He pursed his lips and gave her lithe body in the peach silk dress a long and ardent scrutiny. “I think we both know what I’d like to do,” he mused. “But I’ll humor you.”
“It would be nice to look for shells,” she said. “And besides, it’s not dark yet.”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s not dark. I mean, it’s broad daylight.” She hesitated, because he wasn’t getting it at all. She flushed a little. “I couldn’t possibly take off my clothes in the light and do...that...in bed with you looking at me!”
Chapter Eleven
He stared at her with utter astonishment. “My God!”
He looked as if she’d thrown a pie in his face. She put her hands on her hips. “My God, what?” she demanded. He sure was acting funny.
He took the tourist booklet out of her hands and put it on the round table inside the sliding door. He pulled her to him, very gently, and bent to her mouth.
It was the first time he’d kissed her with intent, as a lover instead of a fiancé. Despite their intimacy her first night back at the Killain house, she hadn’t dreamed there were such deep levels of intimacy in a simple kiss, until she felt her knees buckle and her body begin to burn with sensations she’d never felt.
She held on to his arms as his big, warm hands began a slow, teasing exploration of her figure that rose to just under her breasts, and around them, without touching them at all. After a few seconds, her body began to follow them, to entice them and finally to plead for the teasing touch that he denied her. When it came, when she felt his hands close around them, she moaned harshly and caught his wrists to hold his hands there.
It was like that night he’d touched her so intimately and taught her the sensations her untried body could feel with him. He’d taken her to heights that she’d dreamed about and moaned hungrily over in the time before the wedding. He hadn’t come very close to her in the meantime, apparently dead serious about abstaining until the rings were in place. He had continued to share her bed, but with the hall door cracked open and a resistance to all her flirting that made her reel. He was affectionate, gentle, even tender—but there was nothing indiscreet or urgent. Until now.
She never felt him ease her down on the bed. Each caress was followed by one that was more enticing, more teasing, more provocative. Her world narrowed to the needs of her body. She’d gone hungry for him in recent days. She ached to have him against her. She wanted his hands on her bare skin. She wanted his eyes on her. She wanted utter, absolute possession. She arched her back and ground her mouth into his, her hands trembling as they locked behind his head and guided those expert lips to her breasts. They were bare, although she didn’t realize it until his mouth fastened hard onto a taut nipple and began to suckle it. She made a sound that she didn’t recognize and twisted up to prolong the sweet agony of the contact. It had been so long. Too long. Ages too long!
In the tense, lazy minutes that followed, she was all too eager to shed her clothing, because her body was hungry for his mouth and his hands. They felt warm in the faint chill of the air conditioner, but she was blind to the light that flowed in through the venetian blinds as he ripped the cover off the bed and pushed the pillows after it. His body moved lazily against hers between urgent unfastening and unbuttoning. He managed to get the fabric out of the way and follow it with two pairs of shoes in a blind, throbbing heat that had both of them out of their minds with desire.
“I thought I’d go mad before the ceremony,” he said against her breasts. “I ached like a boy before his first time. All I could think about was that night we lay naked together in your bed, and you let me satisfy you!”
“I thought about it, too,” she groaned, clinging to him. “I want it again. I want you!”
“I want you, too,” he said huskily, suckling her a little roughly in his ardor. “More than you realize!”
He lifted away from her for a minute, his expression barely controlled, tense. He looked at her nudity with raging desire while he gauged her readiness for what was to come. He traced a torturous path down her taut body and touched her blatantly, his eye narrow and glittery.
“Yes, you’re ready,” he breathed.
She wondered how he knew, but before she could ask, he was moving her closer to him with an expertise she couldn’t begin to match.
He rolled onto his side, pulling her between his long, powerful legs. His hands settled on her slender hips, moving her against the hard thrust of him in an arousing rhythm as he played hungrily with her soft, parted lips.
One of his long legs eased between both of hers in a teasing motion that was even more arousing than the play of his warm hands on her bare skin. She shivered and tried to get closer.
“Don’t rush it,” he said tenderly. “I have to be slow, so that I don’t hurt you too much. Let me show you what I want you to do.”
He guided her with his hips until she was right up against him in an intimacy they’d never shared unclothed. Her eyes widened as she felt him in the most intimate place of all. She jerked a little at the unfamiliar closeness.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he coaxed, both hands on her hips, drawing her over him tenderly so that he moved slowly against the faint barrier she could feel.
Her hands bit into his hard arms. She stared at him, fascinated at the play of expressions on his taut
