Dearest Enemy

by Nan Ryan

  Suzanna didn’t even have to wait twenty-four hours, for it happened the very next afternoon. She was out on the balcony reading. The hot summer sun was high in the sky, but massive white thunderheads were boiling up on the eastern horizon when she looked up from her book and spotted Mitch.

  Bare chested and barefoot, white duck trousers rolled up to his knees, he was coming down the beach. Suzanna immediately experienced a tingling thrill of anticipation. She had expected him to return, but not this soon. It was a good sign, a very good sign. He couldn’t stay away from her. He wanted to, but couldn’t.

  A catlike smile on her lips, Suzanna silently promised the handsome beachcomber coming toward her that he was about to engage in a long, lovely session of abandoned delight.

  Suzanna dexterously flipped a couple of buttons open on her bodice, then swung her legs over the chaise and stood up. Suddenly, a bright streak of lighting zigzagged across the rapidly darkening sky, followed immediately by loud, reverberating thunder. The first raindrops came in a wave of windblown fury as the storm quickly moved onshore.

  Mitch’s dark head and bare shoulders were being viciously peppered by the big wet drops. Suzanna turned and hurried inside. She hummed as she crossed to the big four-poster, raised the mosquito netting up out of the way and turned down the snowy-white sheets. She fluffed up the half-dozen pillows resting against the tall headboard, and stepped back to admire her handiwork.

  Satisfied that the bed was thoroughly inviting, she dashed into the white bathroom and took a big bath towel from a shelf. She tossed the towel over her right shoulder and hurried downstairs. She yanked the heavy front door open just as a fully soaked Mitch stepped onto the broad veranda.

  A dangerous bolt of lightning struck a few short yards behind him as Suzanna soundlessly said his name. Without a word he came to her. She put her arms around his neck. Giving him no chance to protest, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him sweetly as the booming thunder rattled the windows of the house.

  Mitch’s arms went around her and quickly tightened. The two of them stood there on the rain-lashed veranda eagerly kissing, sighing, touching. When at last their lips parted, Suzanna said softly, breathlessly, “We better get you out of these wet clothes.”

  His reply was cutting. “You know what I’m here for. The only reason I’m here.”

  “Yes,” she said evenly. And looking steadily into his flashing green eyes, she brazenly reached between them and began unbuttoning his soaked white trousers. Mitch didn’t lift a hand to help. He stood there, sweeping his sopping, midnight hair back off his face, while Suzanna wrestled the soggy pants down his slim hips and long legs. When the trousers pooled around his bare feet, Mitch kicked them aside.

  He stood there shamelessly naked while Suzanna made a teasing game out of blotting the moisture from his tall lean frame. She started with his chest, pressing the thirsty white towel into the crisp black hair beaded with diamond drops of water. Her gaze holding his, she slowly moved the towel downward, but stopped just short of his flat belly.

  She toweled his long, leanly muscled arms and his hands. She ordered him to turn around. He did. She dried his beautiful, deeply cleft back and then the tight tanned cheeks of his firm buttocks. She slowly sank to her knees behind him and briskly rubbed his long powerful legs, both front and back, all the way down to his ankles and feet.

  She stood up and said, “Turn around.”

  Mitch turned to face her.

  She looked directly into his eyes as she gently pressed to the towel to his groin. She felt him stir. She smiled at him, put out the tip of her tongue and licked her bottom lip. She loosely cupped him with the towel and began to slowly, gently, caress him.

  Mitch stood it for as long as he could, which wasn’t very long. A vein throbbing in his forehead, his pulse racing, he put his hand atop hers.

  “Can we finish this inside?”

  “I can think nothing I’d like better,” she said, removing the towel and dropping it where they stood.

  Inside, she led him up the stairs and directly into her spacious bedroom. Indicating the big four-poster, she said, “Make yourself comfortable, Mitch.”

  He nodded, then padded over to the bed and sat down on the edge. She motioned for him to lie down. He turned, stretched out and propped himself up against the stacked pillows. “Better shut the balcony doors.”

  “Let’s not,” she said. “Very little rain will blow in and this way the room is nice and cool.”

  Mitch held out a hand to Suzanna. She shook her head. “Not just yet. Lie there and relax. I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t take too long,” he stated. “I can’t stay.”

  “No, of course not,” she said, all the while thinking, You are going to spend the entire afternoon in that bed with me.

  Suzanna waltzed out of the room and hurried downstairs to choose a bottle of fine red wine. She placed a couple of fragile, long-stemmed glasses on a round silver tray along with the bottle, then went back upstairs.

  “Good idea,” Mitch commented when she placed the tray on the night table.

  “Will you do the honors?”

  Mitch reached for the bottle. He uncorked the wine and poured both glasses nearly full. He offered her one, which she declined. He shrugged and took a long swallow. While he drank, Suzanna began to languidly strip for his enjoyment.

  She cleverly chose to stand at the foot of the bed, framed by the white bed hangings and directly in front of Mitch. She took her own sweet time, teasing him unmercifully as she slowly shed garment after garment.

  Mitch drank thirstily of the wine and watched, entranced, as she seductively undressed. The storm outside gathered in intensity. The wind howled loudly and the rain blew in through the open double doors. The sky was black as night and Mitch had to squint to watch Suzanna disrobe. He welcomed the frequent flashes of lightning that intermittently illuminated her as she sensually shrugged out of her clothes.

  Just as she tossed aside the very last article—her lace-trimmed pantalets—a bright bolt of lightning flashed and Mitch was granted a fleeting glimpse of the angelic-looking red-haired beauty in all her naked splendor.

  She literally took his breath away.

  Suzanna LeGrande was without doubt the most exquisite creature God had ever created. Her pearly white shoulders were delicate, her arms slender, her hands small. Her firm, full breasts were softly rounded, the satiny, rose-hued nipples standing out in tempting peaks. Her waist was narrow, her hips gently flaring. Her slender legs were long and beautifully shaped. Her belly was so flat it was almost concave.

  And between her pale thighs, the triangle of fiery scarlet curls made his fingers ache to touch her.

  The darkness returned.

  Suzanna started to move. He stopped her.

  “Stay where you are for a minute.”

  Suzanna didn’t question him. She silently obeyed. When the next flash of lightning struck, Mitch gazed at her once more, savoring the sight. Then he summoned her to him. She stepped around to the side of the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress, facing him.

  “I am,” she huskily promised, “going to make love you as you’ve never been loved before.”

  Forty-Six

  Suzanna laid a soft hand on the steely, sculpted muscles of his bare, broad chest. Her long nails raking through the dense growth of crisp hair, she flattened her palm directly over his heart and thrilled at the immediate quickening of its heavy beating.

  Mitch reached for her, but she adroitly evaded him.

  “No. Not just yet,” she murmured. “Let’s take our time, get reacquainted.”

  Before he could protest, she leaned closer and urged his dark head down against the stacked pillows. She slanted her mouth across his, skillfully allowing her erect nipples to brush against his naked chest. She put out the tip of her tongue and ran it teasingly along his full upper lip. She placed the gentlest of kisses in the left corner of his mouth and asked, “Can you think of a better way to spe
nd a stormy afternoon?”

  “I can’t stay,” Mitch mildly protested.

  Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. Wind driven rain peppered the balcony just beyond the open French doors. A fine mist blew inside and made the large room pleasantly cool.

  “You can’t go out in this deluge,” Suzanna reasoned. “Relax and enjoy yourself.”

  A nimble nymph, she climbed up onto the bed, threw a slender leg over Mitch’s supine body and sat down astride his trim waist. Mitch’s dark hands swiftly settled on her hips.

  He scowled slightly when she levered herself up, reached out to the night table and picked up her glass of wine. She took a drink and offered the glass to him. He shook his head. Suzanna just smiled, took another sip and then—making certain she had his rapt attention—dipped her fingers into the half-full glass. Mitch swallowed hard. Suzanna put her wet fingertips to her breasts and provocatively spread the wine over her pebble-hard nipples. Fluted glass still in hand, she leaned up and offered her gleaming nipples to him.

  Mitch groaned, clasped her ribs, drew her to him and eagerly lifted his head from the pillows. His mouth captured a wine-wet nipple and he licked and sucked the wine away, then moved across her chest to the other breast. Suzanna, still grasping the glass, closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure.

  And finally, when every last trace of wine was gone from her tingling nipples, she lifted a hand and gently pushed on his shoulder. Mitch reluctantly raised his head. Suzanna felt a quick jolt of excitement rush through her body when she saw the undisguised heat in his glittering green eyes.

  Pushing him back against the pillows, she sat up straight and again raised the wineglass to her lips. She took a drink, slowly swallowed, then again dipped her fingers into the wine. Watching cautiously, expectantly, Mitch stopped breathing when she slowly scooted back on his tense, tingling body until she was seated on his thighs. He shuddered involuntarily when she carefully placed her wet fingertips on him and began to sensuously spread wine over the smooth, jerking tip of his thrusting erection.

  “No,” he groaned, his heart hammering, his chest painfully tight.

  “Yes,” she breathed, and continued to spread wine up and down the entire length of his heavy, pulsating masculinity.

  When she handed him the glass, Mitch took it and anxiously drained its contents.

  “Let me love you, Mitch,” Suzanna whispered softly. “Let me love you in every way a woman can love a man.”

  “Don’t,” he managed to say as he set the empty wineglass aside.

  Suzanna simply smiled at him and slowly lowered her head.

  At the first flick of her tongue on his glistening flesh, Mitch’s neck bowed on the pillows and his hands balled into fists at his sides. He squirmed and shuddered as she licked her slow, sure way from base to tip. And when, cupping him gently with both hands, she brazenly opened her mouth wide and took him inside, Mitch’s eyes closed with blinding ecstasy. His lean hands lifted from the mattress and settled on Suzanna’s moving head, his fingers anxiously tunneling into the flaming hair spilling over his bare thighs and ticklish belly.

  Mitch allowed himself only a few sweet seconds of the incredible pleasure before making her stop. His hands tightening in the silky red locks, he anxiously urged her head up. He clasped her upper arms firmly, sat her up and agilely rolled up into a sitting position facing her.

  “Baby,” he said, and aggressively kissed her.

  During the hot, prolonged kiss, Mitch deftly changed their positions. His mouth feasting greedily on hers, he clasped his hands to her narrow waist and effortlessly lifted her. He turned her about, laid her down on her back and quickly moved atop her.

  Suzanna eagerly looped her arms around Mitch’s neck and breathed in approval when he pressed her legs apart and she felt his hard, heavy flesh throbbing insistently against her open thighs.

  Mitch took his mouth from hers, balanced his weight on a bent arm and reached between their pressing bodies. Suzanna looked directly into his hot, hooded eyes as he gripped himself and thrust into her. He withdrew his hand, continued to balance his weight on his stiffened arms and began making love to Suzanna.

  The raging storm was the perfect counterbalance to their tempestuous coupling, and Suzanna was at once reminded that the very first time they had ever made love was during a violent thunderstorm. Did Mitch remember, too?

  While a fine mist of rain cooled their overheated bodies, Suzanna luxuriated in the lovemaking. She had never known such supreme physical pleasure. She wanted it to last forever, to never, ever stop. To lie here in the arms of this man she loved more than life itself was nothing short of paradise. To look into his heavily lashed green eyes while he made love to her was thrilling beyond compare.

  The loving became even more thrilling when Mitch slid a hand beneath her left leg, pressed it up against her chest and then hooked it over his shoulder. The thought skipped through Suzanna’s passion-fogged mind that they should never make love in any other position. This was the ultimate. This opened her more fully to him and he could thrust more deeply into her. She could become more his and he more hers.

  Just when she was certain this was the best of all possible positions, Mitch pushed her leg off his shoulder, stretched out on his back and sat her astride his pelvis. They never missed a stroke. While he raised his arms above his head and folded them on the pillow, Suzanna gripped his ribs and rode him furiously, flawlessly, as if there were no other way to make love.

  It was heaven.

  For her and for him.

  Mitch lay back and watched appreciatively as Suzanna seductively rolled her hips and thrust her pelvis forward, deliciously squeezing him with her warm, pliant body. The storm outside only added to the rapture. The fury of the worsening tempest was exciting and dangerous, and so was the rapidly escalating passion of the feverish female writhing provocatively atop him.

  The contrast of the ever-changing light was potently seductive. First the darkness enveloped them so completely that Mitch could hardly see Suzanna, could only feel her lush body imprisoning him, squeezing him, sweeping him toward that oncoming explosion of lust.

  Then flashes of lightning brightly illuminated the wild, naked creature of such incredible feminine beauty that his heart was endangered by simply gazing at her.

  During one of the dark intervals Suzanna began to pant and grip his ribs so tightly her nails cut into his flesh. Mitch knew she was on the verge of release, and he was glad. He’d been holding back and he couldn’t make it much longer.

  His arms came out from behind his head and he firmly clasped Suzanna’s hips. While she bucked frantically against him, he clenched his buttocks and drove up into her. The tempo of their lovemaking became extremely rapid as their shared orgasm began. And just when both were about to fully climax, the brightest lightning of all flashed in the storm-darkened sky.

  The room was temporarily as bright as day, bathing the joined lovers in its splendorous heavenly light. The boom of the following thunder perfectly coincided with their powerful eruption of orgasmic ecstasy.

  “Mitch,” Suzanna cried out as wave after wave of sexual bliss buffeted her, “Mitch…don’t…let…me…go!”

  “Never,” he groaned as he wrapped possessive arms firmly around her and drew her trembling body down against his shuddering frame.

  Forty-Seven

  By late that afternoon the rain had stopped and the sun was out. The sky had turned a deep cobalt-blue, and the humid air was clean and warm.

  Suzanna lay on her side, watching the man she loved sleeping peacefully. Mitch’s face looked young and innocent in repose. And beautiful. She yearned to trace the strong contours of his handsome face with her fingertips. And it was all she could do to keep from kissing the gleaming midnight hair that fringed his high forehead.

  Her gaze moved slowly down from his face to admire his magnificent form. A lean, masculine body marred only by the satiny scars on his left side. As always, Suzanna felt a deep sadness swamp her as she
stared at the telltale scars. How could he ever forgive her when he carried not only the emotional scars of what she’d done to him, but the physical reminder of her betrayal as well?

  Silently vowing that she would somehow, some way, make everything up to him, Suzanna eased out of bed, taking care not to disturb him. It was getting late, no more than an hour from sunset. The thought occurred to her that Mitch would surely be ravenously hungry when he woke. And she would surprise him with a tasty home-cooked meal.

  Warming to the idea, envisioning the two of them sharing a long, leisurely romantic dinner, Suzanna freshened up, hurriedly dressed and rushed downstairs. She went out onto the veranda and retrieved Mitch’s discarded trousers. The rain-soaked pants were now totally dry, thanks to the hot Carolina sun.

  Suzanna shook out the pants, folded them neatly and carried them upstairs. She found Mitch just as she’d left him, stretched out on his back, an arm folded beneath his dark head, sound asleep. She tiptoed over and laid the white trousers on the bed beside him, then turned and left.

  Downstairs, Suzanna hummed happily as she went about preparing the evening meal. She didn’t know how to cook, had never learned. Fortunately, Martha Tillman, the caretaker’s sweet wife, was an excellent chef and had spent the morning here in the kitchen baking a succulent smoked ham and fixing potato salad. And a melt-in-your-mouth, fresh blackberry cobbler.

  Suzanna took down the finest bone china and sparkling crystal. She carefully set the damask-draped table in the formal dining room. She placed tall white candles in heavy silver holders, ready to be lit when dusk descended.

  Sure that the table was perfect, Suzanna rushed over to check her appearance in the huge, gilt-framed mirror that hung suspended above the long cherrywood sideboard.

  She frowned at herself, swept her hair back off her face and pinched her cheeks. She was turning to go back into the kitchen when she looked up and saw Mitch coming down the stairs.