her of how vulnerable she would be to this man if he decided to take advantage of the situation they were in.
‘You’re cold,’ he observed when another shiver rippled through her. ‘Would you like my jacket around your shoulders?’
‘No, no,’ she hastily protested. ‘I’m fine. If I want anything extra I can always get something out of my suitcase.’
‘Ahh, yes...our seating... Still, it is getting cool in here, and we’d be warmer like this.’ He put an arm around her shoulder and drew her against him.
Horrified, she allowed it, for to pull away or cry out would have been more telling. But, oh...the feel of his body hard against hers was unbelievable! Tension gripped all her muscles, turning her into a mangled mess of misery and desire.
‘Relax,’ he murmured. She couldn’t relax. She just couldn’t. ‘What’s wrong, Salome?’ he whispered, pulling away as he would to stare down at her. Except that in the darkness she couldn’t see anything, her only physical sensation the feel of his warm breath close to her face.
‘Nothing...nothing...I—’
There was no stopping her gasp when his hands found and cupped her face. ‘You say nothing, but your voice is shaking and so is your body. If it’s not our hapless situation or the cold, then what is it? Surely you’re not afraid of me, are you?’ His words had a slow, steady delivery in the dark, like relentless drips of water.
‘No,’ she choked out.
‘Then why do you tremble so?’
This time she could find no words of protest, no denial for what he was about to conclude.
His ragged intake of breath still surprised her. ‘So!’ he exhaled, his fingers tightening their grip on her face. ‘You’re not as indifferent to me as you pretend. Or are you so frustrated tonight that you’d respond no matter who was touching you? Does the dark help? Can you block me out of your mind, pretend I’m one of those gigolo types you use whenever your frustration reaches unbearable proportions?’
‘Don’t,’ she groaned when his thumbtips started stroking her lips.
‘You don’t mean that,’ he rasped. ‘You want this, want it quite desperately, if I’m any judge. And, by God, I’m going to enjoy giving it to you!’
Thinking back, Salome realised that if she had given him a cold rebuff instead of her pathetic little ‘don’t’ he wouldn’t have gone ahead, and she wouldn’t have found out the disgusting truth about herself.
But she didn’t do that, and from the moment his mouth met hers she was lost, lost to sensations she had never experienced before, lost to needs that had only ever been lightly touched on, driven by a force so strong and intoxicating that she was powerless to resist it.
Not that Salome took an active role to begin with. She didn’t. She merely gave him access to her mouth, a robotic permission, as it were, to take her lips, to stroke them with his tongue, to press and probe at them till somehow they were open, as though shocked into it. And into that startled silent cavity he finally slid his tongue.
There was no harsh thrusting or demanding, just a persuasive, seductive exploration that set every nerve-ending tingling, that made her lips fall open even wider, till the corners of her mouth ached.
But it was an exciting ache that Salome would have endured willingly forever. She even moaned her disappointment when he finally withdrew, her fingernails digging into the leather of her handbag with a heightened tension that seemed to be gripping every extremity of her body. All she wanted was to have his mouth back on hers, to have his hands searching for and finding every hot, pulsating part of her body.
‘You don’t want me to stop, do you?’ he said hoarsely.
‘No,’ she admitted, her voice shaking. ‘No...’
His raw groan stunned her. Clearly, he wanted her almost as much as she wanted him. Maybe he had always wanted her. No, no, a dim memory refuted. That’s not so. He said that wasn’t so.
His next kiss obliterated any further thought, and this time his mouth contained nothing but uncontrollable passion, a taking rather than a tempting. Salome met him halfway, their tongues joining together in a violently sensuous mating that could only be eclipsed in one way. She had no doubt where they were heading, where these torturous kisses would end. No doubt. And much as a far distant corner of her conscience struggled to make her see the wrong and the danger, her body steadfastly refused to recognise any of it. It needed to do this, needed it with an intensity that was frightening because it was utterly and completely beyond her control.
They were slipping sideways on to the flat side of the case, Mike’s weight pressing down upon her, when suddenly he made a grunting sound and wrenched himself away. ‘What in hell’s this?’ he growled. The handbag was yanked roughly out of her hands and obviously flung aside with considerable force, for it thudded noisily against a wall.
Now his hands were back, pushing her right down across the case, her buttocks on one end, the back of her head falling off the other on to the floor. It was a crazily uncomfortable position for her, with one arm lying up the wall of the elevator, the other flung wide, yet Salome found it incredibly exciting. She liked the feel of his touch, possessive and masterful on her spread-eagled body, liked the way her impatient breasts were being thrust upwards into his impassioned hands.
She could hear his breathing, as heavy and ragged as her own, hear his dark mutterings as he began working on the buttons of her jacket and blouse, then the tie at her neck. Cool air suddenly caressed bare breasts, a rash of goose-bumps temporarily sobering her. For a split second the appalling truth of what she was allowing came home to Salome but, before she could react, Mike’s mouth moved across her breasts and closed over one single, straining nipple.
A moan was torn from deep in her throat, the fingers of both her hands curling over to dig into her palms. ‘Oh, God!’ she whimpered. She jammed her fists down beside her on the case, but this only served to give her a lever with which to arch her back further upwards, pushing her flesh deeper and deeper into his mouth. Her head swam with dizzying pleasure, the blood in her veins surging hotly through her body.
Finally, when she thought she had felt every nuance of delight her breasts could possibly produce, he took one rock-like point between his teeth and gave it a not-too-gentle tug.
Salome’s mouth fell open in a tortured gasp, the shaft of sensation slicing sharp and deep inside her. Her mind struggled to distinguish whether it was pain or pleasure.
Till he did it again.
Both! she realised with another gasp. Both...but she didn’t care. All she knew was that she wanted it to go on and on. Madness! Insanity!
So Salome was startled when all of a sudden an incredibly warm and loving wave of emotion joined those other more electric sensations, impelling her hands to lift and splay into his hair, curling the silky strands round and round her fingers as she held him to her breasts as fiercely and possessively as a mother held an adored infant. Strange words of love hovered on her lips, dying to be spoken. She moaned in her battle to keep them at bay. Somehow, even in her dazed state of rapture, she knew the danger of telling this man she loved him. It wasn’t true, anyway. Deeply embedded maternal instincts were confusing her. She didn’t love him. She couldn’t...
Perhaps he took her moans as a protest,
