Read Sunny Chandler's Return for Free Online Page A

unremarkable and forgettable. Once she bade a date good night, she rarely remembered what he had worn or what his cologne had smelled like.
    Ty Beaumont wouldn’t be so easily forgotten. His hard frame was imprinting itself on the front of her body, stamping an impression so deep that even when it was no longer there she knew she would feel it. The smell of his skin would tantalize her memory forever.
    That didn’t prove that she wanted him. It only proved that she was alive. Because only a female corpse could resist this inundation of masculinity.
    “Even if I hadn’t bet a case of whiskey on it, I’d still want to take you to bed, Sunny Chandler. You’re just as intoxicating.”
    “I won’t stand here and—”
    “Good idea.”
    Before she knew what was happening, she was sitting on the towel again. Ty was on his knees, straddling her thighs and supporting her head with his strong hands.
    When she saw his mouth descending toward hers, she turned her head away. “No!”
    He inclined his head back. “Maybe I was right. Maybe you can’t stand a man’s touch.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “Well then...”
    Sunny flopped down on the bed.
    The cold shower hadn’t helped. Lowering the air conditioner’s thermostat hadn’t helped. Turning on the rotating fan overhead hadn’t helped.
    She was hot.
    She had adjusted the shutters on the window to allow only narrow stripes of sunlight through. The bedroom, which had always been hers when her family used the cabin, should have been cool by now. Instead she felt as if it were stifling and she was on fire.
    Impatient with the heat, she sat up and whipped the nightgown over her head and tossed it on the rocking chair beside the bed. She had put the nightie on after her shower because it was the coolest garment she owned. The white lawn didn’t touch anywhere except the shoulder straps...except for today. This afternoon it seemed to cling to her like an affectionate ghost.
    And, just as tenaciously, her mind clung to the memory of that hateful kiss.
    She hadn’t responded.
    “I didn’t,” she hissed at the ceiling, as though to convince it of what she hadn’t been able to persuade herself.
    His mouth had been so unapologetically hungry, so consummately male, as it moved over hers. He had pressed his lips determinedly against hers until they had parted. Then—
    Sunny groaned. Her stomach went weightless and her womanhood blossomed with a pulsing warmth when she recalled his tongue sleekly thrusting its way between her lips and into her mouth. Undisciplined. Erotic. Such a thief. Because it had robbed her of the will to resist.
    At that moment she had stopped trying to squirm away from him. The bones in her neck had turned to jelly. Her head had fallen back even more, giving him freer access to her mouth. Again and again his tongue had penetrated, delving deeper each time.
    She had allowed it! Heaven forbid, she had even encouraged it, reaching for his tongue with her own when his withdrew.
    With her capitulation, his hold had gentled. The hands, which had been firmly cupping the back of her head, moved down to her neck. His fingers stroked her nape with the same loving tenderness that his lips pressed soft kisses onto hers.
    “My fingers are still oily,” he had whispered. “Think how good it would feel if I...”
    Sunny looked down at her body now and saw that her nipples were responding with the recollection just as they had at his breathtaking suggestions. When he had whispered in that devil’s voice of his about what he would like to do with his lips and tongue, her breasts had ached with longing for him to stop talking about it and start doing it.
    Sunny shuddered. Her skin was finally cooling off. She had goose bumps. But the fire inside her still raged out of control. It was a conflagration of humiliation as much as desire.
    “Damn him.”
    She had repeated the curse a thousand times. For at the moment when she was the most malleable, willing to