Authors: Hailey North
“No matter what,” Jonni said.
“Why?”
The silence stretched long over the phone and Daffy, for once, kept her silence, waiting for her sister to find the words she sought.
At last Jonni said, “Daddy stood by Mother.”
“Wow,” Daffy whispered. She repeated the word, noting in a most detached way that her vocabulary had dwindled to that single word.
She wanted to argue with her sister, line up the logical reasons that their parents’ relationship should not determine the fate of her own life. But what was the point? Jonni wasn’t open to reason, and if David truly was only assisting the intern with her legal needs, her sister had nothing to worry about anyway.
“I’ve got to go,” Jonni said, her voice firm. “The nanny’s bringing Erika in from her walk. I do appreciate your trying to help, but let it go, okay?”
“Sure,” Daffy said. The phone buzzed in her ear after her sister hung up.
She continued to grip the receiver, mulling over Jonni’s attitude and kicking herself for missing Hunter as much as she did.
Daffy couldn’t remember when she’d felt more lonesome.
S
aturday morning arrived cool and clear, more like spring than early summer in Louisiana. Daffy snuggled under the covers, then threw them off as she remembered just what day it was.
Hunter was picking her up at nine to drive to Ponchatoula.
And the clock read 8:45!
Vaulting from her four-poster bed, Daffy grabbed for the peignoir draped across the foot of the bed and then paused, the frothy fabric clutched to her bare breasts. Despite the number of times both her mother and her sister had admonished her, Daffy still slept in the nude.
Fifteen minutes. That gave her time to put on a quick cup of coffee before jumping into the shower. She did love her morning java. And before embarking on a day with Hunter, she needed her wits about her.
At that moment the doorbell rang, chiming clearly all the way through the raised Creole cottage to her bedroom near the back of the house.
Not Hunter! Not yet.
She wasn’t ready to face him, not after the stilted phone conversations and the week’s gap since their fantasy trip to Las Vegas. She, for once, had no idea what to say.
The bell rang again. Apparently Hunter was not feeling awkward. Daffy slipped into the robe, ran a comb through her hair, and swished a mouthful of Scope. One did like to be prepared for happy outcomes.
She was almost to the door when she remembered just how sheer her peignoir was. She considered, one foot in midair, then sailed forward.
Good. Shake him up a bit, she thought, and swung the door open wide.
Looking every inch as gorgeous as she remembered him, Hunter stood on her porch, two steaming cups of PJ’s coffee in his hands and a paper bag tucked under one elbow.
“Room service,” he said, a look of what Daffy could only think of as wolfish admiration on his face as he surveyed her from the top of her tou-sled head to the tips of her bare toes.
She stood in the open doorway, reveling in the way he was soaking in the sight of her, and did the same. He wore khaki shorts, a polo shirt, tennis shoes, and the ancient Timex. Nothing fancy. Certainly nothing to indicate his substantial bank balance.
Not that Daffy cared. It was the curve of his mouth and the light in his eyes and that searing, so-direct way he had of seeing into her soul that mattered to her.
A clip-clip-snip noise penetrated her bemused brain and Daffy dragged her attention away from Hunter. Her next-door neighbor, wealthy enough to hire a staff of gardeners, was out early, clipping her bushes and checking the quiet street for any tidbits worthy of repeating to her circle of afternoon-tea lady friends.
Daffy lifted a hand in a friendly salute. Her peignoir gapped and her neighbor pursed her lips, resuming her clipping with even greater vehemence.
Biting back a gurgle of laughter, Daffy said, “Maybe you should come inside.”
“Good idea.” After bestowing a friendly smile on the neighbor, Hunter followed Daffy in. As he stepped into her house, he said, “One look at you in that robe—if you can call it that—and the entire neighborhood will be banging down your door.”
Daffy blushed, but made no move to close the drifting fabric together. “Coffee!” She held out a hand, but Hunter shook his head.
“First things first,” he said, turning to set the cups and the paper bag on a side table.
Then he opened his arms and advanced on her even as she flung herself against him, all self-constraint vanished.
“This was the longest week,” he murmured, smoothing her hair and kissing her all over her face and neck.
“Oh, for me, too.” Daffy clung to him, her pride evaporated, her misgivings forgotten. Last night she’d told herself she’d keep him at arm’s distance. Be friendly, but clearly not swept away by him. She’d planned to show him it took more than one fab date and the most incredible love-making she’d ever known to woo and win Daffodil Landry.
“Where’s your bedroom?” Hunter nibbled at her mouth and worked at the sash of her peignoir as he asked the question.
His eyes had that dark and smoky look she’d seen so often last weekend. Her body was responding already. She was damp with wanting him to fill her, possess her, and travel with her to the paradise of passionate release.
With a grin, she pulled her sash free, roped it around his waist, and, beckoning with one finger, said, “Come with me.”
“Just try escaping me,” Hunter said, wondering why he’d bothered asking directions to the bedroom. One flick of a finger and that see-through scrap of cloth would dissolve onto the floor, and they’d never make it there. “God, I missed you,” he said, though he was pretty sure he was repeating himself.
Daffy smiled, slipped the sash off him, and stretched out her arms to him. Hunter took one delicate hand into his and marveled that a week away from a woman he’d really only just met could make such a difference in his whole outlook on life.
They were passing down a broad hallway. Any other time Hunter might have been interested in his surroundings; he was naturally curious as to the kind of life Daffy lived. But today nothing mattered but this overpowering sense that his world would not be all right until the two of them lay exhausted in a sweaty tangle of limbs.
Funny, he’d stopped for the coffee thinking to use it as a bridge, a means of reconnecting by bringing a gift that also served as a topic of conversation. But to his delight, she’d welcomed him with open arms. Could life get much better?
Daffy led him into a large room dominated by a massive four-poster. Standing beside the bed, she let that sexy concoction of a robe slip to the ground.
Oh, yeah, Hunter thought, life had just gotten even better.
She reached for his belt, but he got there first, stripping himself of his clothing and kicking free his shoes, all the while staring at her body like a man starved.
Still standing, he pulled her to him. She arched against him and he caught one breast in his mouth, reveling in the feel and the taste. “Don’t ever go away for so long,” he said.
She laughed, a breathy sound that was as much a sensual moan as a sound of humor. “You went away, not me.”
“Yeah, right. But don’t.” He lifted his mouth from her breast and said, “It’s possible I’m addicted to you.”
She stroked the line of his jaw with a very naughty gleam in her eyes. “Then maybe you ought to score a quick fix.” As if to accentuate her comment, her hips performed a wild dance of desire and she pulled him onto the bed amidst the rumpled silky-soft sheets and lacy pillows.
“I’ve gone to heaven,” Hunter said, and slid into her slick warmth, joining her body with his, the two of them so perfectly in sync it seemed they must have been doing so for more than one lifetime.
He moved over her, cupping her hips up to better answer his hunger for her. And she drove him on, her body speeding his tempo, the breathy moans and sweet senseless things she was saying enveloping them in a heated world in which only the two of them existed.
He thought he called her name, but couldn’t say for sure. The blood roaring in his ears mingled with her own cry of ecstasy. Hunter clasped her even more tightly to him, and with a shout, lost himself in her.
He didn’t move at all for the longest moments; then slowly, through the afterglow of his release, he realized he was probably crushing her. Lifting his weight off her, he drank in the sight of Daffy, glowing, satisfied, smiling.
“Wow,” she murmured.
“Wow,” he echoed with a grin, shifting to the side of her and stroking her belly lightly. “If I’d known coffee was an aphrodisiac . . .”
“Silly,
you
’re the aphrodisiac.” She rolled onto her side and they lay face-to-face.
“Why, thank you, ma’am,” he said. “I’ve been called a lot of names in my day, but that’s a first.”
“Then you hang around with a lot of nonobservant people.” She kissed him on the shoulder, then lay back with a sigh.
“Ready for another great weekend?” Funny, but he’d asked her to go with him to Ponchatoula as a test to see how the Uptown girl would react to the true world of Hunter James. He’d impressed her with Las Vegas, but he’d thought to shock her with his past poverty, probably to see whether or not she’d run screaming from his side. Now he couldn’t imagine why he’d thought such a measure necessary. He couldn’t imagine spending the weekend—or any day—without her.
“Ready when you are.” Daffy pushed up until she sat back against the mound of pillows.
He couldn’t say he was ready to move. Spending the day right there in Daffy’s bedroom appealed mightily to him. If he hadn’t told his mother he was coming for a visit and bringing a friend, he’d heat things up all over again. But this time he’d do it nice and slow . . .
Daffy was staring at her legs and had one hand pressed to her inner thigh.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter sat up. “Did I hurt you?” He’d thrash himself if he had.
A funny, almost curious expression flitted across her face as she lifted her hand. “I’m okay,” she said rather ruefully, “but we were in such a rush we skipped a detail or two.”
Hunter looked from her hand, where a streak of moisture glistened, to her thigh and slapped himself on the forehead. “No condom.”
She nodded.
“Never in my life,” he said, watching her to see if she was upset with him for not taking the responsibility he’d preached so pointedly only last week. He’d known that if any woman could cause him to forget his rules, it would be Daffy. She had the power to mesmerize him he’d never found in any other woman. “We-ell,” he said slowly, dragging the word out a syllable or two, “we-ell. I apologize. It is my fault.”
Daffy just sat there, her hand back between her thighs, an odd look on her face.
“Are you upset?”
She shook her head. Ducking her chin, she said, “It feels . . . kind of good, actually. I mean, this is the first time in my life I’ve ever had sex without a condom.”
Hunter sensed her embarrassment at the intimacy of the discussion. He pushed back against the pillows and put an arm around her. Only then did she glance up and meet his eyes. Instead of upset, though, she looked happy. He tightened his hold around her and said, “It’s my first time, too. And man, did it feel great!”
She blushed and nodded.
“Hey, marry me and we’ll do it like this always.”
Daffy stilled. He could feel her withdraw from his embrace.
“Very funny,” she said, slipping free from his arm and sliding off the side of the bed. “Why don’t you heat up the coffee and I’ll take a quick shower?”
So he wasn’t invited to the shower? Hunter got off the bed, kissed the top of her head, and said, “I was only joking.”
She nodded and gave him a smile that was a shadow of her usual happy one. “Yes, I know,” she said, and picked up her robe.
Hunter stood there as she flitted into the bathroom and pulled the door closed. Man, even speaking the verb “to marry” sent Daffy scuttling.
He’d have to find out why.
And he’d have to remember his condoms. From their most recent discussion, he was pretty sure they had nothing to worry about healthwise, but a rule was a rule.
Besides, a guy could get spoiled.
He pulled on his shorts and headed to the front of the house to collect the coffee. That was when the thought struck him. He looked around for the voice that must have spoken, ’cause surely it hadn’t come from inside his own head. But there it was again: “So why not marry Daffy?”
Marry?
Shaking his head the way he did to clear water from his ears after swimming, Hunter entered the kitchen and put the cups into the microwave. The pale yellow walls reminded him of the dress Daffy had worn to the TekWare convention—and shed in the limousine.
Never before had he paired a particular woman with the verb “to marry.”
He stirred the heated coffee and considered that a weekend in Ponchatoula would probably settle his senses back to normal and also do a good job of chasing Daffy away. Once she realized the gap in their backgrounds, no doubt she’d decline to date him again.
For someone who’d invited her with just that idea in mind, he felt absolutely zero satisfaction.
Safe behind the bathroom door, Daffy leaned against its solid surface and took a breath that reached deep down to her toes. Perhaps it had been unsociable of her not to invite Hunter to share her shower. Perhaps she had retreated like a bug coming face-to-face with a flashlight. Perhaps she had overreacted to his joking “marry me.”
She pushed away from the door and, facing the vanity mirror, forced herself to admit what had sent her fleeing.
Naturally, he’d been joking.
But for the most fleeting micromoment, she’d wished he’d spoken in earnest.
“Get a grip,” she said to her image in the mirror. “You’re not the marrying kind, remember?”
And neither was Hunter James, Mr. “Give me thirty days and I can make any woman fall for me.” His whole relationship style was that of Julius Caesar invading Gaul, or was it Britain?
Veni, vidi, vici
; I came, I saw, I conquered.
Or perhaps, Daffy thought, amused despite her bafflement at her own reaction, for Hunter James the English translation should more accurately be ordered as: I saw, I conquered, I came.
And then he’d be on his way.
With a sigh she turned on the taps and stepped into the shower. As much as she sensed Hunter was a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy, she certainly couldn’t fault his technique or his generosity. None of her lovers came close to his ability to give her as satisfying an experience as he had for himself.
Well, sad to say, Daffy thought, dumping shampoo onto her hair, but she and Hunter were two of a kind. Both in their own ways fickle, unsettled, and racing as fast as they could away from the demons of their past.
Thinking of running away led to the idea of avoiding the trip. Maybe she’d tell Hunter she’d changed her mind.
Considering this option, she began to carefully shave one leg.
A leg she’d wrapped around Hunter’s body during the most intense intercourse she’d ever experienced.
“Chicken.”
She shaved the other leg, then washed away the last traces of their intimacy.