both hands and he groaned. She loved the power her touch had over him and she stroked him again and again while he worshiped her breasts, suckled her already-puckered nipples, molded her flesh in his hands.
But then he moved lower, out of her reach, burning his mouth across her belly, pushing her legs apart with his hands.
She balked, but he was having none of it. He dipped his tongue into her navel and drew a hot, moist line with it to the top of her woman’s hair, as though he was going to—
Oh.
She gasped when his tongue found her slit. His hands held her in place, urging her legs apart. Letting her thighs fall open while he tasted her most secret places was an act of submission she almost couldn’t bear—there was nowhere to hide. His tongue feasted on her pleasure spot and found her entrance, thrusting inside. He found another pleasure spot there—one she hadn’t known existed.
Her control fled. She strained her legs wide, submission forgotten, trying to push herself closer to that wicked tongue. Pleasure ripped through her in breathless convulsions. He made an inarticulate sound against her flesh as her body clenched hard, hard, hard in release.
He stood up, and she felt his erection against her.
Already she wanted the rest of him. “I don’t think I can stand,” she whispered.
“I have no intention of letting you try,” he rasped against her ear as he lifted her up. “Wrap your legs around me, Katherine.”
She did, and cried out into his kiss when he entered her in one thick stroke. He turned with her in his arms and carried her to the bed with their bodies joined, hiking one knee onto the mattress as he laid her down.
His eyes lit with unholy fire. “I don’t want to be outside you even long enough to shed my clothes,” he told her fiercely, already finding a rhythm, thrusting long and deep. She worked the buttons on his shirt, desperate to touch him the way she hadn’t been able to in her coach.
After a moment he cursed. “Damn these breeches,” he growled, and withdrew from her completely to strip them off and yank his shirt over his head. His full erection glistened with her own moisture. In a heartbeat he fell over her and pierced her again, stretching her, filling her, sliding deep.
It wasn’t enough. She returned his kiss madly, running her hands down his back, digging her fingers into his pumping buttocks, tilting and lifting her hips to meet his thrusts. He made an inarticulate sound against her mouth and rolled with her so she straddled him, with her hair spilling over them and his hands grasping her hips as he thrust up, up, up. Restless need coiled inside her, tightening, building. He lifted his head and caught her right nipple with his teeth, sucking hard, and her release exploded violently. Every intimate muscle convulsed around him as he kept thrusting, pushing, until finally she felt him let go, too.
Her body was still shuddering when he rolled them back and lay with his full weight on top of her and his length still buried in her. He pressed hot kisses to her jaw, her throat, her collarbone. She hooked her legs around his as if, somehow, it would pull him closer.
He lifted his head and looked hard into her eyes. “Did you really believe,” he breathed raggedly, “that I would sit idly by and allow you to marry another man?”
Her pulse leaped. With his body buried in hers, all her defenses were down. But something had caught her eye that was impossible to miss: a simple necklace of twine and beads circling his neck.
She ran her finger along the beads. “You still wear it.”
He searched her face, her eyes, and said nothing. Suddenly she wanted to cry. She traced the curve of his lips, and he caught her fingertip in his teeth. “And you have fresh bruises,” she said.
“Your guard dog is nothing if not tenacious. Apparently someone told him that I compromised you.” The corners of his eyes creased, and he arched a brow. “You surprise me, Katherine.”
“Phil waylaid me the moment I returned from the hearing.” And she was going to get an earful about her loose tongue.
“With your hair falling down and your lips red and swollen.”
“I didn’t stand a chance.”
“I would imagine not.” He kissed her again. Deeply. Thoroughly.
Her tongue trembled with things she wanted to tell him—things she didn’t know how to put words to. Even if she could find the words, she wasn’t sure she would speak them.
You fill me. Not just physically. He filled her heart. Her breath.
“William should not have hit you,” she said between kisses.
“I deserved it. I should never have let you out of my sight.” With his elbows braced on either side of her, he framed her face in his strong hands. “Understand me well—I do not intend to do so again. God, Katherine—” He breathed the words against her mouth, and she looked into his eyes. They were so beautiful, so green, and filled with the fierce possession of a man who had what he wanted.
What if...
She gripped his solid buttocks and urged him closer, as though it was possible for him to be even deeper inside her than he already was. As though she could have more of him. He groaned and held her even more tightly.
“James,” she whispered, wanting to hear his name on her lips. Her own name echoed back on his breath.
What if...
She threaded her legs through his and pressed her mouth to the cords of his neck while he held her as though she were the only woman in the world.
He’d made it clear he wanted her for himself, and now she felt herself falling, tumbling out of control.
What if she let herself surrender?
THEY SPENT THE night making love. Even after James fell asleep pressed against her back with his hand on her breast, Katherine lay awake with her body rippling and pulsing with sensation. The musky blend of James’s spice and the heady scent of their lovemaking filled every breath. His breathing came deep and even in the darkness, while invisible stones of truth piled up and crushed the air from her lungs.
In the early morning half light she slipped out of bed, found her discarded nightdress and went to the window. Offshore, two ships slowly rocked with the waves, anchored in the bluish-gray mist.
There were places in her heart that had surrendered without awaiting the command.
She closed her eyes and saw his face, drunk with desire and emotion as he sank himself into her. The memory of it shuddered through her. Only half of their lovemaking had been a quest for sexual pleasure; the other half had been a desperate attempt to crawl inside each other’s skin, as though—as though this fierce yearning inside her chest couldn’t be satisfied by something as simple as the stroke of his body.
She was falling in love.
The thought made her shiver. It couldn’t be love. Love would be too...binding. It would make her too vulnerable.
