he laid his lips gently against one, teasing it with his tongue, and she thought, when she could manage to think at all, to hell with maidenly modesty!
As his tongue nudged the nipple softly back and forth she thought she might go out of her mind. How could anything feel like this, and how had she spent so long not knowing? So much time wasted! It was a conspiracy.
She took a long, trembling breath and dug her fingers into him as his lips and tongue continued their tormenting work. With every rasp the world shivered into glittering fragments, blinded her, faded, began again.
He undressed her slowly, removing garments as though there was plenty of time. Only his quickened breathing and the way his fingers shook as he eased off her jeans hinted at how frantically he was controlling himself until the right moment. Then her panty hose slid away, and at last she was naked.
He removed his own clothes in a hurry and chucked them on the floor without taking his eyes from Pippa.
“Hello,” he said, smiling.
“Hello.” She sounded breathless.
She’d never shown her body off to a man before, but she knew she could be proud of its slim, youthful lines, tiny waist and long flanks. Her breasts were small, firm and cheekily uptilted. She longed to ask him if he thought she was beautiful, but perhaps he was already letting her know in the loving way he stroked her smooth skin and traced the outline of her curves, murmuring appreciatively as he did so and sometimes stopping to bestow a light kiss before moving on.
She was almost shocked by the fierceness of her own sensations, as if her body was possessed by another being, one that had never heard of restraint. For a wild moment all the old precepts of childhood—don’t grab—be patient—learn to wait—flashed through her head, and she knew they belonged to another world, not the world of thrilling, sensational delight Luke was offering her now. She was alive for the first time in her existence.
She reached for him, and it felt so good to be able to touch him all over at last. She’d tried so often to picture him without clothes, but nothing could match the reality of his lean, smooth body. She was at fever pitch. She wanted him so badly.
“Luke,” she whispered, “you do want me, don’t you?”
His answer came without words. Grinning, he drew back so that she could see the truth for herself, and there he was, proud and hard with the splendid, arrogant power of youth. And he was all hers.
“Luke,” she cried in an agony of impatience.
“Yes, darling.”
At last he parted her legs and settled between them. Then he was sliding easily into her, and it was beautiful, and she wanted him more and more. She wanted it never to stop. She wanted the whole world, and he was giving it to her. He thrust deeply and slowly, sending pleasure through every part of her body, starting with her loins and radiating out to her fingertips.
Then it happened. Something in the universe went click and everything fell into place. Instinct took over, guiding her perfectly. It was as though Luke had tossed her a dream and she’d caught it and run with it. Nobody had told her how, but her hips moved of their own accord, driving against him. The feeling of being able to heighten her own pleasure and his was thrilling, and when Luke responded by thrusting back more fiercely, she went into orbit.
As she felt the same happen to him, she threw back her head, almost caroling with joy. It was all true. Everything was true. There was magic in the world after all, and happiness and fulfillment and laughter and song. It was true. She was alive and glad and young, and it was all wonderfully, gloriously true.
He held her close as they came down from the heights. Pippa lay against him, blissfully happy, understanding now that all her rationalizing had been hot air. She could never have done this with Jack or Andy or Clive or any of the others. Because they weren’t Luke.
He kissed the top of her head, but she could sense that he was troubled about something. “What is it?” she demanded. “Am I no good?”
“You’re wonderful. It’s just that I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. And I guess I’m not very honest, because if I’d meant it I’d have stopped seeing you and put myself out of the way of temptation. I wanted you so much, and sooner or later I was bound to give in.”
“But why shouldn’t you?”
“Because of the way you are, because of the way I am. I won’t stick around, Pippa. I never do. When my permit expires, I’m back off to Los Angeles, on my own. It’s like you said—ships that pass in the night.”
She shrugged. “I knew that. So what?” It was easy to say when the glorious months stretched out ahead.
“Well—you’re special. You deserve a man who’ll be there—”
“You mean Mr. Solid and Reliable, who’ll march me to the altar and give me a semidetached house in the suburbs and a dozen kids? No, thank you! I left Encaster to escape him.”
“If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s Mr. Solid and Reliable.”
“If you were, we wouldn’t be lying here like this.”
How much of that brave talk had she meant, or thought she meant? And how much was just saying what she knew he wanted to hear? She never really knew. If he wanted her to be cool about it, then cool she would be. There were months to make him change his mind.
With her acute sensitivity to Luke’s moods, Pippa began to see life through his eyes. On a walk in the park one evening, she couldn’t help noticing the little family of two prematurely middle-aged parents and one demanding child.
“Daddy, listen to me—”
“In a minute, darling.”
“No, now Daddy, now!”
The woman sounded testy. “It wouldn’t hurt you to take some notice of your own daughter once in a while.”
“I might if she’d shut up occasionally.”
Luke grinned. “Poor sod!” he said. “Once he was a free man. Now he can’t remember what it felt like.”
Wearily the man looked down at the little tyrant. “All right, pet, what is it?”
“Come and look here. There’s a caterpillar, a great big one.”
Luke and Pippa strolled on, arms about each other, and the piercing voice seemed to follow them.
“Come and look now, Daddy. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!”
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