Sunburst Read Online Free PDF Page B

inescapably her rhythm, too. He knew exactly the cadence of movement to take her soaring; no one else in the world knew her like that, understood how to take that surge of wildness and spin it completely out of control. “Please…”
    There was a feverish glaze of almost-tears in her eyes when he finally freed her hands, and she desperately clutched at the damp silk of his back, holding on, holding him with her. She felt his hand suddenly over her mouth to muffle her helpless cry when her body seemed to turn liquid. Liquid gold.
    When it was over, he touched her cheek with his palm, soothing away the hint of tears. He tucked her inside the curve of his shoulder in the darkness. For a time, their breathing was labored, then his quieted as he fell asleep.
    Erica lay still, trembling, for a long time. Sleep should have come instantly, yet it eluded her. The sensual, lethargic aftermath of love faded slowly; finally, she moved from beside Kyle’s sleeping form and groped her way to the chair in her corner of the room.
    He had an incredible power in his hands, her virile lover. He’d had it from the beginning; for her there had never been a question of withholding a response from him, of inhibitions or hesitation or shyness. She loved the lover as well as the man, but there’d been something different tonight. He hadn’t wanted her to touch him; he hadn’t wanted to be loved in return. He gave so much, but at the very moment he himself most needed loving. She knew it as an instinct, felt it in her heart…
    Erica got up, found a long, cream-colored robe, put it on and curled up in the chair. The night was silent except for Kyle’s breathing, and once the whispery hooting of an owl. Erica sat in the chair, wide-eyed, tearless, frightened. Kyle’s love play so closely paralleled other things that were happening in their marriage, the way he so often closed himself off to her…
    She had believed their marriage was perfect—until Joel McCrery died and that tragedy had uncovered depths of feeling she hadn’t known existed, emotions and capacities in herself that had never been tapped. Their changed circumstances had given her the opportunity to stand by Kyle, to fight for something together, to change and grow with him… Yet while her love for him had grown, his feelings for her seemed to have diminished. He had shut her off when she had tried to talk. Now, when she wanted to touch…
    She didn’t know what to do, what to think, what she was supposed to feel. She hurt, she suffered—it was a raw, confused, nameless sensation. Unwillingly, she closed her eyes in exhaustion, and finally made her way back to bed.
     
    Erica cracked an egg against the counter and plopped it gently into a pot of boiling water, bounced a slice of bread into the toaster, snatched up knife, fork and napkin, and set them on the counter in front of Morgan. In another few seconds, she had two cups of coffee poured, an apple sliced and a glass of juice waiting for Morgan. The poached egg was ready by the time the slowest toaster in the Midwest noisily popped up one browned slice of bread. She handed Morgan’s plate to him as she perched on a stool on the opposite side of the counter. “Now eat,” she ordered as she picked up an apple slice and motioned to his plate with it. “It’ll give you something to do besides bore that dead-man stare of yours into my back. Didn’t you sleep well?”
    “I just don’t understand how anyone can move so fast first thing in the morning.” Morgan’s blond hair was rumpled, and he had put on his suit pants but nothing else. A dangling St. Christopher medal hung from his tanned neck, and on one hand he sported a full-carat sapphire. High-class disheveled, Erica privately labeled him. As much as she cared for him, she was in no mood to entertain anyone this morning, much less Morgan, who seemed determined to study the hollows of fatigue beneath her eyes.
    “Honey, those jeans couldn’t get much