The Last White Knight (15 page)

She shot him a scowl. “Split hairs.”

They locked the apartment and walked out of the building into the warm summer night, angling across the parking lot toward Erik’s Thunderbird.

“I need to stop by the house for two seconds before we go,” Lynn said as she settled into the car’s plush seat and Erik slid behind the wheel. He gave her a look of strained patience. “I’m sorry!” she said defensively. “I forgot my purse at work.”

“Two seconds,” he intoned in an ominous voice. “And you have to make a pledge not to spend the whole night worrying about what might be going on in your absence.”

“I promise,” she muttered grudgingly.

“I’ll hold you to it,” he declared. Then that sweet sexy smile claimed his features and he winked at her. “Better yet, I’ll hold you to
me
.”

He followed her into the house. Lynn had assured him no one was home. It was their monthly movie
night. Lillian and Martha had chaperoned the five girls to the Barclay Square six-plex for Kevin Costner’s latest. But he followed her anyway.

“It’s in my office,” she said as they stepped into the front hall. “I’ll be two seconds.”

“Uh-huh.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re awfully suspicious for a Democrat.”

“Yeah, well, we haven’t been the same since that Watergate thing, you know.”

Lynn chuckled and turned to head down the hall to the cram-packed disaster area that would become her office in an eon or two, but her step faltered as she drew even with the living room doorway. From the corner of her eye she caught sight of a figure on the sofa, and her heart vaulted into her throat as she whirled around.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, hoping sheer terror didn’t ruin the effect.

A sniffle was her only answer. She ventured inside, squinting in the gloom. The shades had been drawn and the lamps left off, leaving the room covered with heavy shadows. She automatically turned on the first table lamp she came to, illuminating a head of golden curls tucked back against the couch.

“Christine?” she asked with concern. “Honey,
what’s wrong? Why aren’t you at the movies with everybody else?”

The girl looked up at her from where she sat on the sofa, curled into a ball of misery. Her nose and eyes were wet and drippy, and her mouth trembled. “I—I c-called my dad, like y-you said I sh-should.”

Lynn sank down beside her, her heart sinking even farther. She reached out and brushed a sprig of damp curls back from Christine’s cheek. She had been counseling the girl to take the first step in making amends with her father and stepmother, who had literally thrown her out into the street when she had become pregnant. Lynn had spoken with Mr. Rickman a number of times herself, trying to impart to him Christine’s feelings of abandonment when he had remarried shortly after her mother’s death, feelings that had driven her to seek out love from another source. Lynn had felt he was ready to talk to his daughter again, but she had intended to be present to moderate that first attempt at reconciliation, in case something went awry. Obviously, something had.

“Oh, honey,” she murmured. “It didn’t go very well, did it?”

Christine’s eyes welled up. The next second she was in Lynn’s arms, sobbing her heart out. Lynn had all she could do to keep from crying along. She’d
been in Christine’s shoes. She knew what it was like to be alone and pregnant. She knew the hurt of being cut off from her family and abandoned by someone she had thought loved her. She held Christine Rickman and stroked her hair and felt her own heart break all over again as Christine’s pain came pouring out.

“Why does it have to be so hard?” the girl asked, her voice choked with torment.

“I don’t know, sweetie,” Lynn whispered, wishing with all her heart that she did. “If I had the answer to that one, I could make the world a lot better place, couldn’t I?”

It was a long time before the tears were spent and they had talked everything out. Lynn listened with patience, offering sympathy and a warm hug. Finally, Christine sat back and sniffled, dabbing at her nose with the last of the tissues from the box. She looked at Lynn sideways, her mouth twisting with chagrin.

“I ruined your date.” She reached out a tentative hand and touched a big wet spot on the shoulder of Lynn’s silk dress. “I ruined your dress.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Lynn said with a soft smile. Inwardly her heart gave a lurch as she remembered Erik. A glance at the clock told her her “two seconds” had stretched into an hour and a half. He
would be furious with her. Well, tough spit. Christine’s tears were far more important than dinner and dancing, and if he thought differently, he could just take a hike. “Believe it or not,” she teased, “I’ve had dates before and I’ll have dates again. Are you going to be all right?”

The girl shrugged, one hand rubbing her swollen belly through her oversize T-shirt.

Lynn caught the gesture and knew the uncertainty that went along with it. She gave Christine’s hand a squeeze. “I’ll be there when you need me, honey.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“Why don’t you go up to bed?” Lynn suggested with a soft smile. “Using a whole box of tissues is exhausting work.”

When Christine was safely upstairs and settled in bed, Lynn retrieved her purse and shut off the living room lamp. She wandered to the front door, wondering if she would have to call a cab to get home or if she should just crash on the couch here. Looking out onto the front step, she saw she would have to do neither. Erik was sitting there with his back against the stair railing, gazing up at the sky as the first stars made their appearance on the night’s dark stage.

In that instant she fell in love with him. She had been teetering on the brink for days, but in that second she fell over the edge. In that instant he turned and looked up at her with all that wisdom in his eyes and the softest, warmest smile on his lips, and her heart was lost—for all the good it would do her, she thought sadly.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, his husky voice coming to her just above the sounds of the evening and the faint strains of the organ being played at St. Stephen’s.

“No.” She sat down on the step, her full skirt draping down to brush her feet as she wrapped her arms around her knees. She looked at him sideways and managed a smile. “But she’ll make it another day. We’ll all get by and go on.”

“She’s got a tough row to hoe.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lynn said, staring out into the gathering darkness for a long moment, lost in memories. She shook off the misty haze and turned toward Erik again with a wry smile. “I figured you’d be long gone by now.”

“Shows how much you know. I’m getting this date if it kills me.”

“We’ve lost our reservation,” she felt compelled to point out as Erik stood, taking her hand and drawing her up with him.

“Hey,” he said with a swagger in his step as they started down the sidewalk toward his car. The crinkles beside his eyes gave him away. “
I’m
a state senator,” he declared with mock arrogance. “
I’ve
got pull in this town.
I
can get us a table at the most exclusive place in southern Minnesota.”

They dined on Colonel Sanders’s finest, seated at a redwood table with a view of the stars. It was indeed exclusive. It was the only table in the house—or rather,
out
of the house. They had picked up their dinner and driven out to Erik’s home in the secluded Buckthorn subdivision, where the houses were tucked back among the trees on wooded acreages. Erik’s house was simple in design, a rambling tri-level structure sided in rough-sawn cedar. It blended perfectly with its surroundings, giving a sense of belonging and comfort.

“Do you like my choice of night spots?” Erik asked, his voice soft and smoky.

A slow smile curved Lynn’s mouth. “Very much. The food was average, but the atmosphere doesn’t leave much to be desired.”

Except you
. The words remained unspoken, but vibrated in the air between them, electric and magnetic. Their gazes caught and held and Lynn had the
distinct feeling that the thought was a shared one, humming on a common wavelength, that their minds were connecting as their thoughts roused longings in them to join physically. The idea seemed almost more intimate than the act, and she pulled her gaze away from his as a delicious warmth spread through her.

She sat back against the cushions of her chair and gave herself the opportunity to appreciate her surroundings. The woods beyond the lawn were chirping with nightlife. The sky above them was a vast black bowl studded with pinpoints of diamond light. They sat on the wide deck at the back of the house with soft music floating out through the open windows. Peace was a softness in the air around them, the lack of traffic noise, the rustle of the trees.

For the first time in weeks Lynn felt herself really relaxing. She felt as if this place were a safe, secluded haven where the problems of the world couldn’t touch her.
Foolishness
, that cynical voice inside her said, but for once she shushed it. She took a deep breath of the fresh night air and exhaled slowly, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back.

Erik took a sip of his wine and studied her in silence, enjoying the chance to look his fill. She sat in profile to him, her night-black hair falling in a silken cascade behind her, the slim ivory column of her
throat arched. Her breasts thrust out gently, nipples budding beneath the sheer fabric of her dress.

Desire stirred deeply inside him. Tonight. Tonight he would make her his, in the oldest sense of the term. Once again the thought brought on a strong surge of some primal instinct that had lain dormant inside him. He had never thought of sex as a claiming, never viewed it as such a critical step in his relationship with a woman. Not that he usually thought of sex in casual terms. He was a responsible man, but this was different. And the difference was Lynn. With her it would be more than just sex—it would be a surrender, an acceptance of him that went deeper than the purely physical, a letting down of that invisible barrier she protected herself with. The prospect set off a tremor inside Erik that was equal parts awe and fear.

He pushed himself slowly to his feet and held out his hand to her as he rounded the table. His gaze caught hers and drew her to him as surely as his touch. “Dance with me,” he said.

Lynn went into his arms without a word, nestling her head against the hollow of his shoulder. “Unforgettable” drifted like smoke through the window screens. Erik held her close and they swayed together, shuffling in a lazy circle around the deck. A wonderful, silvery shiver went through her as he
lowered his head and brushed his lips against the side of her neck. She snuggled into his embrace and tilted her head to the side, offering her throat for him to nibble and kiss. Then his mouth found hers and she sighed and melted against him.

The music might have ended or it might have played on. Lynn ceased to be aware of it. All her senses focused on the man in her arms. He kissed her with deep, provocative strokes of his tongue, his big hands sliding down her back and pressing her closer. The scent of him filled her nostrils—warm, clean, male—awakening something basic and utterly feminine inside her. She wanted him. In a way she couldn’t quite remember wanting a man ever before, she wanted Erik Gunther. The idea frightened her a little. She couldn’t afford to let him get too close, couldn’t afford to need him too much. But that need was swelling and throbbing inside her, demanding to be assuaged, overtaking her other emotions and swallowing them up.

“I need you, Lynn.” His whisper came to her through the mists of the sensual spell that was weaving itself around them. “I want you.”

“Yes,” she murmured, her lips brushing the hard plane of his jaw. She kissed his cheek, kissed his throat. Sliding one hand up between them, she loosened the knot in his tie and undid the top button of
his shirt. Slowly she pressed her mouth against the hollow at the
V
of his collarbone, kissing him deeply, caressing the tender flesh with the tip of her tongue and feeling his pulse race just beneath the surface. A deep moan rumbled up from the depths of his chest, and she felt it vibrate against her even before she heard the sound.

Erik slid his hands into her hair, sending her combs clattering to the deck and setting her mane free to fall in waves over his wrists and forearms. Tilting her head back, he looked into her face, his expression taut, intense, his eyes as bright as blue flames, burning with the heat of his desire. He lowered his mouth to hers for a kiss that was hot and urgent, and Lynn responded with equal need. She clung to him, pressed herself to him, shuddered against him as he bent her back over his arm. Then he was lifting her, carrying her.

He crossed the deck in three long strides and shouldered open the sliding glass door that led to his bedroom. The room was cast in wedges of shadow and pale moonlight, the bed a vast expanse of dark and light. Lynn took in only impressions of the room—the feel of the thick beige carpet under her stockinged feet as Erik set her down, the sense of neatness, the masculine lines of the furniture. With her attention riveted on Erik, there was no time to
take in the decor or try to discern anything from it about the man who lived in this room.

He stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes locked on hers as he yanked his tie free and lifted a hand to the buttons of his shirt. Mirroring his actions, Lynn’s hands lifted and settled on the top button of her dress, sliding the mother-of-pearl disk from its mooring and moving slowly down to the next one. When she reached the last button above her belt, Erik put his hands on her wrists.

“Let me,” he said.

He hooked his thumbs inside the placket of the dress and slowly slid the bodice off her shoulders. Lynn attempted to raise her arms to do the same to him, but she found herself caught. As she started to try to slide one arm free of the dress, Erik stopped her again.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “There’s plenty of time. All night … forever …”

He lifted his hands to cup her breasts, stroking her through her sheer, silky bra. She stood perfectly still for his examination, though her breath fluttered in and out of her lungs in shallow, stuttering gasps. He kneaded and caressed, squeezed gently, relishing the size and shape of her with his fingers. Her breasts were small but plump, filling his hands perfectly.
Nipples strained against the fabric of her bra, begging for his attention.