was intoxicating, so fresh with new life that it was impossible to get enough of the scent of it. Sonia simply inhaled, loving all the aromas of spring.
“Did you like the music?” Craig murmured.
“Mmm.” She’d loved the nightclub and the music. And the three glasses of champagne. And being alone with her husband. And now, that special quiet of an early, early morning in late May.
Waves of contentment just kept coming. Everything felt special-the dew-drenched grass beneath her walking boots, the feel of the cool, silky blouse against her bare skin, the touch of a breeze fingering through her hair. Happiness flooded through her like a roller coaster; the rush just wouldn’t stop. Sonia felt high like rainbows-a phrase in her head that made no particular sense. She told it to Craig. “Explain it to me,” she suggested whimsically.
Always, her husband had had an uncanny understanding of even her most obscure thoughts. He tugged her into the shadow of a sheltering maple, leaned back against the bark and experimented with explaining “high like rainbows.”
He captured the basic idea when his lips whispered across her temples, then her nose, then her cheeks. He caught even more of the concept when his fingers languidly sifted through her hair. As he leaned back against the tree, his legs were slightly parted, encouraging her to fit just so in that inviting spread of his thighs.
She forgot all about rainbows. His lips touched base with hers, and neither wanted to let go. Through his dark sweatshirt, through her thin silk blouse, she could feel her breasts suddenly aching, rubbing against him, and his heartbeat throbbed in response.
Her lips parted and closed on the lower curve of his, her kisses deliberately tempting, invitingly feminine. She courted the dramatic response of his body…the low groan from the back of his throat as he gathered her closer, the tightening of his thighs, the way his arms turned possessive. It would have been so easy to have rushed into bed earlier. Those few hours alone together and all the laughter they had shared made the waiting so much sweeter, like a long, lazy seduction that refused to end. They were still miles from their hotel, and her teasing was the more provocative because of it. She wanted this night to last forever…
From somewhere in the distance she heard a vague sound. The lovers they’d passed on the way in? No matter-she and Craig were hidden in shadows. His tongue stole between her lips and started a slow, gradual exploration-the inside of her cheek, the back of her teeth, the roof of her mouth.
Her hands splayed, running down his sides to his hips. Her fingertips could just reach the middle of his thighs, hard thighs encased in rough denim. Her fingers were enjoying the long, leisurely walk up again, stealing under his sweatshirt, needing the feel of his bare skin. When the flat of her palms covered his taut male breasts, she could feel his temperature rise three degrees. He had a delightfully feverish look in his eyes…
“It’s time to go home,” he said gruffly.
“Yes.”
He buried his face in her throat, pulling her even closer to himself. Her skin was so supple, so soft; she smelled so sweetly of Sonia. The need to possess her had become a driving hunger. “When we get back,” he whispered to her, “I’m going to take off your blouse, Sonia. Then your jeans. I’m going to place you on the bed…”
She shivered, a delicious wave of pure sensual anticipation sensitizing every nerve ending of her skin.
“I’m going to turn you over on your stomach,” he whispered, his lips very close to her ear. Then they nestled in her hair and finally in the hollow of her shoulder. “I’m going to kiss the backs of your knees, then the length of your spine, then that small fanny of yours. Then up to that tiny birthmark at the nape of your neck…”
“Craig-”
“Then I’m going to turn you over and just look at you. Just…watch you. The way your breasts swell, the way they ache with heat…I can feel it. I can feel them change in the palm of my hand. I can feel it when you want me…”
Her conservative, civilized businessman had turned into a pirate from another century. Long, drugging kisses backed up all the promise in his words, inflaming Sonia with a wild, haunting recklessness as she matched kiss for kiss, caress for caress.
“Take me home,” she murmured pleadingly. The teasing had been fun, the park romantic, the nightclub wonderful…and she’d always loved champagne, drank it as if it were soda pop. But it was sharing all these things with Craig that made them pleasures. Being with him was what mattered; the rest was just frosting on the cake. And she was no longer interested in frosting. He kissed her again, and then, unsmiling, drew back, gently smoothing her hair before tucking her into the hollow of his shoulder.
They were looking at each other as they started walking. The same message was in both of their expressions. Stark need, the lushness of anticipation and the irrepressible desire they both had to laugh at their own mutual craziness at wanting each other too damn much for married people in a public park. Craig, a man who never lost control, and Sonia, the lady who was once so sure that inhibitions and intimacy were a matched set…The corner of his mouth suddenly twitched, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him hard.
“You think you can behave yourself long enough to get back to the hotel?” he whispered.
She shook her head, laughing. “Now, don’t go shifting the blame. I was just standing here, being a meek little submissive wife, tolerating my…er…conjugal responsibilities.”
“Tolerating, were you?”
“Good Lord, you didn’t think I was turned on?”
His arm tightened around her shoulder while hers wrapped around his waist. There was one fleeting moment when her heart felt full, when the lush brilliance of happiness seemed so tangible she could embrace it…
Then nightmare.
Talons clawed her arms, ripping her away from Craig. Shock registered before fear, until an alcohol-crazed pair of eyes loomed in front of her face, leering and laughing. Sonia staggered back, but not fast enough. The man snatched her again, his fingers biting into her arms, dragging her farther away from Craig, farther into the black shadows of trees, slamming her spine into rough bark.
Her desperate cry came out more whisper than scream. Terror knotted her throat, so instantaneous and bone- chilling that her mind could not grasp what was happening. That man with the terrifying light eyes…but he wasn’t alone. “Now you just shut up and take it easy, lady,” he hissed to her.
Through a frantic blur, she saw three more men surrounding Craig, and yet another standing behind her tormentor. Horror bubbled over. They were all young and filthy and reeking of liquor, their eyes all similarly glazed. The one who’d taken her on was the worst, with his long, stringy blond hair and acid smile…
Through the tangle of limbs, she caught Craig’s eyes; for an instant he looked insane with panic for her. His shouted curse brought the pack on him. She heard the terrible sound of fist connecting with bone, and desperately tried to run to him. Her arm was wrenched from its socket, bent back and behind her, and she was forced to stumble into the blond man’s chest.
“Let her
Pain stabbed her shoulder as the blond twisted her arm yet more tightly, cursing. “Keep him
A fist connected with his face.
Sonia screamed. Before the sound was halfway from her mouth, a filthy hand clamped over it, and her arm was again yanked so roughly that she knew the blond man was more than willing to break it. She cringed-inside, outside, all over.
“Fifty bucks,” one of Craig’s tormentors called out disgustedly to the man who was holding her.
“What the hell. Get his watch.”
The blond laughed. The sound made Sonia swallow with revulsion. “The man sure don’t seem to like it much when we touch his lady, now, does he?
