Total Package (17 page)

“Sure. Nightly poker and checker games, fantastic dinners, a hot tub, sailing—it’s a regular playground around here. At this rate, they’ll never get back to their careers. That was underhanded, Stepanov.”

“That’s their choice. So how is your work going?”

She angled a shot, bounced the ball off the cushioned rim to nudge another ball into the pocket. “Haven’t been. Seems I’m out of focus. That hasn’t happened to me before.”

Danya sat to watch and placed his boots up on the table nearby. He considered her bottom as she took a shot. “Wearing anything under that?”

Sidney stopped to look at him. “Not a thing.”

Danya decided to go straight for the problem between them. “If you think that getup is going to make me forget that you walked off and left me, didn’t call, or send me flowers, you’re dead wrong. You came at me too fast last time, and I wasn’t prepared for that, but now I am.”

“I wasn’t exactly expecting that first time, either. I was feeling—unusual. And you bought a house, and everyone knew that you had someone in mind to live in it with you.”

“You came here, in that getup to have it out, didn’t you? I explained that to you before: it was a good price and a good
time. I’m a house sort of guy, whether anyone lives in it with me, or not. Maybe I did have big ideas about you. Maybe they’re gone now.”

“You’re bristling, Stepanov. You’re usually Mr. Cool and Easy.”

“You’ve changed things, brought out the worst in me.” Danya thought of how Sidney had been, coming at him full speed on the dance floor; he shouldn’t have taken her that night, but he did and now the relationship-road was bumpy and filled with potential hazards. In fact, Sidney was a real hazard—unpredictable and very fast, once she’d made up her mind.

He stood and moved around the tavern, closing it for the night, leaving only the light above the pool table.

She watched him chose a cue stick from the rack and chalk it. “It seems like a hundred years ago.”

“Maybe to you. You’ve been on the move. Running scared, I’d say.”

In the shadows, Sidney’s face caught the red light blinking from the window’s neon sign. “My family has changed. We’ve never been together in a house before. It’s usually a hotel, or a suite or camping.”

“Maybe you’re the one who’s changed. Eight ball?” Danya racked the balls, the eight ball in the center of the triangle. “Take the break,” he said, indicating the cue ball which would be shot into the triangle of solid and striped balls. “Solids or stripes?”

Sidney turned to him and placed her cue stick aside. “You,” she said simply. “I want you. A rematch where you get that romance you need.”

Because Danya was off balance, feeling delicate after being poleaxed by Sidney once again, he needed to think through his reaction to her “rematch.” Danya lined up the cue ball and shot forcefully into the triangle. The balls spread across the green baize surface of the table. He circled the table, angled for a shot and pocketed two balls. “Just like that. You want me. Drop into Amoteh, visit with your family, and then have
me. Now that is really interesting. I’ll tell you what I want—you to stick around long enough to go to my aunt and uncle’s wedding anniversary at the end of the week. They like you, the whole family does. Think of it as a—”

He looked directly at her before taking another shot and took a leap that could frighten her. “As a date. Just a family get-together, food, fun and folk dancing. It would mean a lot to my father to see you there.”

“But would it mean a lot to you?” Sidney asked hesitantly and moved to place her hands on his chest, looking up at him, her eyes filling with him.

Cautious of his reaction to her closeness, that unique woman-scent arousing him, Danya moved away from her to pocket more balls, shooting both solids and stripes because he was afraid he’d move too fast with her…and because he was frustrated, two emotions that he rarely had known before Sidney. He pocketed the eight ball last and then turned to her. “I’m not asking for a thing. Everything is your decision. But here’s how I see it: We moved too fast, sex was good, but the foundation was poor. For my part, I said once that I’d take what I could get, and I still mean that.”

Danya tossed his cue stick to the pool table on his way to Sidney, and tugged her into his arms.

She met his hunger with her own, her lips feasting on his, parted for him, slanted to fit, her arms locked around his neck. Danya cupped the back of her head with one hand, holding her tight against him with his other arm, his hand open and digging in possessively. It had been too long…and Sidney was everything, soft and fragrant and hungry, making those sweet little noises at the back of her throat. When his arms went around her waist, lifting her off the floor, Sidney held him tight.

Then she pushed him slightly away, and her hands framed his face. “This isn’t right,” she whispered unevenly.

Danya caressed her bottom, drawing her tight against his need. “It feels right.”

“When we first met, you said you needed romance. Foreplay, after play, all that stuff. And you like lovemaking, not
just hurried sex. You’re very thorough in everything you do. I’m not. I’m more of an—an observer, not moving into life, rather hurrying along the perimeter, taking what I can get.”

Her earnest expression caught him and he sensed that Sidney was on the brink of some new plan—and that made him uneasy. Was she getting ready to leave already? “So?”

“So, I’d like to try getting into the stream of things, explore opportunities, yada, yada. In spite of you nabbing my family and changing them, you deserve more than a hit and run affair—that’s what I’m geared for, or was. This time, I’d like a little more time to—smell those roses. I’m sure not on the rebound from Ben now, and I’d like a rematch, Stepanov. If my family can live with you, I guess I can, too—just to see what happens. Is it a deal?”

“You living with me? I can handle that,” he agreed slowly as he lowered her to the floor. Sidney seemed uneasy and he pressed—“And? What else?”

She lay close to him, her head resting on his chest, as if she’d come home from a very long journey. Danya closed his arms around her, nuzzled her hair, and got a little dizzy with pleasure. “Whatever is bothering you, sweetheart, we’ll work through it.”

“What if I—what if I can’t make it here? What if I don’t fit in?”

“Then I’ll love you.”

“No promises, Danya. All I can do is to try. But I—I guess I just might love you, too.”

His throat tightened with emotion, but he managed a rough, “Good enough.”

“I’d sure like to make love now, Danya,” she whispered unevenly.

“Oh, you would, would you?” he asked as he picked Sidney up in his arms and started up the stairs leading to the area above the tavern.

“Just to—you know to cement the deal, me living with you. You love this, don’t you? Playing macho man when I’m perfectly able to—”

In the barren spacious area above the bar, Danya placed her on her feet, letting her choose the moment to come to him. Sidney walked slowly around the room, passing the huge Stepanov bed sometimes used for guests. Then her silhouette crossed in front of the massive windows and her booted feet walked across the squares of moonlight painted on the bare wooden boards. She stopped and braced one boot on a chair, unlacing it and then doing the same with the other, dropping them to the floor in turn. Moving gracefully, she removed her clothing and slowly crossed the distance of the night’s shadows to Danya. “I missed you so much—”

Her hands slid to his shirt, unbuttoning it slowly, removing it to skim his shoulders, his chest. Then she tugged at his belt, and when she failed to release it, bent to look closely at the buckle. “What’s with this thing?”

Danya was having difficulty breathing and in one quick motion, freed the buckle. “You were saying?”

“Oh, my,” she whispered as she unzipped his jeans, sliding her hands over his hips and then finding him—

Danya looked up at the ceiling and promised himself that this time he would move slowly, surely—

But Sidney was already moving upon him.

So much for patience, Danya mocked himself as he carried her to the bed.

So much for patience and gentleness, he decided as Sidney caught him, her body welcoming his instantly.

So much for patience, Danya thought again, as he lost himself in her….

Sidney came instantly, furiously into her storm, tightening upon him. Danya fought desperately back from the brink of release, watched her go into herself, that wide helpless stare as her body contracted.

“We’re going to have to work on this, dear heart,” he managed rawly before he began caressing her breasts, nibbling the tender peaks and keeping himself reined in until she started moving restlessly above him.

“I just want you so much, all of you. It seems a shame to waste more time—”

“Does it?” he asked, turning her beneath him. “Have I told you how much I love the shape of your ears?” he asked as he bent to nuzzle and nibble.

“No, but yours are nice. Tan. Big. I suppose they’ll get hair in them as you age.” Her hands skimmed his shoulders. “I imagine you’ll get hair on your shoulders, too. Bulldog has to have the hair in his ears and nose trimmed, and he’s got a lot of hair on his shoulders. Men do that, you know. Women sag and men grow hair in the wrong places.”

Danya smiled against her throat and slid his hands beneath her bottom, rocking her gently against him. He nuzzled her breasts. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Um. You’re still busy with the project, aren’t you?”

“Like you said, I’m a thorough sort of guy.”

“I think that while we’re—on our deal thingie—that I’m going to touch you more. Ben never liked—”

Danya stopped moving and braced his weight on his elbows above her. “Big mistake, my darling,” he reminded her very quietly.

“Oops.”

“Yes, oops.”

“Don’t you dare start that bristling, noise out of joint, man-thing—you know I love you—I think—and we’re doing the handshake on a deal thing now, aren’t we? I’m sorry, Danya, that I hurt you. Really I am,” she whispered fiercely as she gripped his face and brought him down to her lips, pasting a flurry of kisses over his face. “I’m going to romance the hell out of you, seduce you slowly, thoroughly, and—”

Danya was floating happily, both from her promises, and from her body. “Tell me that part again—that you love me and I’ll consider it.”

Sidney grinned and lifted slightly to nip his shoulder. She lay back down and her grin widened as she wiggled beneath him. “Make me.”

A

Danya’s arm was tight around Sidney, his expression grim beneath the stubble covering his jaw. Sidney knew what her father was seeing: She was wearing Danya’s cotton shirt over her sports bra; she looked rumpled and soft and tucked close against the man she’d spent the night with, who’d had her three times, and who had just shown her that there was a very small, but intimate button within a woman’s body that when touched at just the right moment could—

Sidney met her father’s appraising look and blushed, but she held her head high. When they stopped at the bottom of the wooden steps leading up to the deck, she said, “We’re going for a rematch. Danya needs romance and I’m going to give it to him. He’s delicate that way, and don’t you dare hurt him, Bulldog. And you can call off Stretch and Junior.”

At her side, Danya frowned down at her. “I don’t need your
protection, dear heart,” he grumbled in that bristling-male cute-guy thing she loved so much.

“It’s my family. I’ll handle this.”

“Just maybe we could handle it together?” he asked between his teeth.

“So that’s how it is, huh?” her father asked gruffly. “You think you can handle this kind of life—because it wouldn’t be fair to him, if you couldn’t. You can’t just pick up and leave him high and dry. This guy is sensitive.”

Danya’s arm drew Sidney closer, protectively against him as they moved up the steps to the deck. “There’s a marriage offer on the table and I’ll take what I can get.”

“That’s what her mother said to me years ago. Sid is a lot like my wife was—once she’s made up her mind, she usually goes for it, and fast, too.” Over Sidney’s head, Bulldog’s eyes locked with Danya’s. “The problem is, my girls have a lot of me in them, too. And that makes life hard for the one waiting at home.”

Unsteady with her emotions and still feeling sated and soft and feminine, Sidney suddenly felt overwhelmed and terrified. “No one said anything about getting married, Bulldog…Danya. We’re just in a rematch here, working through things. I might not fit into—”

Danya sighed heavily and kissed the top of Sidney’s head. “She’s scared, Roy. We’re going to take some time getting used to what we’ve got.”

Bulldog nodded slowly. “Sounds like a plan.”

“I am not scared,” Sidney stated in her defense, a little angry that the men seemed to be settling her life between them. “And Danya always has a plan. He’s very thorough—and that takes a lot of time.”

Danya’s big hand caressed her waist and onto her hip, reminding her just how effective he could be in his slow and thorough mode. Sensitized by a night of lovemaking, Sidney’s body did that instant warming, alert and waiting hungrily tense quiver.

Then it was true, she decided:
Men did have power over women. She could have become Danya’s love slave.
She eyed him cautiously and moved away, only to be drawn back again, patiently, firmly.

“So how is this going to work, son?” Bulldog asked as he poured a cup of coffee from the thermal pot and handed it to Danya. “I just want to know that my little girl—”

“I’m thirty years old, Roy. I can handle myself,” Sidney stated firmly.

“See? She’s all defensive now, or she wouldn’t have called me ‘Roy,’” Bulldog said. “A fighter, just like her mother. The problem is, I didn’t raise Sid to fit in a regular mold and I don’t want her crying all over the place like she has been doing. It’s goddamn unnerving when women cry. I can’t take much of that.”

Danya sipped his coffee, let out a pleasured, “Ah.” He sprawled in a wooden deck chair and lifted his feet to rest upon the railing. “I thought we’d all live here together. That way you’d feel more comfortable with our arrangement, Roy. Not that you have to, but if you wanted, you could call this your home. You like fishing with Uncle Fadey and my dad, and you seem to like it here. You may as well stay. It’s a nice place to retire.”

Sidney looked at her father who had never contemplated staying anywhere very long. She didn’t expect his answer: “Maybe grow things, help keep up the rose garden, that sort of thing?” Bulldog asked with interest.

“It’s a big house and a big bunch of land, Roy. I’d appreciate your help.”

Sidney stared at the two men who were making plans without her. She hadn’t even gotten into her new relationship/rematch with Danya and he and her father were agreeing on living together—“Wait a minute…
wait a minute
—what about me? Where do I fit in?”

Danya smiled at her in a way that she didn’t trust. “Anywhere you like, my darling. Just anywhere you like. Everything is up to you.”

“Well—” She could feel herself huffing, adrift in this whole new bright, overwhelming and terrifying morning. “I’m not the usual housewifey kind of woman, you know. What if things go wrong? What if you and I don’t work out? I mean I love you, but I can’t put Bulldog into a position where if things don’t work out, he’s uncomfortable staying here. He’s not that young and has to live someplace he’s comfortable in—roses, my gosh, Bulldog, when did you ever think about growing roses?”

Bulldog grumbled and looked fiercely defensive. “Lots of men grow flowers.”

“Not you.”

“Hell, I can if I want to.”

Danya reached to pat Sidney’s bottom. “Why don’t you go see about your sisters, sweetheart? I’d like to talk to your father alone.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “Let me get this straight—you’re sending me to my room?”

“It’s a man-thing,” Danya said easily. “Roy and I have some fine-tuning to do on our new living arrangement.”

Sidney understood immediately and fought the blush rising up her cheeks.
Living arrangement—as in who sleeps where.
Thirty years old or not, she just couldn’t tell her father that she needed to spend every night in Danya’s arms; she’d wasted enough time rummaging through life to find him and she wasn’t sleeping away from him. “Oh. Oh, well. I just will then…go inside.”

Stretch and Junior were already playing pool, dressed in familiar men’s cotton shirts that had an odd pink tinge. “What are you doing, wearing Danya’s shirts?” Sidney demanded.

“He said it was okay. Stretch tried to do the laundry—another one of those dumb bets we lost—and put some red stuff in with Danya’s shirts. They’re ours now. But he didn’t seem to mind his pink undershorts—seems to be a go-with-the-flow sort of guy. You look like you’ve been rolled over and had but good,” Junior noted with interest. “I’ve never seen you looking all soft and cuddly. Good gosh, the next thing you know
you’ll be chucking out babies. Those Stepanov men are proven baby makers, Sid. You’d better watch your step and you’d better get something to eat before you fall on your face. Bulldog has been cooking for a couple hours. He loves that snazzy new kitchen.”

“That’s good, because he’s going to live here. Everyone’s invited,” Sidney stated darkly as she walked into the kitchen. “Now, I’m never going to get any time alone with Danya. How am I ever going to give him the romance he needs under my family’s noses?” she muttered.

From the breakfast Bulldog had laid out, Sidney spooned blueberries onto a pancake; she drank orange juice and studied the recipes stuck to the refrigerator with magnets—Bulldog had written notes on the paper and had made a grocery list. A pasta maker sat next to a recipe book on Italian cooking. Her sisters came into the kitchen and Stretch leaned against the door frame while Junior dived into the food Sidney had just prepared. “How does this work?” Sidney asked her sisters. “Everyone living here? Together?”

“Great. Both Bulldog and Danya cook and do laundry—except for when we lost that poker bet. The Stepanovs are card sharks, too. Apparently all there is to do on their Montana ranch in the winter time is to play cards and pool…. Bulldog is great at laundry. Do you know he can fold diapers a mile a minute and stack them perfectly? And you should see him diaper babies. He’s a real whiz and said he used to enjoy all that stuff with us. Who would know?”

Sidney drank the remainder of her orange juice. “I’m moving in. I’m in a tight rematch situation and I’m going to sleep with Danya. How’s that going to work, me trying to romance him, with my whole family living here?”

Junior shrugged. “Beats me. I never tried to romance anyone.”

“Not a clue,” Stretch said.

Clearly Sidney’s sisters had never worried about long, slow, thorough lovemaking, which could end by hearing ones own high, keening sound of pleasure.

“Let’s take this stuff out onto the porch and watch the sun come up. We’ve got just enough time before we have to go,” Junior said around her mouthful of pancake.

“Go where?” Sidney asked hopefully. Perhaps her sisters had to get back to their careers, and then just maybe Bulldog would get restless and want to visit them, thus leaving Sidney to experiment in seducing Danya.

“Climbing that cliff up to Strawberry Hill. Boys against the girls. And if any packages come today, don’t open them. We ordered some girly clothes, some really slutty looking stuff…push-up bras, the whole works. That ought to knock them on their butts, because they think women should be sweet.” Stretch’s evil grin said that Sergei and Kiril weren’t going to like the “girly clothes.”

Alone in the kitchen, Sidney stabbed her pancake, cut it into pieces and jammed some into her mouth. She was chewing on her next move when Danya came into the kitchen and bent to kiss her. He had a pleased smile she didn’t trust. “You’re looking all chipper, Stepanov,” she noted cautiously.

“Got to get to work. New job. Nice profit.” He poured a glass of orange juice. “What are you going to do today?”

“The big question is what’s happening here, honey-bun-lover. We’re all going to live here—together, my family and you and me? How’s this going to work?”

“People do it all the time. They’re worried about you. This gives everyone a chance to adjust.”

“Mmm.”

“Problem?”

“Yes, a big one. How am I going to tell you I love you, and how are we—you know—going to, um, make love?”

“Up to you, I guess. Your call.” Finished with his orange juice and pancake, Danya reached for her and lifted her up, carrying her into the laundry room and closing the door as he sat her on the washer, which was agitating, matching the hum that had started low in her body. Danya’s big hands were busy caressing her breasts slowly, effectively, running those thumbs
across her nipples. “Take it easy today, okay, sweetheart? You look tired and maybe a little dazed.”

Sidney locked her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders. “You should know why.”

“Can’t you handle it?”

He grinned and Sidney’s heart flip-flopped wildly. “You? Anytime.”

“Keep that thought,” he whispered after he’d given her a long, devastating kiss. “See you tonight.”

When he had gone to shower and dress for work, Sidney sat on that washer until Bulldog came into the laundry room. He took the clothes from the dryer and folded them on a work table. “Old diapers make the best dust cloths, you know,” he said quietly.

“Uh-huh…What did you and Danya talk about outside, Bulldog?” Sidney asked.

“Stuff men talk about.”

Sidney noted the tears in her father’s eyes and the way he sniffed roughly. “Sure. What am I going to do here, Dad? I mean, I have to do something, don’t I?”

“Oh, something will come along.”

“You talked about Mom just now. It’s not like you to say much. Is something bothering you?”

“I miss her now and then…you, more than the other girls, are like her. I was thinking as I saw you and Danya this morning, how it happened the same way with your mother and me. Fast. I was so eager to get her that maybe I skipped a few of the important things that Danya wants for you.”

“It’s a whole big package here, Bulldog. In a family like the Stepanovs, women are supposed to—well, they do women-things. And I’m scared,” Sidney admitted slowly.

“And that’s my fault. You girls should have had a mother, a woman in your life, easing out the rough spots. If you don’t think you can manage with us here, then we’ll leave. But Sid, he’s a good man, trying hard to do right by you.”

Sidney hugged her father, who remained stiff in her arms for
just that moment before he returned the hug. She realized how different the Blakelys were from the Stepanovs who demonstrated affection easily. “What if I let him down, Dad? What if I’m not what he needs? What if someday, some good job comes along, maybe a real career maker, and I want to take it?”

Bulldog’s arms tightened around her. “I guess that’s between you and him.”

Sidney walked slowly into Danya’s bedroom and closed the door.

The spacious room held the scent of his shower and Sidney wandered to her little vanity, sitting upon it. She was alone in the room she would share with Danya tonight and every other night they were together.

The big bed reflected in the mirror behind her was neatly made, a large patchwork quilt covering it, a bed where she would spend her nights with Danya.

Outside, Bulldog was working in the yard and birds were chirping. Stretch and Junior were off climbing with Sergei and Kiril on Strawberry Hill’s cliff. Everything seemed so normal—and yet so foreign. Sidney studied her reflection, a woman who had spent the night loving a man, giving herself to him, a woman who looked terrified and in unfamiliar surroundings.

Could she make Danya happy?

Could she give him what he needed?

Could she share her life as well as her body with him?

Who was she?

Sidney hurried out to the living room where she’d stacked her travel bag and camera gear; she carried them back to the spacious bedroom, stepped inside, and closed the door. This would be her first-ever, very private room with Danya. She placed the bags on the bed and headed for the shower that carried his scent. The soap she used on her body was still wet from Danya’s and she rubbed it all over, remembering his slow, erotic caresses of the previous night. Drying slowly, Sidney walked into the bedroom, dressed in Danya’s T-shirt and
shorts, then sat at the little vanity. She ran her hands over the smooth walnut surface and thought about Danya lying in bed behind her, watching her brush her hair as he had said….