‘This is crazy!’ The groaned words were wrenched from him. He might have acknowledged insanity, but that didn’t stop his lips from continuing to strain hungrily against hers. His hands slipped to her hips barely covered by the plain cotton nightshirt she wore. The contact made her body jerk.
‘That’s lovely, don’t stop,’ she begged throatily. Lovely, exciting, sizzlingly erotic, it was all that and more! Jo had never felt so primitively aroused in her life. As her feet left the floor she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist. She arched her back and provocatively pressed her slim, lithe body as close to him as possible.
‘Your skin’s so soft, so smooth.’ His tongue strayed over the graceful curve of her collar-bone for a moment and she whimpered with delirious pleasure.
Blindly, panting hard, Liam reached behind her for the door. More luck than judgement brought their erratic progress, interrupted as it was by gasps and moans as each new sensation was explored and enjoyed, to her narrow bed. He fell with her onto the bed, impressing her body into the soft mattress.
Her trailing arm sent the bedside light crashing onto the floor. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said as he lifted his head. She didn’t want to illuminate the scene, she didn’t want anything to intrude on the unreal quality of this incredible episode. Dark was safer.
If she paused long enough to think that it was Liam who was pulling her nightshirt over her head, and Liam whose tongue was tasting every inch of her aching breasts, it would spoil everything. She’d be left with the paradox of why she wanted—no, why she needed him to.
His need was as great as hers, even through the layers of his clothes she could feel that. He was in the grip of a desire just as blind as the one which drove her to rip at his shirt and curse softly with frustration as her fingers fumbled over the buckle of his belt.
When he took control of that problem she encouraged or very possibly distracted him with soft kisses pressed on the strong curve of his back. He lay back down and she eagerly insinuated herself closer to him, only to be momentarily thrown off her stride when he sat up again, laughing.
‘What?’ If he changed his mind now the consequences might well be fatal!
‘I’ve still got my boots on.’ Faint laughter still rumbled in the vault of his chest.
Laughter was rapidly replaced by frantic murmurs when he returned to her. Imprisoned by his heavy, hair-roughened thighs, her nostrils filled with the warm, masculine, aroused scent of his body, she lost what little control she had and every inhibition that had ever restrained her.
She wanted to taste him, touch him, and she did so with joyous abandon. The strength of his body and its eye-opening muscularity delighted her. He guided her forays with a firm hand, and in his turn touched her until her harsh gasps echoed in the dark room.
Over the years, she knew, he’d had enough practice at such things, but there was nothing slick or polished about him now. His responses were raw, his elegant, strong hands shook and his body trembled as though he were struggling against an invisible barrier. The next day her body bore the marks of his urgent caresses.
Waking at some point in the night, Jo’s mind instantly went into replay mode. The culmination of their wild, unrestrained coupling had resulted in an equally violent release. Sleepily, she tried to make sense of it. She didn’t have a strong sex drive, did she? I actually shouted! She sat up with a jolt. No. ‘I screamed!’ In the darkness the blush spread over her body.
Her action in the confined space sent the quilt slithering onto the floor. Run or retrieve the quilt? Not a complex decision, but one that taxed her flustered mind at that moment. If she hadn’t sat there dithering Liam wouldn’t have woken up!
He rolled over onto his side and threw his leg over her hip. The weight of his thigh immobilised her. ‘What did you say?’ The purr of his deep, sleepy murmur made her tense.
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘Yes, you did.’ He paused, obviously trawling through his sleepy recollections before coming up with the goods. ‘You said, “‘I screamed.”’
‘Nonsense.’ She tried to pull the rumpled sheet up from the bottom of the bed.
‘You did, you know. You said—’
She didn’t need reminding of what she’d said, it was branded on her memory. ‘Don’t!’ she shrieked, putting both her hands firmly over what she hoped was his mouth. It was—despite the pressure of her fingers his lips parted and his tongue flickered over the centre of her palm.
She might have denied the words but she couldn’t deny the arousing quality of the damp touch. It was ridiculous but all the strength left her body in a silent whoosh. She fell forward and put her hands out to cushion her fall. It was all part of the weird conspiracy that Liam found her hands had been replaced by the soft contours of her breasts. It wasn’t an exchange he appeared to have any problems with.
‘A gift from the gods,’ he murmured as his mouth closed around one swollen rosy peak. His actions no longer had the raw urgency of earlier, but as she lay, her body spread-eagled over his, she couldn’t doubt the strength of his arousal.
She moaned and tried to raise herself up on her elbows. ‘We can’t do this.’
Liam’s hands came up to cover the curve of her buttocks, his thumbs hooked around the angle of her hipbones. ‘Actually, it wouldn’t be that difficult and there’s a strong possibility it would be pleasurable.’ Her breath caught sharply as his tongue unexpectedly traced the still damp area of her nipple. ‘You are so sensitive it’s incredible, especially there.’
‘Everywhere.’ With you, anyway, she realised in bewilderment.
The whispered admission brought a deep purr of male satisfaction from his throat. ‘Then I’ll have to be very attentive. You’ll have to tell me if there’s anywhere I miss.’
‘You can’t say things like that to me.’
‘Why, don’t you like to hear them?’ The taunting quality in his deep, caressing tones made her throat ache. Her body was taut and trembling with anticipation so she couldn’t immediately allow herself to accept. Excitement was building inside her until she couldn’t breathe.
‘You’re sorry for me.’
‘Lust isn’t pity.’
‘Is this lust?’ He tugged her down until her face was level with his, her breasts were crushed against his chest and her knees were either side of his thighs.
‘Does it need to have a name,’ he groaned, ‘when it feels so good? You smell of me. You taste of me.’ His open mouth moved over her neck. He obviously found the discovery exciting—his body surged suggestively against her.
‘I want to. . . ’
‘What, sweetheart? What do you want to do to me?’ His breath was warm and fragrant on her cheek. His hands moved slowly, sensuously over her back, down the curve of her thigh. He flexed her knee and ran his thumb over the sensitive skin of her instep. ‘If I tell you what I like, will it help?’
Every wicked, honeyed syllable was fraying the edges of her doubts and inhibitions until they snapped. ‘I want. . . want to do everything to you,’ she half sobbed. ‘And I want you to do everything to me.’
That was the end of her resistance and the beginning—the beginning of an experience that was infinitely more intimate than their earlier frantic encounter. A slow, sensuous voyage of discovery where the power of the word was as great as the power of taste and touch.
And such words—she couldn’t think now about the things she’d said without her skin burning. She hadn’t even suspected that the male