Kathleen was strangely languorous. She couldn’t remember ever feeling quite this helpless. All her muscles seemed to have dissolved, yet they all strained toward Erik as he lay down beside her on the narrow bed and gathered her to him.
His lips claimed hers hungrily. There was no persuasion in his kiss this time, no subtlety. His lips and tongue were greedy for her, but they were robbed of a conquest as she met their eagerness with a reciprocal response that surprised even her, opening her mouth, welcoming the pillage, contributing to the seduction.
Gradually, the initial hunger abated, though it was by no means appeased. Pausing only to draw a breath, Erik’s lips were still resting lightly on hers as he murmured, “I’ve waited all day for that. Every second of last night, I spent tasting you, trying to get the way you smell and look and feel out of my mind so I wouldn’t go completely insane. And now, I can’t get enough… I can’t… I can’t…” Once again, his lips descended on hers.
Kathleen received them confidently. He moaned deep in his throat as she ran her tongue along his bottom lip and then under the brush of his silky mustache. “God, Kathleen, I want you.” That was all he could manage to say before he hooked his thumbs under the straps of her bodice and lowered them.
He nibbled her lightly, sampling each morsel of her throat and chest as if he were a gourmand at a feast. Kathleen’s hands cradled his head, luxuriating in the feel of his hair between her fingers. When his mouth reached the top curves of her breasts, it lingered, hovering over her, waiting.
He raised his head and looked into her eyes, searching them for signs of objection. His fingers manipulated the top button on the camisole until it came open. When she didn’t protest, only stared up at him with wide, trusting eyes, he released the second. The third. The fourth. All lay undone under his fingers, and still he continued to pierce her with the laser-light quality of his blue gaze.
Then, slowly, prolonging the anticipation, he lowered his eyes and parted the front of her bodice until he was looking at her breasts. “I wish I dared a light,” he said hoarsely. “I want to see you. Your color. I want to see what you look like when I do this.” As he spoke, he touched one bewitching crest with the tip of his finger and felt it pucker under the merest suggestion of stimulation. Then he rolled it gently between his fingers.
I should stop this. I should stop this. The words were repeated in her head like a catechism, but she was powerless to carry out the intention. Erik’s fingers were gentle and yet demanding as he explored her, learned her, stroked her, brought her to a pitch of arousal she had never known before.
And she was to find that it had only begun. He lowered his head and covered her with his mouth. She was enveloped in a sweet, hot, wet trap from which she didn’t want to escape. His tongue curled around her nipple even as his cheeks flexed to draw her deeper into the enchanting cavern of his mouth.
She felt his hand moving up her thigh in a sensual caress. When had she raised her knees? Why were her hips rotating in an erotic rhythm out of some pagan ballet? It didn’t matter. Nothing did as he continued to pleasure her with his mouth on her breasts.
His hand was alarmingly close to the center of her body where the heat was becoming unbearable. Every nerve ending in her being was pulsing toward that one point that ached to be relieved.
Did she murmur his name? Did she beg him to touch her with a healing hand? Did he sense a silent plea? She never knew, but was helpless to resist when his hand settled over her with an accuracy that startled and thrilled her. She gasped in mingled shock and delight when his fingers insinuated their way under the lacy, elastic leg of her panties. With infinite tenderness, he touched her, finding her bathed with the sweet moistness her body had provided at the coaxing of his fingers.
She was catapulted out of her lethargy when he left the bed and started unfastening his shirt, virtually ripping the buttons from the fabric.
For the first time since they had entered the cabin, Kathleen realized the dangerous game she was playing. My God! What am I doing?
Erik had his shirt off and was furiously working at his belt buckle, muttering impatient deprecations to the suddenly stubborn metal.
“Wh-What are you doing?” Kathleen asked shakily.
“Well, you may like it wearing clothes, and I’ll admit that it can be fun, but it’s too hot tonight. Besides, I prefer nakedness.”
“No!” she cried in a stage whisper, and bolted from the bed, clutching her bodice over her heaving, bared breasts. “No!” she repeated, shaking her head.
He stopped his frantic efforts and jerked his head up to stare at her in bafflement.
“What do you mean by ‘no’? Do you mean ‘No, we leave our clothes on,’ or ‘No, period’?”
She averted her head to keep from looking at him. “No, period,” she mumbled to the wall.
“Why? Damn you, why?”
Why? She was ashamed of the real reason, and even if she told him, he wouldn’t believe her. Who, in this day and age, remained a virgin to the ripe old age of twenty and five? No one. No one except Kathleen Pamela Haley.
“I… I don’t…” She had started the sentence timidly. But then she gained conviction and raised her head stubbornly, meeting his eyes defiantly. “I don’t want to.”
“Like hell you don’t,” he said savagely.
For a moment, she was too startled by his ferocity to speak. His arrogance was unequaled. Who did he think he was? She was? Had he never been turned down before? Well, she was no one to trifle with, and he might just as well learn that now. “I said I don’t want to, and I meant it,” she hissed loudly.
The chiseled lines on either side of his mouth hardened, and his eyes went cold. “Well,” he drawled in a voice that was deceptively calm, “I hate for you to have gone to all this trouble without knowing the fruit of your labor.”
His arm went around her waist with the speed of a striking snake, and his other hand clenched her wrist. He dragged her hand downward until she gleaned his intention and gurgled, “Nooo!”
“Oh, yes. I don’t know what your game is, but we’re playing by my rules now.” He flattened her hand against his manhood, which stretched the front of his trousers.
“Stop this, Erik. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t,” she warned in a hard voice.