his possession, as the practised warmth of his fingers began their initial contact with her skin, slowly stroking the curve of her shoulder and arm, as if he was gentling a wild creature. Just the same quiet movement, repeated over and over again, until, in spite of herself, Darcy felt the tension beginning to drain out of her, and the shaking start to quieten.
How could he? she asked herself, almost desperately. How could he do that? Why was it possible?
At the same time his lips were conducting their own delicate exploration, touching her hair, then moving to her closed eyelids, before caressing her temple, her cheekbone and drifting down to her mouth.
His kiss was light, almost questing, but her lips stayed firmly closed against him, denying him the sweeter access he sought.
She had to prove somehow that she meant what she said, she thought wildly. That she did not want him.
Joel kissed her again, his mouth moving on hers in lingering, sensuous persuasion, trying to coax a response from her.
She was suddenly aware of a strange inner tremor, like the flutter of a butterfly wing as his lips continued patiently to caress hers. A sign of weakness that she could not allow. She could not, would not risk even the slightest softening towards him, and her fists clenched, digging her nails into the palms of her hands to bolster her resistance.
At last Joel raised his head, propping himself on one elbow and surveying her, brows lifted, mouth quizzical.
‘No?’ he asked softly.
‘No.’ She stared back at him, eyes icy with resentment, wishing that her voice sounded slightly less breathless. ‘I thought I’d made it clear. I’m giving you nothing.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘And you think that my taking will impose some kind of hardship?’ He shook his head, slowly. ‘It won’t, my sweet. Not on either of us, and that’s a promise.’
He tossed the sheet to the foot of the bed and lifted himself lithely into a kneeling position beside her, his hands capturing her fists and uncurling them in spite of her struggles to free them. He whistled faintly when he saw the small, angry crescents in the soft flesh, slanting a glance at her mutinous face. ‘Now, what caused that, I wonder?’ he murmured, a note of faint amusement in his voice.
He moved her hands away from her body, clamping them firmly to the mattress on either side of her.
‘Let go of me. Let go at once.’ Darcy twisted furiously but unavailingly against his grip.
‘Not a chance,’ he said. ‘But please don’t stop wriggling on that account,’ he added mockingly. ‘You look amazingly sexy. All my fantasies coming true at last.’
She was immediately still, staring up at him, angry tears glinting on her lashes. ‘This is not funny.’ She spat the words at him.
‘No,’ he said, his voice suddenly husky. ‘And I’m not joking.’
He bent, and put his lips very precisely against her throat, at the point where the pulse leapt crazily. Then he began, slowly and deliberately, to move downwards, allowing his mouth to explore, without apparent haste, the hollow at the base of her neck, and the slender ridge of her collarbone.
He traversed the line of each shoulder, then pressed tiny kisses on the soft inner flesh of her imprisoned arms, lingering on the delicate skin inside each elbow, before following a sensuous path down to her wrists.
Darcy closed her eyes, catching her bottom lip in her teeth, trying to ignore the strange, insidious warmth that was beginning to invade her entire body.
She felt as if she was being drawn slowly to the edge of some abyss, and that she must fight back before her mind and body went out of control, and she plunged into chaos.
He’d released her hands, so she could at least try to defend herself—attempt to push him away—but her arms seemed to have become lead weights.
He was touching her face again, stroking her cheek and feathering along the line of her jaw. Brushing the stubborn contours of her mouth with his fingertips, while his lips caressed her throat, lingered on the warm, vulnerable place beneath her ear.
She realised that her breathing was becoming ragged, and knew that he must be aware of it too.
But this, she recognised, was what had always scared her about Joel. Why she had tried so hard to distance herself from him. This desperate suspicion that he might awaken in her needs and desires she did not want to experience. That, in some strange way, she might even lose herself, and become part of him.
A suspicion that had crystallised into certainty that evening when he’d first kissed her, touched her, and during the long night which had followed, when her aching, shaken body had not allowed her to rest.
But she could not, must not, let him sap her will completely. Draw her, unresisting, into the sensuous web he was spinning round her.
Whatever he did, she had, somehow, to maintain her own integrity, to shield her against the time when this mockery of a marriage ended and he was no longer part of her life.
But even as this resolution took shape in her mind, Joel bent his head and, for the first time, she felt his mouth warm and enticing against the rounded softness of her breasts. And knew that she was right to be afraid. Because her senses were suddenly in meltdown, and the void was gaping in front of her.
She tried to say ‘no’ but her taut throat couldn’t manage the word. Only a brief faint moan.
His hands cupped her, stroking the small, scented mounds, then lifting them again to the homage of his mouth. He captured each nipple between his lips in turn, sucking gently at the dusky rose peaks, his tongue a small flame dancing against them, teasing them until they hardened into aching, intolerable sweetness.
He could not be doing this to her, she thought from some dazed corner of her mind. Could not be inflicting this beautiful, insane cruelty on her. She must not let it go on…
But this time, when his mouth returned to hers, she surrendered helplessly to its demand, knowing that further denial was no longer possible, not when she could taste the scent of her own skin on his lips.
Joel kissed her deeply and passionately, his mastery absolute, as he explored her mouth, his tongue caressing hers with languorous expertise.
When he finally lifted his head and looked down at her, she met his gaze, her own eyes clouded in bewilderment and uncertainty.
He said her name very quietly, then slid an arm beneath her, lifting her against him so that the tips of her aroused breasts grazed his hair-roughened chest in a new and exquisite torment that made the breath sob in her throat.
Then he kissed her again, his mouth hotly demanding, carrying her away on a rising tide of sensual delight that made her burn and shiver.
His other hand was beginning to make its own leisurely journey down her body, delicately mapping each graceful curve and plane, from her ribcage to the faint concavity of her belly, even tracing with a fingertip the whorls of her navel, and measuring the slight hollow inside her hip bone.
Every touch, every slightest movement stirred her senses—made the blood in her veins quicken helplessly.
But
