The Senator’s Daughter (30 page)

“Lyle.” No man's name had ever sounded so right. Her voice came out with a note of throaty need, the way it had when they'd kissed at Ice.

He moved his mouth to her other breast and she didn't think she could stand up any longer. With the water buoying her, she lifted her legs off bottom.

And wrapped them around Lyle's waist.

Leaning back, her hair floating in the stream, she snugged her hips closer to Lyle, imagining him taking her here in the flow.

As if he heard her thoughts, his hardness swelled beneath her mound. All lingering unease about someone discovering them fled from her.

Bringing her body upright so her breasts crushed against Lyle's hair-roughened chest, she slipped one arm around his neck. With the other, she delved into his shorts.

Though she'd known Lyle was large, when her fingers found velvet skin, she detected a steely rod beneath. At her touch, it throbbed in her hand.

Lyle groaned.

“Keep that up,” his breath was at her ear, “and I'm gonna go off right here.”

“Would that be so terrible?” She wrapped her palm around it and gave a little squeeze.

“You're playing with fire,” came the low voice, sending shivers through her.

“You are pretty hot.”

“I'm hot to be inside you,” he gritted. His lips captured her earlobe and he tugged at it with his teeth.

Sylvia's hips bucked against Lyle. “I want you inside me.”

The slick wetness and pulse beating between her thighs made her believe if he were inside her, she'd be instantly swept into a crushing orgasm. Wild with need, she shoved his swim trunks down and he sprang free. The tip jutted up toward her chin.

Only the crotch of her bathing suit came between them.

Then Lyle's fingers were there, shoving the material aside, testing her moisture. His thumb slipped between her folds and up over her swollen nub. “I can feel how ready you are for me.”

He pushed one finger inside her, then two, stretching her flesh. How much better it would be if he probed her with his shaft.

She tugged him toward her … all it would take was a simple adjustment of position. No longer was she intimidated by his size; she wanted every taut inch, to sink onto him, to slide back up until he was barely seated, and do it over again.

Lyle added a third finger. She lifted herself and came back down.

“Go on, sweetheart,” he urged.

She did. Over and over, she impaled her slick core onto his hand, all the while seeking.

“Lyle, now!” she demanded.

“No glove.” He kept up the rhythm of stroking. “That'll have to wait.”

She kept moving against the contact, rising and rising.

Lyle couldn't believe the pleasure he felt at performing an act that was, at best, a substitute for what he needed—being inside her.

“I have an idea,” he whispered.

He removed his fingers and her swimsuit snapped back into place. Then he adjusted his sex between her thighs, grabbed her, and slid her up and down the length.

She wrapped her arms around him. Their bodies were hard against each other.

Then Sylvia brought her thighs together more firmly closing up on him.

“Yes,” he ground out. “Like that.”

Might as well go for it and make going to bed at the inn round two.

With a few more strokes of her body over him, a few more clamps of her legs around him, he was going to be shouting in the redwood wilderness.

He accelerated their friction.

Suddenly, over Sylvia's shoulder, he caught movement near a picnic table.

He tried to ignore it, focused on his drive for sweet release.

An instant later, he was certain a human form approached … and that his edge was receding.

Lyle debated another second, then gripped Sylvia's hips to still her.

“What—”

“Shhh!” he hissed at her ear. He lifted his hand and mimed covering his mouth. “Someone's coming.”

Not me.
Or Sylvia, he thought ruefully.

She nodded, chest heaving.

With his blood still thundering, Lyle set Sylvia away from him. Watching her make quick work of covering her breasts with her swimsuit, he tasted regret.

The fellow, he'd thought the silhouette looked male, probably wouldn't have cared if he heard the mingled moans of a couple in the throes. He no doubt would have gotten a brief chuckle out of it and slipped away into the dusk.

Yet, Lyle dragged his focus from the woman he was still throbbing for and strained his eyes. Trying to focus a little off center of what he was looking at to maximize his night vision, he found something familiar about the intruder. Twilight sent pale illumination onto a short dark-haired man passing through a clearing into another clump of trees.

In full profile like a jail mug shot, Lyle constructed Andre Valetti.

“Lyle?” Sylvia touched his arm.

He silenced her with a slashing gesture.

Thank God she didn't go into a huff like some women might, but followed his lead when he lowered himself into the water until his nostrils barely broke the surface. He touched her arm, and she moved with him to concealment behind the stone wall lining the channel.

There, in answer to her raised black brows, he put his mouth to her ear. “I think it's Andre.”

Sylvia's eyes went wide, but she stayed still. Slowly, Lyle lifted his head until he could see over the rock ledge.

The man was no longer in the clearing.

Lyle scanned. Did he see a shadow beneath a tree? Someone moving deeper into the forest, whereas the average local or tourist would likely head for the road?

He guessed not.

All was dark and silent, and Lyle had trouble believing he'd not imagined the whole thing.

D
espite his uncertainty about what he'd seen, on the walk back downstream in the dark, Lyle held Sylvia's arm and kept checking over his shoulder. Every crunch of gravel underfoot sounded too loud.

If that had been Valetti, what was he doing skulking around? With all those trophies and high-powered rifles, the man was probably armed.

And though he might be a gentleman vintner, this morning he had told Lyle he wouldn't get away with accusing Tony or Andre of hastening the elderly Esther Quenton's death.

Thinking he might be a target steamed Lyle.

Having Sylvia in the line of fire frightened him. Especially as he was more and more certain he wanted … needed her in his life.

When they got to the inn, Lyle rushed her up the stairs, across the rear porch, and into the living room.

“If it was just Andre, why are you so spooked?” Sylvia sounded scared.

He shifted his focus from the back door to her. Black hair made damp strings over her shoulders, and her wet swimsuit showed clearly through his white tee. Her round eyes confirmed he needed to reassure her, but he decided on the truth. “Probably because he acted furtive.”

She kept looking at him.

“And … I've been doing a confidential investigation of him. It's complicated, but involves the possibility his brother, Tony, might have resorted to foul play in order to get his hands on some land up here.” He didn't mention Andre might have been in on it, too. No sense upsetting Sylvia any more, especially as he'd been shooting in the dark this morning with his suppositions.

“Are you sure it was Andre?”

“It was really dark,” he said. “And maybe the silhouette was a little broad.”

Had he simply superimposed Valetti's features onto another gentleman taking the evening air?

“I feel like it was, but I can't pound the table,” he admitted.

Sylvia hoped Lyle was mistaken about seeing Andre. Though she didn't return the obvious attraction the man had for her, it made her feel sick to think he might have watched her and Lyle in the river.

Though he now said he couldn't be certain, Lyle was probably trying to make them both feel better. She was still trembling inside from the adrenaline rush she'd gotten when Lyle had pulled away from her and ducked down behind the wall.

“If it was Andre, he has a perfect right to take a walk down to the springs,” she tried. “He lives just up the road.”

“I know. I wonder if he saw us.”

“So do I …”

Lyle moved to stand in front of Sylvia and put an arm around her waist. “Enough about bogeymen.” With the lobby lit only by the small milk glass lamp and no one around, he pulled her against him.

How quickly what started out as reassurance turned to something else.

“Sylvia.” Lyle's blue eyes were bright, and she felt the reliable heat start to rise between them. “I say we forget about Andre, earthquakes, and everything else that distracts us from the fact that I want to make love with you.”

With you.
Not “to you.” A stab of desire brought back the way he'd made her feel when they were immersed in the warm river.

He waited for an answer.

She searched inside herself and found no hesitation. “More than anything … I want to be with you tonight.”

Lyle lifted a brow. “Tonight?”

As easily as he raised the stakes, she met him. “I have a feeling we're going to want a lot more than that.”

It would take a lot of nights to get Lyle Thomas out of her system.

“I feel like celebrating,” she said. “We could abscond with a primary ingredient of the breakfast mimosas.”

They went together to the kitchen, where Lyle snagged a chilled green bottle from the fridge. Sylvia rummaged and came up with glasses and a corkscrew.

As they turned toward the hall leading to the bedrooms, Mary Kline came to the top of the stairs leading down to her and Buck's apartment. Lyle's steps slowed, and Sylvia wondered what Mary's reaction would be.

She took one look at the two in their bathing suits and damp tees, the champagne … and smiled. The way she'd censured Lyle before, it seemed like a benediction.

If only he could receive that kind of blessing from Sylvia's parents.

“How were the springs?” Mary asked.

“Too hot to go into the pools,” Sylvia replied. “We found a cooler place in the river.”

Mary's smile faded. “I hope it was safe to go in. Buck and I are drinking bottled water. And I don't mean Palisades Pure.”

“I don't think Sylvia and I glow in the dark,” Lyle quipped.

The innkeeper wasn't appeased. “We normally use the spring water for everything. Any problem with the water chemistry would shut down this place down.”

Lyle's expression sobered. “How about if you drilled a well?”

Mary shook his head. “Buck says we'd probably get into the same aquifer.”

“You know, the spring is running clear again,” Lyle supplied.

“Everything will be all right,” Sylvia hoped.

“I just pray you're right.” Mary started toward the kitchen, then veered off toward the counter where the leather hotel register lay open. She frowned, smoothed the red ribbon marking today, and closed the book.

On her way through the dining room, she said, “Good night, you two.”

Left alone, Sylvia and Lyle started toward the wing where their rooms were.

As they passed her room, she decided to duck in and get out of her clammy swimsuit.

She went up on tiptoe and let her breath warm Lyle's ear. And was rewarded by the hair on his arm rising beneath her light touch. “Just let me—”

Lyle turned the tables, bending so his lips grazed her lobe and sent chills zinging through her. “As soon as you're ready, come to me.”

Sylvia's throat felt so thick she could only nod. She handed him the glass flutes and reached for the doorknob to her room.

“No changing your mind,” he cautioned. The kiss he planted on the side of her neck would have convinced her if she were waffling.

She was not. In fact, she considered going on with him, letting him be the one to strip off her suit, but she wanted to be clean and dry …

“I won't change my mind.” Then, recalling it was he who had hesitated the night before last, she countered, “Don't you, either.”