Shadows of Yesterday

Chad groaned. “I can tell I’ve got to change my image with you fast. Starting now.”

He leaned over the space between them and cupped the back of her head, pulling her toward him. “I don’t think you appreciate the restraint I’ve placed on myself today. All through lunch, all I could think about was this.”

His lips were warm, urgent, demanding. He expected acquiescence and wasn’t disappointed. Leigh opened her mouth at his subtle encouragement and all the sensations she had strived to suppress flared to life again. As before, her nerves ignited under the heat of his mouth. His tongue was governed by whimsy, taking or giving as mood dictated, but always with fervor.

He eased his lips over her cheek to her ear. “Do you still think of me as a ‘good boy’?” His breath was as much a caress as his searching lips.

“No,” she sighed. “No.”

He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, planting a hot kiss in the palm. Her heart thumped loudly in her breast. “I didn’t know what you’d think of me showing up unexpectedly last night. That’s why I didn’t call first. I was afraid you’d refuse to see me.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

“I couldn’t risk it. I had to see you.”

“Why, Chad?”

His thumb drew circles on the pulsing veins in her wrist. Lifting her hand to his lips again, he spoke against her fingers. “Because ever since I left you in that hospital, you’ve dominated my thoughts.”

“As the woman whose baby you delivered?”

“No.” His wandering finger toyed with the lobe of her ear. “As the woman I wanted to get to know better and who was probably devastated by what had happened to her. God, the way I looked that day, you must have been scared to death of me.”

“Only for a few minutes. You were so kind.”

“You were so beautiful.”

“I looked ghastly.”

“You looked like a painting.”

“Sure—Dali!”

“Della Robbia. I told you then and I still think so. Every time I see you, Leigh, you’re more desirable.”

He kissed her again, seeming to draw sustenance from her. She had no reservoir of strength to use against the assault of his lips and tongue. When he had drunk his fill and moved to her neck, tremors continued to vibrate through her body, leaving her weak and dizzy. His hand at her waist drifted upward over her ribs, back down, up again, more dangerously close to her breast this time. His thumb curved beneath the soft swell. “Chad,” she gasped, pushing against his forearm. “I… I’ve got to go back to work,” she said, avoiding his eyes and running nervous hands over her clothes in an effort to straighten them.

He looked at her a moment. She knew he was watching her face, though she kept her eyes glued to the crease in her slacks. She heard his sigh a moment before he shoved open his door.

He helped her out of the truck and they rushed across the parking lot, huddled together against the frigid wind. Gaining the entrance to the mall, he pulled her against the brick wall of the building and protected her from the wind with his powerful body.

“Can I come by tonight?” He saw her caution, her hesitation, her intention to say no. “Am I coming on too fast, Leigh?”

Despite the eroticism of her thoughts the night before, she knew she couldn’t enter into a casual affair. She had not only her life to think of, but Sarah’s, too, and such an arrangement would compromise them both. Accepting Chad as a lover would be so easy to do, but sex for sex’s sake went against everything Leigh believed in. It was best to let him know how she felt now. “If you’re looking for a quick, flash-in-the-pan fling, I’m not the one,” she warned sternly.

“I know that. And personally I like my sex slow and well done.” His mouth quirked into a beguiling grin, and his charismatic eyes sparkled mischievously. Like Bubba’s wife, like old Mrs. Lomax, like Sue, like her own baby daughter, Leigh succumbed to his charm. Her austerity deflated like a parachute settling onto the ground. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?” he pressed.

“For dinner?” she asked in a surrendering voice.

“No,” he said regretfully. “I have an obligation until around nine. Is that too late?”

“No.”

“Good.” Ducking his head, he kissed her quickly. “What is it?” he asked when he felt her laughter.

“I’ve never been kissed by anyone wearing a cowboy hat before.”

His eyes were piercingly blue through a forest of dark lashes. “Get used to it,” he growled.