by Diana Palmer
“Baby,” he breathed into her mouth, “we shouldn’t do this!”
But while he was talking, he was removing the last barriers. He settled onto her and began to move her long legs apart while his mouth invaded her own, teasing, hungry, sweeter than honey.
She lifted up to him as his body slid up, so that he could find her where she was open and moist and hungry. She shivered as he moved down, one hand firm on her thigh as he lifted his head and looked into her misty eyes.
He pushed, very gently, and she bit her lower lip.
“Yes,” he whispered, his voice slightly unsteady, because this was a rite of passage for her. “Let me make it easier,” he added.
He moved away, just a little, and his hand moved against her, wise and slow and tender, bringing up her blood, making her shiver and shift, reaching up to tempt him closer. Her breasts had hard, dusky nipples. She was moaning with need, her eyes glazed with it. He probed softly and she began to jerk with the growing pleasure.
“Yes, that’s it,” he whispered, making a rhythmic motion that swiftly brought her to the very edge of ecstasy. “That’s it. Here. Yes. Here, like this, hard, hard hard, rubia, hard...!”
His hand was on her thigh, his body invading hers, stretching it, in a mania of passion that blurred pain and discomfort, that defied reality. She moved with him, crying out softly as he went into her, all the way into her, so deep that she sobbed with every quick, passionate movement of his hips.
She was going to burst, like a balloon, like a dam. Her body throbbed. Her eyes opened to look straight into his. He ground his teeth together. He’d never watched. Now it seemed that he needed to.
“Yes,” he bit off, just as her body stiffened and she began to sob, her hips jerking upward, pleading.
“John,” she cried out.
“Yes!” He pushed down with all his might, thrusting into her as hard as he could. She convulsed, the pleasure was so overwhelming. It was unbearable. For him, as well. He cried out as his own body shuddered and shuddered, completion washing over him like hot water. They pulsed together in each other’s arms, held tightly, tightly, while they endured the sweet agony of fulfillment.
It was a long time before he could get his breath. He lifted his head. His hair was sweaty. So was his body. Sunny looked up at him with the face of an angel. She was shy with him now, in the aftermath.
“No,” he whispered shakily. “None of that.” He turned her face gently back to his. “Nothing so beautiful should ever be a source of embarrassment. We loved.”
Her face flushed. She searched his eyes, seeing not indifference or apathy, but the sharing of something intensely intimate. She touched his hard face, drawing her fingers over his hard mouth.
“It didn’t hurt,” she said, faintly surprised.
“I didn’t rush you,” he explained, smiling tenderly. “I would have gotten nothing out of it unless you did, too.”
“Really?”
He bent and drew his mouth tenderly over hers. “Really.” He started to lift away.
Her hands protested gently.
He settled back over her. He looked into her soft eyes as his hips moved first one way, and then the other. He was still inside her. She was sensitized and he was suddenly capable all over again, probably a result of the long abstinence.
He caught his breath as pleasure tingled up his spine.
“I want very badly to have you again,” he whispered. “Will it be uncomfortable? You must be honest.”
She shifted under him with new knowledge. “It won’t,” she said softly. She moved and gasped. “My goodness,” she burst out as lights flashed behind her eyes at the jolt of pleasure.
He laughed, deep in his throat. “And now you know a little more about pleasure, yes? Curl those long legs around my hips,” he whispered huskily, “and let’s see how deep I can go...”
She flushed. It was very intimate, not only what he said, but what he did. She watched him watching her. She didn’t look away or close her eyes. It was a revelation, being loved physically and watching it happen. She was so gloriously happy that she thought it would be all right if she died.
And then he began to move very quickly, very deliberately, and she thought she had died, when he pushed her over the edge of passion into ecstasy, into climax, into total, absolute orgasm. She cried out helplessly, sobbing as her body throbbed in time to his. She heard him cry out, too, felt his body cord and push down hard as the pleasure took him as well. She looked into his eyes and it was like sharing a soul, for those few faint precious seconds while they transcended earth and space and became one person.
* * *
Afterward, of course, she cried. She’d done something that her mother had cautioned her about all her life. She’d had sex with a man to whom she wasn’t married. She’d committed a sin and her conscience hurt.
He held her tenderly, kissed away the tears. “Listen to me,” he said tenderly. “I would never have touched you if I didn’t see a shared future. You were a virgin, Sunny,” he added. “I’m not the sort of man who looks for a good time with an innocent. Now, am I?”
She looked up at him, vulnerable, hopeful. “No,” she said finally.
His hand smoothed down her creamy body. He smiled. “I haven’t had it like that in my whole life,” he confessed.
She was surprised. “Never?”
He shook his head. “I loved my wife,” he said. “But even with her...” He made a face. “This was beyond any experience I’ve ever known.”
“It had been a long time,” she began.
He chuckled. “That isn’t why.” He traced her pretty mouth. “My own beautiful little blonde nurse. I adore you.”
She relaxed in his arms with a faint, shy smile. “My very own gorgeous man,” she replied.
“We belong to each other now,” he said solemnly. “There won’t be anyone else. Ever.”
She stared at him with a heart that overflowed. She’d never known such belonging.
“You have to say it back, Sunny,” he prompted with a wry smile. “No other men, ever.”
“There won’t ever be another man,” she assured him. “But you knew that already.”
“I knew.”
They dressed. The movie had long gone off. He looked at his watch and grimaced. He pulled her close. “I would have preferred to stay all night, but I have to go home and get my cowboys started first thing in the morning.”
“I’d love to see your ranch,” she said.
“And you will. Very soon.” He wouldn’t think about Tonio. Not yet. He was too full of Sunny and joy and...love. The thought shocked him. He looked at her and knew, very suddenly, that he loved her. Why hadn’t that occurred to him before? He smiled.
“You look very odd,” she remarked.
He chuckled. “I’ll tell you why, one day. Not now,” he added, kissing her nose. “I’ll text you.” He hesitated at the door. “Don’t beat yourself up over what happened,” he said.
She bit her lip. “We didn’t use anything.”
He came back to her and drew her close. “Sunny, I want children. Don’t you?”
She flushed. She beamed. He really had meant it, that there wasn’t going to be anyone else. “Yes,” she said softly. “I want children very much.”
“Then we have to do more of what we just did,” he replied wickedly. “But not just yet. I have a few problems to work out first. Okay?”
She grinned. “Okay.”
“Be safe. I’ll text you. Keep the door locked,” he added gently.
“You watch your back out there,” she countered.
“I will. Good night, mi alma.”
“Good night, John.”
She heard him drive away. And then the guilt began to grow. Once passion grew cold, reality set in. He’d mentioned a future together. But he hadn’t menti
oned marriage. Not once.
TWELVE
John drove home in a daze. For the first time in years, he felt whole. Sunny made him feel ten feet tall. She was sweet and kind, and in bed she was his very dream of perfection.
But how to break it to Tonio? That was going to be his biggest headache.
Alongside Sunny, he was worried about the Lopezes. Apparently the policeman Tonio had told him about had found a way to get them into hiding. But Rado had connections all over the city. He could find anybody. If he had a window into the DEA, with that secretive, high-up connection nobody could identify, he could even find a hidden witness.
He didn’t want the Lopez boy dead. Perhaps if he’d made better decisions, if he’d been a better father, Tonio would still be in school in Jacobsville and he’d never have met David in the first place. All that led back to John’s disastrous date of the year before.
But that woman hadn’t been like Sunny. Tonio had reacted badly because John had been belligerent about the boy’s attitude. He hadn’t told Tonio that he was bringing her home, tried to explain how he felt, how lonely he was. He’d just barged in.
He was like an avalanche when he was on a case. But he was like that in his personal life as well. Cash Grier had said that John needed to live his own life without letting his son make decisions for him. That was true enough. But there had to be some way to compromise. He just didn’t know what it was.
* * *
The house was quiet when he got home. He showered and went to bed, his body relaxed, satiated. He slept peacefully for the first time in ages, still cocooned in the memory of Sunny’s sweet body in his arms.
Two mornings later, he spoke to his foreman, laying out what he needed the man to do. By the time he finished, Adele had breakfast on the table. Tonio was picking at his food, unnaturally quiet and disturbed. The weekend had been solemn. Tonio had avoided him.
“The Lopezes are in hiding,” John said as he poured coffee into a mug.
Tonio’s heart jumped. “You did go to see them,” he groaned.
“They weren’t there,” John repeated. He glared at his son. “Apparently your friend the cop had someplace to put them, out of Rado’s reach. We can hope so, at least. But Rado has connections, big ones. If it had been up to me, I’d have contacted the US Marshals’ service and they’d be in protective custody.”
Tonio felt even worse. But there was some possibility that Hollister would have done that himself. Surely a captain of detectives would know a US marshal in the city. He didn’t say that. The captain had no idea that John was Tonio’s father, and he didn’t want him to know. There was too much the captain could tell John, including about Tonio’s connection with Sunny, and the gang. He was in enough trouble already.
“Nothing to say, Tonio?” John asked curtly.
“No, sir,” Tonio said quietly.
John grimaced. He was just making things worse. He finished his breakfast and poured a second cup of coffee.
“You can’t,” Tonio said after a minute, and dark eyes lifted to his father’s.
“I can’t, what?” was the cold reply.
Tonio swallowed. “You can’t bring that woman here,” he said.
“Like hell I can’t,” John said icily. “This is my house. You don’t tell me what I can do, Tonio.”
Tonio heard Rosa drive up outside and honk the horn. He got up and grabbed his book bag. He turned at the door, red-faced and fuming. “Okay, go ahead, bring her here,” he told John. “You’ll never find me next time! I have friends you don’t even know about!”
He took off out the door, threw himself into the car and motioned Rosa ahead before John could catch up.
“Your dad’s waving to us,” Rosa said, slowing.
“He’s just waving goodbye. I have to be early today, Rosa,” he said quickly.
“Oh. Okay, then.” She threw up a hand in John’s direction and accelerated.
* * *
Tonio didn’t know what to do. His father wasn’t going to let it drop. He had a woman in his life and no plans to give her up. Tonio was sick at heart. If it had been Sunny, he wouldn’t have minded. But it would be some other hard-faced woman like the one John had already brought home, and Tonio couldn’t live with someone like that. Worse, the woman had to mean something to him or he wouldn’t be willing to fight Tonio for her.
He knew that if he went to school, his father was likely to come after him. He really was like an avalanche, and Tonio didn’t want to fight anymore.
He could skip class and hang out in the city until it was time to go home. By then, maybe his dad would have cooled down. Sunny would be at work later. He could talk to her. That might work. He smiled at Rosa as she drove away, but instead of going into the school, he turned around and walked the other way.
There was a place where gang members hung out, not one where Rado ever went. It was a pool hall, and kids weren’t supposed to be there. But the owner was a friend of David’s and he knew Tonio, who’d gone there with David once or twice when they cut classes.
The owner just grinned at Tonio’s guilty look when he asked why he wasn’t in school.
“Okay,” he said. “You can stay. But you got to go in the back room and watch TV. I don’t want no trouble if your parents come looking around here for you.”
“Okay, Bart,” Tonio said at once. “Thanks.”
The man shrugged. “I was a kid once. You hear anything from David?” he asked, lowering his voice. “He ain’t been around.”
Tonio shook his head. “I’m worried about him.”
“Yeah. Me, too. Go on. You can watch TV.” He indicated the back room.
* * *
John was frantic. He’d gone to the school, hoping to make up with his son. Tonio wasn’t there. He didn’t want to put out an APB, but he did talk to a couple of patrol officers he knew and had them watch out for the boy. He told Rosa as well.
“What’s going on?” Rosa asked, concerned.
John rammed his hands into his pockets. “There’s a woman.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, because she remembered what had happened.
“Yeah.” John drew in a breath.
“He doesn’t understand. Maybe if you could introduce them,” Rosa suggested.
“That’s why he’s gone now,” he returned. He pulled his hat low over his eyes. “The other one was just a coworker. This one...” He ground his teeth together.
“You have to make him understand that you have a life besides being his father,” Rosa said.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“Maybe back off, just a little,” she said. “Until you can arrange for them to meet.”
“That may be harder than it sounds. What if he’s really gone this time?” he asked, in anguish. “It took me two days to find him last time, and that was when Rado wasn’t a threat!”
“Rado?” Rosa paled.
His lips made a thin line. “Rado’s up to his neck in two murders and Tonio knows it. His friend David told him. Tonio told a cop yesterday. So now I can’t find Tonio. I don’t know where David Lopez is. Rado’s out there—” he gestured toward the street “—and by now he may know that Tonio talked to a cop. What if he finds Tonio before I do?”
“You need to get some help, to find him,” Rosa said.
“I’ve got people looking,” John said. “Damn! I just can’t find a way to talk to him without turning it into an argument.”
“Parenting is hard, so they say,” Rosa told him gently. “Go to work. Chances are very good that Tonio will realize that he’s putting himself in danger and go back to school. He’s not a stupid boy.”
John could have debated that. But his phone rang.
* * *
Banks had been in touch with a friend of his in another agency. “He doesn’t know for sure,” he told
John, “but he thinks the US Marshals are involved in the Lopez case.”
“That would make things easier,” John said. “But I’ve got bigger problems than the Lopezes. My son’s not in school.”
“He cut class?”
John nodded. “We had an argument. I don’t know where he is. His friend David Lopez told him that Rado killed the man and woman in our cold case. If Rado knows—”
“Rado knows everything,” Banks said coldly. “He has contacts in some high places. The DEA’s still trying to finger the one there.” His black eyes narrowed. “Does your son have other friends in the city?”
“I don’t know,” John said curtly. “I wasn’t even aware that the David Lopez Tonio knew was related to Tina, or that he had a connection with Los Lobitos,” he added harshly. “My son talked to a cop. He wouldn’t talk to me. He says I’m like an avalanche. He thought I’d get his friend killed.”
Banks cocked his head. “Do you ever sit down and talk to the boy?”
John hesitated. “No,” he said after a minute. “I don’t.”
“How old is he?”
“Eleven, going on thirty,” John replied with a cold laugh.
“That’s an awkward age.”
“Tell me about it.” He finished his coffee and got up. “I’m going back by the school, on the off chance that he had the good sense to show up there.”
“Not a bad idea. Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
* * *
Tonio had come to the same conclusion, finally, that he’d be safer at his school than hanging out in gang territory, where somebody might rat him out to Rado. He wasn’t as afraid for himself as he was for Sunny, though. He was concerned that Rado might know she’d been sitting with him and Hollister when he’d told the man about the murders and David. He couldn’t bear it if something happened to her.
If he and his dad had been closer, he’d have told him about Sunny. He’d have asked him to help protect her. But here was his dad, up to his neck in a relationship with some woman, and Tonio hadn’t even known. He wished he had a dad who cared about him. It seemed these days that John only wanted to lay down the law with his only child. It was a sad state of affairs.