His hands slid over her rib cage then spanned her waist. Her hips were narrow, her flat belly quivered when he rested his hands upon it and he grew rock hard in response. She moved against him then, her body arching against his as small sounds of pleasure seemed to fill his brain. Her thighs were long and lean beneath the prim skirt. He began to inch her skirt up over those glorious thighs, revealing their shape and line to his eyes. He laughed, low and delighted, when he reached the lacy band midway up.
“A garter belt, lassie?”
She buried her face against his shoulder in embarrassment but she didn’t move away from his touch. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. That touch was life itself.
Her cotton panties surprised him. A strange counterpoint to the eroticism of the garter belt, but he was beginning to understand she was a woman of contradictions. He wanted to learn every one. His fingers played with the soft material, registering the wet heat of her body burning through it, then he pushed the garment over her hips and began a slow exploration of her honeyed secrets.
Her knees buckled at the touch of his fingers against the delicate folds of flesh. Nothing was the way she remembered it, not this sleek, gliding arousal, the flood of warmth between her thighs, not the empty place inside her that ached to be filled by only this one man.
He was strong enough, hard enough, ready enough for both of them. Gripping her hips, he lifted her and urged her to wrap her legs around his waist. The feel of those lithely muscled thighs came close to unmanning him.
She trembled with need as he slowly lowered her onto his erection. It had been so long…it had been forever. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the sheer exhilaration of surrender. No thoughts. No worries. Only wave after wave of wild sensation meant to send her spinning above the clouds. She felt her body close itself around him and she urged him deeper, rode him harder, wanted to draw him toward the center of her being and into her heart.
And that was where he wanted, needed to be. This was about possession of the most primal sort, about claiming a mate, about finding that missing piece of yourself, the piece you’d spent your life searching for.
They came together in a violent, soul-shattering climax that left them panting and spent and still hungry for each other. He found shelter for them beneath a stand of small pines. He opened the emergency kit and spread one of the two insulating blankets out on the bed of fragrant needles, then lay her gently down with only the other thin silvery blanket to shield them from the wind and the rain. And then he made love to her again.
Slowly.
Thoroughly.
Discovering how she looked as well as how she felt.
Discovering how she tasted on his tongue.
Wondering how he would ever let her go now that he’d found her.
Sam felt as if she was suspended in a dream as he worked his magic. No man had ever done that for her before. She probably wouldn’t have allowed it if they’d tried. She couldn’t have imagined opening herself to anyone quite that way, in either body or soul. To be so vulnerable, so trusting, so openly, blatantly needy for what a man could give to her.
For the way this man could make her feel.
This had to be a dream. Nothing else could explain it. Wasn’t she the woman who didn’t need anything but her work? The woman who thought of nothing but the company that had been family and friend and lover to her for as long as she could remember.
Of course it was a dream. And since it was a dream, she could give herself up to the sweet, pure pleasure of it for as long as it lasted.
SAM WOKE UP to the sound of a car engine in the distance. She was curled in the pilot’s arms, both of them sheltered beneath the pine trees, both of them cozy beneath his insulating blanket. She felt warm, satisfied and not quite ready to be rescued.
But, like it or not, rescue was at hand.
She leaned over and pressed a kiss to the side of her Scotsman’s jaw. “Better wake up,” she whispered. “We have company.”
He mumbled something, then flung an arm across his eyes.
An odd feeling blossomed inside her chest as she looked at him. What was it about a sleeping man, anyway, that turned a woman to mush? She’d seen her ex-fiancé asleep many times—at the opera and the movies, for starters—and the sight had done nothing but annoy her. With this man, however, it was another story.
“So sleep a little longer,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’ll greet our visitors.” From the sound of the engine, they’d be here any minute, and the last thing she wanted was for them to know what she and the pilot had been doing.
Unfortunately, her bags with all her toiletries had gone up with the plane. She dragged her fingers through her hair in an attempt to restore a semblance of style, but to no avail. The pilot’s emergency kit rested a few feet away. She hesitated—it wasn’t her bag, after all—then decided he probably wouldn’t mind if she searched through it for a comb.
After all they’d shared, how could he possibly object to sharing a piece of plastic with her?
She unzipped one side of the bag then reached in. Flashlight. Flares. Another, smaller bag. She pulled it out, unsnapped the flap, then peeked inside. Success! She grabbed
