that. The only virgin he’d ever had in his life had been Laura. But she’d been seventeen. At least seven years younger than this woman.
“How the hell did a woman who looks like you—tastes like you—manage to stay a virgin in this day and age?”
He didn’t sound exactly thrilled by the news. Reminding herself that it didn’t matter what he thought, because he wasn’t destined to end up with her, anyway, Sunny tamped down her disappointment.
“I told you, I’m not mortal. At least, I wasn’t until this morning.”
Lord, she was gorgeous, with her flushed cheeks and wide gold eyes. But, unfortunately she was nuttier than a heifer that had gotten into a dose of loco weed. That being the case, it would be unconscionable to seduce her.
Since her delusion seemed fairly harmless, Clint decided that the wisest thing—the kindest thing—would be to play along.
“So, what you’re saying is fairy godmothers don’t have sex.”
“Oh n
o!” The very idea was too impossible to even consider. “Physical touching is not normally part of our world.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a world,” Clint decided. “I suppose that goes for kissing, too?”
“Of course.”
“Are you telling me that was your first kiss?”
She nodded, unconsciously touching her tingling lips where she imagined warmth—and Clint’s dark, masculine taste—still lingered enticingly.
Her expression was guileless and direct and Clint would have sworn she was telling the truth. But he knew that was impossible. No woman who looked like her, smelled like her, could have possibly avoided being kissed. Unless she’d spent her life in some convent.
“So, how did I do?”
“Do?”
She really was sweet, he thought. “How was the kiss?”
“Oh.” Her slow smile could have lit up all of Whiskey River for decades. “It was very nice.”
“Nice?” He arched a brow. That’s what he got for fishing for feminine compliments. A cold beer on a hot day was nice. A fire during a snowstorm was nice. The feel of the breeze while you were out on the lake trolling for trout was nice. “Perhaps I’ll just have to try harder.”
He was towering over her, looking too strong. Too male. Common sense, which admittedly had never been her strong point, warned her to back away. But fascinated by the muscle jerking in his cheek, and the heat in his blue eyes, Sunny couldn’t have moved if her life had depended on it.
His head swooped down, and his mouth claimed hers with a force that sent twin lightning bolts of shock and pleasure ripping through her that scorched any thoughts of protest from her mind.
He tasted like coffee and smoke. He smelled like a northern forest, but as she drank in the crisp aroma of the pine soap he’d showered with, Sunny detected an underlying, evocative male musk that gave birth to a sudden, undefinable longing.
She was suddenly on fire. Flames leaped from a single spark, and burned their way through her veins. Smoke clouded her mind, sent her head spinning, closed her eyes.
His tongue thrust between her teeth, tangling with hers in an erotic dance that drew a low moan from deep in her throat. He ripped away the apron, and thrust his strong hand beneath her sweater, his touch creating heat and goose bumps in the small of her back as he pressed her against him.
He dragged his mouth away from hers, and down her throat, leaving a trail of sparks before the sharp nip of his teeth made her gasp his name.
Too fast. It was as if she’d been born of the fire that flared between them, as if she’d come to life in his arms. The potent flavor of her mouth was as intoxicating as whiskey. Too hot. He’d always prided himself on his control, but there was no cool control here. No restraint. It had been burned away by her taste, her touch, the scintillating little sounds she was making that only added fuel to the fire.
“Ah, Sunny,” he groaned against her mouth, that sweet, succulent mouth, “come upstairs to bed with me.” He bit her bottom lip, excited by the way her breath came rushing out from between those ravished lips. “I’ll take you places you’ve never been. Wonderful, magical places—”
“No.” Her mind spinning, her body turning to molten desire, Sunny had been on the verge of giving Clint anything he wanted. But it was that one word—magic—that managed to infiltrate her whirling senses. “Clint, I can’t.”
Clint cursed as the warm, hot woman he’d been about to ravish turned to stone in his arms. “Of course you can,” he coaxed, not about to surrender yet.
She was the first woman in months who’d made him smile. The first woman who’d managed to rouse the sleeping sexual hunger he’d thought had deserted him forever. And, amazingly, she was the first person—male or female—who’d made him think that he just might live.
“I’ll help you,” he coaxed, his lips plucking tantalizingly at hers. All right, so he’d almost scared her off by coming on too strong. He’d back away a little and soon have her turned around again. “We’ll be good together, Sunny. Just wait and see.”
His lips promised worlds of wonder, his hands, as they skimmed over her body, causing a tingling from her breasts to that warm heavy place between her legs, invited her to give in. But Sunny knew that were she to surrender to this aching pleasure, she’d only end up hurting Clint in the long run.
Her assignment had been to find him his true love. Not to allow herself a dalliance, however thrilling it might be, with a man she’d soon be leaving.
No. As much as she longed to discover those magical worlds he could introduce her to, Sunny knew that the right thing—the only thing—to do would be to stop this now. Before it got completely out of hand.
“I’m not going to go to bed with you, Clint.” She put both her hands against his shoulders and shoved, but she might as well have been trying to move one of the two hundred-year-old ponderosa pine trees growing outside his house.
He lifted his head. Looking down, he saw both regret and determination on her lovely face.
“Fairy godmother, hell,” he muttered. Although he’d released her the moment she’d made her intentions clear, unable to resist touching her, he skimmed his fingertips up her cheek. “You’re a witch,” he muttered. “Or a devil woman. Sent to torment me.”
“That’s not true!” She looked so honestly distressed, despite the painful throbbing in his loins, Clint was tempted to laugh. “I am your fairy godmother. And I’m here to rescue you, so if you’d only be a little patient, I’ll find you the perfect woman and—”
“I’d just as soon have you.”
His words shouldn’t have caused such a rush of sheer feminine pleasure, but they did. Deciding the warm feeling must be one of the more attractive benefits of being mortal, Sunny tried to concentrate on the argument at hand.
“I’m not right for you.”
“You felt pretty damn right a minute ago. When you were pressing against me so tight you could’ve been trying to crawl inside my skin.”
She felt her cheeks flame at the embarrassing statement. It was, unfortunately, all too true. “I don’t know what happened to me. I’ve never, ever, felt anything like that.”
He could have told her that she wasn’t the only one who felt staggered by what should have been merely a kiss, but decided to keep that little news flash to himself.
“It would have been good, Sunny,” he said instead. His blue eyes swept over her, creating a renewed flare of heat. “Damn good.”
“It would have been wrong,” she insisted on a shaky little voice.
He laughed at that, then wondered why, although he was admittedly frustrated, he wasn’t as angry as he might have been.
“Now we’re back to Jiminy Cricket. If I’d wanted a conscience or a fairy godmother, for that matter, I would have run an ad in the Rim Rock Record.”
“You insisted you didn’t run an ad for a housekeeper, either,” she reminded him. “But here I am.”
“Yes.” He shook his head. “Here you are.”
Dammit, his voice sounded as unsteady as he felt. Even as he told himself that the out-of-control passion was nothing more than lust—the uncomplicated, biological desire of a male for a female—Clint couldn’t remember ever being so rattled by the touch, the scent, the taste of a woman.
Never had needs flamed so high so fast. Never had Clint become so disoriented by a mere kiss. He hadn’t meant for things to go so far. And he definitely hadn’t meant to get as emotionally involved.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” she echoed blankly, as if the word were unfamiliar, an expression from some archaic language.
“I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand. I usually have better control.”
“Are you saying that all kisses aren’t like that?”
Her question, posed in that soft shimmering little voice, swept away his sexual hunger, along with his lingering discomfort. Clint threw back his head and laughed.
“Sweetheart, if all kisses were like that,
people would burn up before they ever got to the good parts.”
The good parts. Just the thought of there being more made Sunny’s all too mortal blood hum in her human veins. For the first time she understood that all-consuming, ultimately fatal passion Antony and Cleopatra had shared.
The mood had effectively been shattered. And Clint decided it was for the best. Whatever was happening between them—and he refused to believe that crock about her being his fairy godmother—he needed time to think about the consequences.
His body was obviously trying to tell him that he needed a woman. Okay, maybe he did. Physically. But what he didn’t need right now were any more complications in his life. And every instinct Clint possessed told him that this sweet-smelling woman with the luscious lips was a complication just waiting to happen.
“I’ve got some fence repairs to make that should take about an hour. What time’s dinner?”
“Six. But I can hold it—”
“No. It’ll be dark before then. I’ll be back.” The roast chicken aroma filling the kitchen was almost as enticing as her scent. “It’s going to be nice to come back to a hot meal,” he said, deciding he ought to give credit where credit was due. “I always used to do my own cooking. Before…”
His voice drifted off, but Sunny didn’t need for him to finish the sentence. Before Laura had been killed, taking away his reasons for living. It seemed that everything in Clint’s life would now be divided into the time before Laura’s death, and the time after it. It was her job to make certain that his life after the tragedy would be filled with love and laughter.
Feeling a slight twinge of envy for the fortunate woman who would end up as Clint’s wife, Sunny placed her hand on his arm. “It will get better.”
Her touch, and her soft, sincere voice soothed like a cool creamy balm on a rope burn. Only a few days ago Clint wouldn’t have believed her. He still didn’t. But at least, back in some distant corner of his mind, he hoped that she was right.