Lazlo’s Last Stand

realized how silly I’m being. As if we were the first two people ever to do this…”

“No, but it is the first time for us ever to do this. I think that warrants a certain degree of solemnity. Here-sit down and let’s have a go at those boots. I am a patient man, my dear, but I’m discovering limits I didn’t know I had.” In the process of easing himself carefully onto one knee, he glanced up to see her gazing at him with widened eyes. “Oh, good heavens, don’t look so alarmed. It’s not so bad that I’m in danger of ravishing you-not just yet, anyway.”

“Who said I was alarmed?” she said demurely, biting down on her lower lip in a way that made his mouth water.

Swiftly disposing of her ski boots, he hooked one hand around her neck, gathered a handful of her hair and brought her mouth to his. “I can see it’s been entirely too long since I kissed you,” he said, and did so, thoroughly, pulling her away from him only when his head began to swim and his heart to pound at a truly astonishing pace.

“Stand up,” he growled, and she did without hesitation. He wondered if she felt the same urgency he did. Silently, she gripped his shoulders while he unzipped her pants and shucked them off of her, and when he wrapped his arms around her hips and lay his cheek against her belly, she only whimpered softly and cradled him closer, trembling a little. He turned his face to her and kissed her tight, satiny skin, and felt it quiver against his tongue.

Wishing he had more time…more patience…more willpower, he rose slowly, kissed his way upward over her stomach, held her slender waist between his two hands and measured the urgency in her breathing, traced the sweet under-curve of each breast, and, in pausing to taste each tender tip, made her gasp sharply as if she’d felt pain. He straightened all the way, cradling her neck in one hand and trapping her leaping pulse in his mouth, with the other hand rapidly unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. He felt her hands touch his, then, and gratefully left the rest to her.

And there was nothing even remotely comedic in the graceful way she divested him of both pants and shoes.

Before rising, she did to him as he’d done to her-whether out of feminine mischief or innocent passion he would never know and never ask-wrapped her arms around his hips and lay her face against his belly. She briefly cradled the hot, hard length of him next to her body, then sweetly kissed him there, making him inhale sharply with something akin to pain. Then she rose swiftly, sliding her body the entire length of his until she joined her mouth with his in a hot, deep, drugging kiss.

He wondered-much later, when he could think again-if that was the precise moment when he, Corbett Lazlo, knew beyond any shadow of doubt that in Lucia Cordez he had more than met his match.

Chapter 10

They drew apart and turned at the same time, not abruptly, but like a well-tuned couple executing the steps of a dance. Corbett went first, wading into the thermal pool with sure-footed grace, while Lucia watched through a mist of love the way the lantern light played over the muscles in his back and buttocks and thighs. To her he seemed perfect, a classical statue in gleaming bronze come magically to life. She wanted to go to him, join him in that enchanted light, but suddenly it seemed too much, too overwhelming, too unbelievable. She felt the way she did in dreams sometimes, when her brain was telling her body to move and it just wouldn’t obey.

Then he held out his hand. Hers went of its own accord to join with it, and at his firm, warm touch the dream fled. She was back in her own mind again, or a more primal form of it, empty of everything except her feminine response to his masculine call and a new and intense kind of joy, earthy and primitive as the ancients who had first taken shelter in these caves. He led her deeper into the pool, and she felt the steamy warmth envelope her like a sultry summer night.

In hip-deep water he drew her closer and, taking her head between his two hands, tilted her face to his and kissed her, a deep, lazy kiss that seemed to reach into her very soul, and she stood motionless, head back and eyes closed, and lost herself in it. Then, without breaking the kiss, he moved his hands slowly downward, over her shoulders, breasts and waist, and she followed his lead, both of them slicking the steam and sweat moisture over each other’s skin like oil.

When their hands reached the place where buttocks swelled below the water’s surface, he broke the kiss and his eyes looked into hers, a gaze like blue smoke. Smiling, eyes half-closed, she swayed toward him, sliding the soft places between her thighs over and around him in a playful, testing way. Though she felt his breathing cease and his hands tighten on her buttocks, he didn’t rush or guide her, but held himself perfectly still and let her pleasure herself and him the way she wanted to. Until she could stand it no longer, and the pleasure became torment to her as it must have been to him.

“How deep is this pool?” she asked, slurring the words as if intoxicated.

“Not deep enough for this,” he murmured. “But I think…”

Leading her by the hand and sliding his feet carefully on the slippery rock bottom, he moved them both a few steps closer to the edge of the pool. He eased himself down until he was lying in the water half-reclined, the way he’d been when she’d come upon him the day before, and when she followed him, her body seemed to slither over his and melt into perfect fit as if that was where it was always meant to be.

For all the chattering they’d done before, neither of them spoke a word now, save for the inarticulate moans and murmurs, the joyous little chuckles and sighs that were, perhaps, a language unto themselves. A language they each understood perfectly. She didn’t have to tell him to go slowly, gently with her. He already knew, better than she did. He might have told her he’d never known a woman so sweetly in tune with him, but since she seemed to anticipate his every move, he thought it likely she knew his mind before he did.

Wherever his mouth and hands and fingers roamed, no matter how boldly, she welcomed his touch with passionate cries and sensual little wiggles of pleasure, responses that would have been reward enough, even if her hands and mouth hadn’t wandered just as freely, and with an adventurousness that delighted him. She had no inhibitions with him, and so it was easy for him to let go of his own-except for those necessary limits he was reminded of now and then with a sharp stab of pain in his ribs, and those he grew accustomed to and could easily dismiss. He’d never felt so carefree. This woman-Lucia-she filled his senses and his mind as no woman ever had, so that for these blessed moments he could forget the worries and responsibilities that waited for him just beyond the cave.

A few blessed moments…

All too soon, there came the moment when he knew he’d waited as long as he could. And again he found that with her no words were necessary.

She sensed the new tension in his body and in his hands, in the fingers that had pleasured her with such cleverness and delicacy and that now gripped her thighs and urged them apart with urgency and purpose. She felt his body demanding entry into hers, and something-a primitive feminine instinct similar to fear-kicked beneath her ribs. She gasped, and even as she braced her hands on the rocky edge of the pool and gave herself up to his guidance, sought reassurance in his eyes.

His eyes shimmered back at her, bright with love and passion, as he whispered, “It’s all right, edesem…” My sweet. And she knew it was.

He pushed against her barriers and her body relaxed its vigilance, let him in and invited him deeper with the small undulations and pulsations of welcome. Her legs straddled him, and the water gave them its buoyancy so that she was able to bring her legs completely around him, then rocked them gently while his hands held her still…held himself deeply seated in the place she’d made for him.

She looked into his eyes again, and the feelings inside her were so intense, tears sprang into hers. She closed them and wanted to explain, but no words would come and a sob rushed through her instead.

“I know,” she heard him whisper. “I know. Come to me, love, let me kiss you.”

She leaned down, her body quaking like a broken puppet’s, and felt his hands come to hold her head and bring her mouth home. His fingers combed through her damp hair as his breath and essence merged with hers, and his body began to move in a way that was both old and new, a way that rocked her most nerve-rich places against his,