Swept Away. Gwynne Forster

all he offered. She gave no thought to his pagan groan as his hand squeezed, pinched and caressed her breast; she only wanted, needed his loving. He wrapped her tightly to him, taking her will and her energy, and she slumped in his arms.

      They held each other, silently, unable to move and unwilling to articulate what they truly felt.

      At last she got breath enough and sense enough to speak. “Schyler, this is…we can’t…I mean…Schyler, I don’t know, I—”

      “Shhh. I know I took it too far, but I needed the feel of you in my arms. Badly.” He blew out a mass of air. “I didn’t dream it could be like this.”

      He took her hand and started walking toward the car. “I hate to drop something that stirs me the way you do, but you’re going to force me to let it go.” He flexed his shoulders in a quick shrug. “And that may be for the best. But hell, it sticks in my craw like cracked glass.”

      She didn’t attempt to coat the truth. “You’re right. We have to let it go, because it spells nothing for us but misery.”

      He wanted more. “Will you admit, as I do, that under better circumstances, we…we…might have made memorable music together?”

      She noticed that when he said it, he grinned as though savoring a delightful thought. And she knew she should be as honest as he, but no other man had exposed her naked need as he’d done, and she felt too vulnerable and finessed her reply.

      “You’re attractive in many ways, Schyler. I respond to that.”

      He laughed aloud. “I don’t suppose I had a right to expect more. We’d better get back. Dad’s got that chocolate soufflé ready by now.”

      She gulped. “Chocolate soufflé? He can make that?”

      “Yeah,” he said in a voice tinged with pride. “And does every time he cooks dinner.”

      Her eyes widened. “Why?”

      His laughter wrapped around her like a blanket of contentment. “Veronica, I love chocolate. I would eat chocolate soup, chocolate bread, chocolate anything for as long as anybody would give it to me or I could get it for myself. Dad humors me. I expect he’s tired of it. Every dessert cooked in that house has chocolate in it, and a lot of it.”

      She couldn’t believe it. “He spoiled you.”

      They reached the car, and he opened the door for her. “Yes, he spoiled me. When he met me, I was almost ten years old and couldn’t remember ever having heard the word love directed at me. He knew that.”

      There it was again, and it would always be there, looming like a gallows between them. Her joviality was gone.

      “Dad’s going to enjoy impressing you with his soufflé.”

      His words penetrated her conscious thought only vaguely. Growing up, she hadn’t known chocolate soufflé existed and didn’t get a taste of chocolate unless one of her schoolmates shared a piece of candy with her. Her mother and stepfather hadn’t been able to afford the luxury of chocolate. But the man who’d given her the seed of life had lavished it on a child he didn’t sire, catering to that child’s need and whims. Bitterness simmered within her, rising like bile on her tongue, eating away the rapport she had achieved with Schyler and her father. The hurt came back with the strength of a gale-force storm, beating back the passion that Schyler had dragged from the very bowels of her being.

      “I don’t think so,” she said, almost absentmindedly. “I’d better be going. Be seeing you.” She wanted to run, but controlled the urge and walked as rapidly as she could, leaving him standing there. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.