“Yes, I’m fine, and you’re right. I wasn’t here. I was back on the ship.”
The worried tension in the room ebbed. Carla laughed.
“Well, I can understand your spacing out then. Who wouldn’t want to be on the Mexican Rivera? But, girlfriend, you’re back in America now. So you might as well get a grip. Soon you’ll be back to the same old grind.”
Sharon’s ever-expanding smile changed into a full-fledged grin. Now was the time to share the secret that she had been harboring. Everything was perfect. Her sisters were here. Family surrounded her. What better time and place to make her unexpected announcement. She could wait no longer.
“No, Carla. I don’t think that I will.” She reached into the neck of the sweater she was wearing and withdrew the thin sterling silver chain gracing her neck. It held a ring clustered with sparkling diamonds. Pressing the ring to her chest lovingly, she looked up at the bevy of faces staring at her.
“No, nothing will ever be the same for me again.” Sharon took a deep breath before continuing. “You see, I’ve got a little surprise for you. While I was on vacation in Mexico, I became Mrs. Winston Duncan.” Unable to contain her joy any longer, Sharon squealed, “I’m married!”
Chapter 2
Sinclair Reasoner disengaged the house alarm as he slipped through the garage door into the kitchen. For a moment, he stood silently in the darkened interior of the ultramodern room and exhaled. He was home! This was one place in his life that held everything important to him. This was where love existed.
Locking the door securely behind him, he placed his briefcase by the door and reactivated the alarm. Moonlight filtered from the abundance of skylights above him, guiding his footsteps as he took the stairs to the second floor, then beyond to the floor above that. They called the third floor the Birdhouse. It consisted of a large, single room walled in by windows that like the other rooms in the house offered a spectacular view of the ocean and surrounding area. Originally, this floor was designated as an additional gathering place for the family, but Colin had fallen in love with the space, and it had been converted into his bedroom. It offered the space and privacy a growing boy needed, especially when blessed with two energetic and much too curious siblings. The Birdhouse was his private sanctuary, and everyone respected it as such.
Whenever Sin returned home from a business trip, his routine was always the same. He checked on his children according to their ages. The Birdhouse was his first stop. When his soft knock received no response, he quietly opened the door and entered. As usual, Colin’s room was neat. His eldest son lay in his loft bed without a ripple or wrinkle in the blankets covering him. Colin liked order in his life.
When they first became father and son, the boy received affection from him with awkward embarrassment. Not used to the kisses and hugs bestowed on him by a male, he would stiffen, confused as to how he should respond. Gradually, his resistance lessened, and although he never said it, he grew to like the demonstrations of his father’s affection. Over the years, as their father and son relationship developed, puberty had settled in and manhood was tugging at Colin’s need to abandon childhood habits. Being tucked in with goodnight kisses was one of those. Yet, now and then he did allow a breach of that rule whenever his father came home from a trip. With this in mind, Sin kissed his eldest and smoothed the cover over his form.
“Goodnight, son,” he tossed over his shoulder as he headed toward the door to leave the room. “I love you.” The covers shifted slightly as the door closed behind him, an acknowledgement of Colin having heard the declaration of affection. Sin knew that he had been awake when he entered to check on him. The boy was the lightest sleeper in the house—the result of a past in which he was forced to be on constant alert as the protector to his little brother. The opening of his bedroom door had probably awakened him instantly, but he could sleep peacefully now. His father was home.
Sin climbed the stairs that led up to the loft bed of his second son and smiled down at him. Trevor was all love and affection, and not shy about expressing his feelings. Hugs and kisses were his elixir. His endearing personality could melt the heart of the most hardened cynic. Three days ago when his father left on his business trip, it had been this boy who had thrown him kisses as Sin walked through the security gate. That was Trevor. That was his little boy. They had bonded from the moment they first met, and their years as parent and child had only served to strengthen that bond.
Trevor slept in a crouching position, his head resting on the pillow and his bottom in the air. The child was creative, even in his sleep. Arranging the boy in a more comfortable position, Sin pulled the covers over him, kissed his cheek and left the room.
Gillian, his little stick of dynamite, was next. She was a bundle of kinetic energy that seemed to have no end.
She was three when she joined the Reasoner family, a child who was grieving for her deceased mother and a child who had been abandoned by a father whose name no one knew. The family first met her in the playroom of the social service agency that arranged her adoption. She had been shy and uncertain when the social worker led her into the room, but she searched the unfamiliar faces, saw Sin’s face and seemed mesmerized. Timidly, she walked over to where he sat and stood before him. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe, unsure as to what it was she wanted. Finally, she reached out and placed her tiny finger against the cleft in his chin, and then she brought the same little finger back to touch the prominent cleft in her own chin. She smiled. Stretching her arms out to be picked up, Sin obliged and hugged her close. From that moment on she was his—Daddy’s precious little girl.
Any shyness that Gillian had exhibited in the past had disappeared long ago. His girl was shy no longer. Smart, tough and resilient was a better description of her. She was constant motion, a child who took no prisoners when challenged, a dynamo from head to toe. His daughter was a handful, that was for sure, and he loved her to death.
As usual, her covers were scattered on the floor around her bed, and she was tangled in the sheets. She was as much in motion asleep as she was awake. Untangling her, he made the bed and covered her. Gillian never stirred. She slept hard, played hard and loved her family hard. Tucking her in securely, he kissed her and headed toward the door. She had flung the top cover from her body before he shut the door behind him.
Sin’s excitement escalated as he moved closer to the last door that he would enter tonight. Behind that door was the one person on earth who could make his heart race. One look into her gorgeous eyes, and he threatened to lose all control. The love of his life was behind that door, and he could hardly wait to be with her. Turning the doorknob, he entered.
* * *
Nedra felt his presence as soon as he opened the door. She listened intently as he quietly slipped inside their cavernous bedroom. He locked the door behind him, and her heart skipped a beat.
She smiled as his soft footsteps moved across the hardwood floor. She knew his routine. He would go into the dressing room and shed his clothes. Then he would take a quick shower before stealing across the room to stand beside their bed. There he would wait patiently, and the game would begin.
Nedra couldn’t hear the water running in the shower. She could imagine it glistening against his muscular torso. He always wore a thin gold chain around his neck, attached to it was half a heart with her name engraved on it. She wore the other half of the heart around her neck. It was engraved with his name. When joined, the jagged edges of the two gold hearts were a perfect fit. This had been his wedding gift to her, and Nedra could just imagine him slowly circling the golden treasure with soapy, warm suds as he languidly washed his body. Her nipples hardened. The heat began to rise.
The thought of joining him under the pulsating spray was very tempting, but she knew that they would end up there anyway with the sunrise. Making love in the shower in the morning had become their ritual, adopted during their early months of marriage when the overwhelming duties of parenting conflicted with the joy of
being newlyweds. The shower seemed to be their only refuge.
In their steamy paradise, knocks on the bedroom door could not be heard, nor could plaintive cries for Mama or Daddy. Eventually, they learned to adapt to the intricacies of parenthood, but the erotic showers continued. It made an interesting way to start each day.
The water in the shower stopped. A split second later, Sinclair entered the bedroom. Nude, he stole noiselessly across the room and went to the side of the bed. There he stood, waiting.
Nedra didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way as she smiled slyly. The game had begun.
Sin knew that she wasn’t asleep, and she knew that he knew it; this was a part of the game. Who would be the first to give in? How hot did it have to get? How long could either one of them resist the heat?
Nedra was his life. His love for her was so intense he couldn’t comprehend it. He had stopped trying to do so long ago. All he knew was that his body and soul belonged to her. There could never be anyone else. As he stood there looking down at her, the cauldron was boiling. He was about to lose this game. He was only a split second from taking a step forward when Nedra turned over on her back. Halting, he smiled. Bingo! He had won, and what a prize.
The fire had been too intense for Nedra. Three long days and two lonely nights without her husband had taken their toll. Forget the game! In this competition, there were no losers. That was the fun of it. She could give him this one. There would be many more. As for now, she wanted her man.
Slowly, she rose to her knees and began a slow crawl across the finely woven sheets toward Sin. She smiled inwardly as his body tensed, and his chest heaved rapidly. She crept closer. The quiet room filled with the sound of his breathing as he stood waiting, his nude body bathed in moonlight from the skylight above their bed. Lord! He was a good-looking man. Nedra’s body caught fire. No, there were no losers here.
Sinclair watched with blazing eyes as Nedra slithered toward him. His breathing came in gasps of anticipated pleasure. She was wearing one of the short, silk nighties he had recently purchased for her. His heart dangled from the chain around her neck. He wanted her so badly he could taste it, but he remained motionless until she reached him. Deftly, her hot hands mapped his body as she worked her way up his torso. She flicked her tongue briefly across a healed scar on his chest, and he broke out in a sweat. She was torturing him. He could wait no longer. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he pulled her to him.
“Daddy’s home,” he declared before capturing her lips. He kissed her like a dying man uncertain of tomorrow. The room echoed with moans of pleasure until they came up for air.
“Guess I lose,” Nedra said huskily as she gave him an ethereal smile and wiggled out of her bikini bottoms. She wrapped her long legs around Sinclair as the world around her began to fade. She craved this man. She had often asked herself was it a sin to love one person so completely. If so, she had succumbed. He was everything to her, and she felt no guilt about it.
Sin gritted his teeth and swallowed. “W…what kind of behavior is this for a preacher?”
“Being a preacher has nothing to do with this. I’m just a wife who’s claiming her husband.” She suckled his left breast with an expertise that left them both panting, then she smiled up at him seductively, watching as he bit his lower lip and gripped her tightly to him. Sin’s eyes were glazed. He was rock hard.
“J…j…jezebel…” he gasped.
“Aw, you do know something about the Bible,” Nedra crooned. She bit his right nipple and laved it with her tongue. Sin’s legs nearly gave way.
“I missed you so much,” she whispered against his lips.
“Not as much as I missed you.” He rained kisses on every inch of her face.
Nedra felt Sin’s body tremble against her own. He was ready and so was she. Neither could wait any longer. Foreplay was over. Reaching down between them, she guided her husband to his final destination on his long journey home.
Standing beside the bed, they made frenzied love, with Nedra’s moans of pleasure rivaling his. No matter how many times she made love with her husband, he never failed to satisfy. His skills as a lover had often driven her to the brink of insanity and had brought tears of joy to her eyes. She had even fainted a couple of times. Was there nothing this man couldn’t do? He was a wonderful husband, a doting father and a magnificent lover. Yes! Sinclair Reasoner did have skills!
He used them now with an artistry that would have put Pablo Picasso to shame. He painted the Mona Lisa, decorated the Sistine Chapel and had Whistler’s Mother rocking in her chair. In the end, Nedra turned her face in rapture to the moonlit sky above and paid homage to his multitude of talents.
* * *
Nedra lay limply against Sin’s broad chest as he gave a deep sigh of satisfaction.
“Baby, I think we transcended into another universe this time.” His hand moved lazily up and down the curve of her spine. They lay sprawled vertically across the large bed, tangled in a web of rumbled sheets, damp from the moisture of their bodies.
Still not having fully recovered from Sin’s enthusiastic welcome home, all Nedra could do was mumble, “Hmmm.” Shifting slightly in his arms, she felt his manhood twitch. They were still intimately joined.
The sun would be rising in a few short hours, and the house would come to life, but for now it was just the two of them, alone, enjoying being with each other. Sin ran his fingers gently through Nedra’s newly shorn locks.
“Why did you cut your hair?” His question was matter-of-fact.
“I was wondering when you’d notice,” she purred as his fingers massaged her scalp.
“Oh, I noticed a while ago, but I’ve had other things on my mind.” He tapped her round, bare bottom.
“I see,” Nedra quipped as she felt that familiar twitch again. “Actually, I decided that I needed a little change in my life—a new look, something different.” She raised her head from his chest to look at him, knowing that after their romp of unbridled passion, her hair must look a mess. “You like?”
“I like.” He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “It makes your eyes stand out even more, and you know how much I love those eyes of yours. As a matter of fact, I love everything about you.”
“Well said.” Nedra rewarded him with a lingering kiss. The twitch turned into a throb. It looked as if another round of greetings was about to begin.
Rising to a sitting position with his wife still wrapped in his arms, Sin’s eyes sparkled. “Want to take a shower?” Nedra nodded eagerly.
Breaking their intimate connection, Nedra slid out of his arms and scrambled to the floor. “Last one in is a loser!” She giggled and was headed toward the bathroom before Sin was off the bed. He wasted no time following her.
A few hours later, they lay snuggled together on the sofa in front of the fireplace that separated the bedroom from the sitting room. No fire was lit, but the heat between them still sizzled.
“Did everybody get in okay?” Sin was referring to the houseguests he knew occupied the other rooms in the house.
“Yes, Carla and Jacob are downstairs in the back bedroom suite. The twins are in the sitting room next to them. Sharon’s in the front suite. She got in this morning. Oh, and guess what?”
Sin groaned in anticipation. “Gillian is in trouble—again.”
Nedra sat up and pushed slightly away from him. “Now what would make you say something like that?”
He lifted a brow that said that he knew Gillian. Nedra sighed in resignation. She slid from his lap to sit beside him.
“You’re right. We’ve got to go to the school on Monday to talk to her teacher.”
Sin rolled his eyes. “Who did she beat up now? It wasn’t those Gilbert triplets again was it?” A few months ago, their fearless daughter had taken on the two boys and their sister when they called her a name. She was in the process of defeating all three of them when the teacher broke up the battle.
“That’s old news,�
�� Nedra informed him. “Nobody’s dumb enough to call her a nerd again. This time she was defending her brother. Some boy made fun of Trevor’s art work.”
“She was taking up for Trevor? He usually fights his own battles.”
Nedra frowned at the subliminal pride she detected in her husband’s attitude at their children’s exploits.
“It seems that some boy from Colin’s school grabbed Trevor’s watercolor, called it ugly and held it up in the air and wouldn’t give it back to him.”
“If he was from Colin’s school, how old was this kid?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen!” Sin looked incredulous. “Our five-and-a-half-year-old fought a fourteen-year-old boy?”
“And beat him up, too. From what I understand, she jumped on his back, hit him in the eye with a fist and bit his ear. His parents are furious, and the boy is thoroughly humiliated.”
“I guess he would be.” Sin tried to stop the laughter that was threatening to erupt. His pride in his little battling princess had turned to awe with this latest story. The girl had moxie.
“Sinclair, this is not funny!”
“I’m not laughing.” His quivering jaw defied that declaration.
“That little girl of ours is getting out of hand.” Nedra was annoyed.
“She doesn’t pick the fights. They pick her.”
“Don’t defend that child. We’ve talked and talked to her about holding that temper of hers. She promised that she would try.”
“If I remember correctly, she promised that she would ‘try to try.’” Sin visualized his baby girl’s solemn little face when she was last reprimanded. “But you know how she feels about her brothers. She’ll go to the mat for either one of them, and vice versa. What was Trevor doing when all of this happened?”
Nedra’s frown grew more pronounced. She knew that Sin hated punishing the children, and it sounded as if he were trying to build a case for his daughter. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve told all three of them that violence solves nothing at all. Gillian knows better, and she’ll have to be punished for what she’s done.”
Sinful Intentions Page 2