“Maybe because I’ve insisted,” Derek suggested wryly.
She smothered a nervous giggle. “That might have something to do with it.” She risked an atypically shy glance at him and found her eyes held by his. She found it hard to read the expression she saw deep in the pewter-gray depths. Had discovering her weaknesses changed the way Derek perceived her? Was he disappointed that she wasn’t as strong and tough as she’d pretended? Did he… did he still want her?
Suddenly she had to know. She couldn’t come right out and ask, but she could find out another way. “Would you… would you hold me, Derek?” she asked hesitantly. “Just for a little while?”
9
WITHOUT EVEN a momentary hesitation Derek took Summer into his arms. Folded against his wide, hard chest, Summer released a breath that she hadn’t known she’d been holding and snuggled into his strength. She felt his heart beating steadily against her cheek through the soft knit fabric of his white pullover. In only moments she felt the heartbeat speed up, just as her own was doing. Her arms went around Derek’s lean waist.
His hands moved on her back, tentatively at first, then more demandingly. Finally one hand moved up the back of her head, fingers threading through the short, silky hair there as he tilted her head back. They both felt her tremor as she turned her face up to his in mute invitation. He kissed her with a force that was surprisingly gentle, considering the fire and passion it incited in her.
“Derek. Oh, Derek.” Summer pulled her arms from around his waist to throw th
em around his neck.
“Summer.” Derek’s voice was so hoarse that neither of them recognized it. “I want you so much it’s driving me mad.”
She believed him. Derek didn’t pity her. He was not repelled by her scars or her awkward limp. He wanted her. As he pulled her rather roughly against him, she was made physically aware of just how much he wanted her. And she wanted him. Her fingers slid into the crisp hair at the back of his neck, curling there to bring his mouth down to hers.
Her eyes locked with his, she brushed her mouth across his lips, then back again. She felt the sudden stillness that gripped him, tensing his muscles against her. He waited, seemingly without breathing, as she drew back fractionally and then kissed him again, bolder now. The tip of her tongue slipped out to taste him. Derek’s short, dark lashes swept downward to hide the glitter of his eyes from her for just a moment before his feverish gaze locked once again with hers. That moment was long enough for her to recognize his vulnerability. Amazingly enough, Derek seemed unsure what to do next.
It was his uncharacteristic hesitation that removed the last vestiges of her own doubt. “I want you, Derek,” she whispered, her lips like wisps of smoke against his.
“Summer?” His voice was raw.
“Yes, Derek. Please.”
He gave a little sound that was half groan and half exultant laugh. As if he were afraid she’d change her mind, he swept her into his arms and off the couch before she was quite aware of what was happening. She put her arms trustingly around his neck, enjoying the feeling of being carried in the arms of the man who was about to become her lover.
Her lover. The thought made her go so weak that, had she been trying to walk, she would have fallen. She had never wanted another man this much.
Depositing her carefully on the geometric-print bedspread that covered a massive king-size bed, Derek began to tug at her white fleece top even as she reached for the band of his own white knit shirt. Both felt the need to touch and explore, and it was not necessary for them to put their desire into words. They communicated with their eyes and their lips, with husky little moans and breathless laughs, and when small, soft breasts were pressed at last to broad, plated chest, their delirious sighs sounded in stereo in the shadowed room.
“God, you feel good,” Derek groaned, sliding sensuously against her.
“So do you,” she whispered in response, feeling her breasts tighten and harden in delicious response.
He kissed her throat, then lower, moving toward those pebbled tips that so craved his attention. “You’re protected?” he questioned suddenly, lifting his head for a moment to look at her in concern. “If not, I can—”
“It’s okay, Derek,” she assured him quickly, her fingers tangling in his hair. “I’m protected.” Her taste for adventure did not preclude taking certain precautions, a habit for which she was now very grateful.
Derek’s murmur signified his own relief that there was nothing to hold him back from finally satisfying his hunger for her. He lowered his head once more.
Summer rapidly discovered that Derek’s talent at kissing was only a hint of his skill as a lover. From the short, tousled strands of her amber-brown hair to the hollows of her ears and throat, from her flushed, swollen breasts to the delicate indentation of her navel, from the silky curves of her inner thighs to the ticklish arches of her feet, he explored and pleasured so thoroughly that Summer was a writhing, moaning creature of pure sensation by the time he lost his own tenuous control.
Moments before she couldn’t have imagined it was possible for the pleasure to intensify. Now, with her legs wrapped tightly around his lean hips, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her buttocks, Summer discovered that there were heights of passion that she had never dreamed existed. Arching into his driving thrusts, she responded wholeheartedly to his every movement, drawing moans of delight from him in answer to her own.
Her head tossing on the pillow, she arched again to draw him even deeper into her. “Oh, Derek,” she whispered brokenly.
“Summer. So good,” he moaned, the words hot against her throat.
She tried to tell him that it was good for her, too, but the words shattered into a cry of joyous release as tiny ripples swelled into pounding waves of fulfillment. Dimly aware of the shudders that rocked Derek’s body within the cradle of her arms and legs, she smiled in exhausted satisfaction, then collapsed beneath him with a long, audible sigh.
Lying heavily on top of her, Derek knew he’d have to move, but he wondered where he’d ever find the strength. It seemed to take everything he had left when he finally made himself roll to one side to relieve her slight body of his weight, though he didn’t take his arms from around her. “God,” he groaned after a few more moments of recovery. “I think I died.”
His words provoked a breathless little laugh from the woman in his arms. “You, too?” she asked in a gasp. “I feel like I’ve melted into a puddle all over your lovely bedspread.”
She squirmed around to face him, lifting herself on one elbow. Smiling down at him, she reached out to brush a strand of dark hair away from his forehead. Her lover, she thought again, and this time the words were fact.