The Senator’s Daughter Page 18

  When Sylvia rose to take the dishes back to the kitchen, she winced.

  Lyle got up and took the tray from her. “You feeling stiff after all that sweeping?”

  “A bit.” She let him take it to the kitchen.

  When he came back from doing the dishes, the sun had not yet set. In the golden light, Sylvia was rolling her head and stretching her arms overhead.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and massaged. Her shirt was in the way of the rubdown he’d like to give. “How about if we go up to the springs and get you into some hot water?”

  “Can we find a spot that’s bearable, after what we saw this morning?”

  “How about we check? Got a swimsuit?”

  She nodded.

  “Darn.”

  When Sylvia followed Lyle upriver, the sun’s last light was kissing the Valetti vineyards. Beneath the trees on the riverside path, twilight had already fallen.

  The springs came into view. The gravel parking lot was empty. “Looks like everyone heard the water was too hot,” Lyle observed.

  Steam rose from the bathing pools and wafted away on a cooling breeze.

  “Maybe it’s okay now,” Sylvia hoped. “It’s not as violent as it was this morning.”

  However, the idyllic look deceived. When she bent to test the water, her hand sensed the heat before touching; she drew back. “We can’t go in here.”

  Lyle went to the next pool, got down on one knee, and spread his hand an inch above the water. He gave a low whistle. “Something has changed somewhere down there.” He swiveled his head toward the source beneath the travertine cliff.

  Because she really wanted to soak, Sylvia directed her gaze a hundred feet downriver, where a smaller stream wandered down from the mountains to join the flow.

  She pointed. “How about over there?”

  On the other side of an arched wooden footbridge, in a streamside picnic area, they approached the spot where cool and hot water mixed.

  A swish of Sylvia’s hand confirmed it was just above blood temperature. “It might be safe here.”

  Lyle put out a hand. “Let me try it first.”

  Sylvia smiled. “I could get used to you playing Sir Galahad.”

  A shadow crossed his features.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I guess I’m still tired of being cast as Mr. Nice Guy.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” After some of the creeps she’d had dates with, she liked nice. “After everything I’ve been through, you’re a breath of fresh air.”

  “Easy to say. Now tell me you’d like to be known for being nice.”

  Sylvia hesitated. Should she tell him she’d been mulling over just that in the past weeks? Her life, her former life, as she’d started to think of it, had been singularly without redeeming social value.

  “I think I would like to be known for doing something good. Like helping women who are abused like Mary and Buck thought I was.”

  Lyle nodded. “You could do it, with your family money.”

  Sylvia frowned. Her mother was trying to do it. And the mention of money brought up the very real issue of how she and Lyle could have a future beyond this idyll in Lava Springs. “I know I can do whatever I choose if all it takes is money.” She sighed. “Some things money doesn’t solve.”

  Lyle nodded. “You’re right. I don’t think any amount of cash thrown at the problem would find my mother … And if I had more money, it still wouldn’t satisfy your mother.”

  Was there a question in his statement? Did he want to know if she’d defy her family for him?

  She looked Lyle in the eye. “When it comes to my mother, Sir Galahad, you’d better saddle up, get out your lance, and tell her to go to the devil.”

  Though the twilight shadows along the river concealed the nuances in Sylvia’s expression, Lyle appreciated her passion.

  As for her advice about how to handle Laura Chatsworth, could it be that simple? Just take Sylvia back to Sausalito and tell both her parents he’d found her—not for money but for …

  Whoa. Love had no part in Lyle’s plan.

  Or was his plan changing?

  He became aware that his silence had gone on too long.

  “Just sweep you up onto the back up my blooded steed and carry you off into the sunset, huh?”

  “Just like that.”

  Lyle lifted his hand to cup Sylvia’s cheek. Those fantastic eyes, black in the twilight, gazed into his, sending a parallel stab of longing both to his sex and to the middle of his chest. After the deeply sensual foreplay that had been going on between him and Sylvia for days, he wanted to make love with her … long and slow and again and again.

  “And if I promise to tell your mom to go to hell…?” He failed to mention the potentially more critical issue of the Senator’s approval. He didn’t want to think about that now.

  “Shall we try bathing?”

  She slipped off her sandals.

  He kicked off his athletic shoes and doffed his socks, the grass cool on his bare feet.

  Drawing his T-shirt over his head, he dropped it and pulled Sylvia against him. Even through her black tank suit and an extra-large white T-shirt he’d loaned her, he detected her warmth.

  He bent his head toward her.

  Sylvia raised her face, eager for the press of Lyle’s lips on hers. When he’d bared his torso, her mouth had gone dry. Now the sight of his well-defined pecs and blond hair making a vee below his navel, pointing the way to … it was just as she’d imagined.

  Her reverie was broken by Lyle stopping short before kissing her. And she realized she needed to breathe.

  Looking into her eyes, he gathered the hem of his shirt that she wore. Slowly, exquisitely, he slid it up over her back. It caught her hair on the way up, fluffing it.

  Lyle tossed it away and took hold of her bathing suit strap.

  She looked around, her heart thudding. Were they shielded from the view of anyone who might come to the pools?

  Lyle glanced about. “The coast is clear … I think.”

  “You hope.” She hoped so, too. When she had decided to make love with him the next chance she got, she hadn’t considered it would be beneath the rising moon.

  He brushed his fingertips over her swimsuit, just above her waist.

  Her indrawn breath hissed. How amazing was the electricity firing between them with barely a touch.

  “Like that, do you?”

  Sylvia caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I love …”

  His brows lifted.

  Did he think she meant …?

  To cover her confusion, she looked toward the water. “Shall we go in?”

  Lyle let himself down onto the stone wall and put a foot into the water. Sylvia resisted another Sir Galahad remark while he lowered himself with care, evidently making sure it wasn’t too hot when one went deeper.

  She perched on the wall with her feet dangling in the warm current. “This is the perfect temperature. Not scalding like that tub full of mud.”

  “You mean the tub full of steaming fresh manure?” he came back. “I think the sphagnum moss in my bath had started to decay.”

  Sylvia laughed. “Hey, people pay a lot of money for mud baths.”

  “I know I did.” He sculled with his hands. “Nice sand bottom.” The water was so clear that even in the dim light she could see the pale outline of his foot exploring. Nice, but could boiling water surge up from some small spring?

  “Come on in,” he said with a smile.

  Lyle took her under the arms. He didn’t miss the chance to slide his palms up over her sides beneath that annoying swimsuit. Was her intake of breath for his touch or the delight of being lifted into the perfect mix of hot and cold water?

  Not content to merely set her on the sand, he let her slide the length of his chest to stand before him.

  Rather than step away, she swayed against him. His arms went around her, keeping their contact in the swirling water.

 
Though he told himself he should start by putting his hands at the small of her back, he decided to take Sylvia’s advice to Sir Galahad. He saddled up and cupped her bottom, bringing her hips in contact with his growing need. Lyle looked down at her breasts, offered up in the wet black swimsuit.

  He flicked his thumb over one pebbled tip. A tease, but the time for teasing was past.

  “Sylvia.” Lyle slipped the straps of her swimsuit down.

  He saw her glance around at the gathering darkness. Then she, too, seemed to give up modesty for desire and helped, freeing her arms and baring herself from the waist up.

  He appreciated the pearly skin against her suntan, having always thought all over bronzing less sexy than a tan line. It made uncovering the paler shade a more intimate act.

  Sylvia pressed her pelvis more strongly to him and leaned back to give him access.

  The first feel of her bare nipple between his lips nearly brought him to his knees.

  “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.

  Chapter 19

  Despite 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.�
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  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.