‘It was your suit,’ she heard herself saying huskily in a betrayingly strained voice. ‘That was why I didn’t want you to touch Horatio. He’s moulting, and you’d have been covered in hairs.’
He was listening to her, but he hadn’t shifted his concentration from her breasts, and beneath her explanation she could almost hear the panicky clamour of another voice that begged him not to look at her like that, not to expose her vulnerability.
‘My suit?’
He was standing so close to her that his breath warmed her skin. His eyes were focusing on hers now, and she felt as though she could drown in their molten gaze. Her body quickened tormentingly.
As she felt the familiar ache tighten her breasts, she glanced down at them, hot colour suffusing her skin as Neil followed her glance and then said thickly, ‘You’re beautifully sensitive here…’
Her mind went into shock as he reached out and cupped the soft weight of one breast with his hand.
‘I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about how you felt and tasted…’
He was lying to her…he had to be. That strained note of desire in his voice was something she had to be imagining. But, because she dared not look up into his eyes and see that he was lying to her, she looked downwards instead, brilliant colour staining her skin as she was left in no doubt of his arousal. ‘See what you do to me,’ she heard Neil saying somewhere above her head, his voice almost unrecognisable in its fine blend of torment and need. ‘Just the thought of touching you has me reacting like a raw teenager. Rue…’
He said her name and somehow or other she was in his arms, whimpering softly beneath her breath at the eagerness which seized her body. One hand tangled in her hair, the other held her waist, as his mouth devoured hers, his tongue fiercely demanding entrance to the moist sweetness beyond her half-par
ted lips.
In a daze of desire and disbelief she clung to him, her hands clutching at his shoulders until he broke the kiss and muttered something against her mouth, abruptly releasing her. As she stared at him with passion-darkened eyes, her skin chilling as it ached for the heat of his, she thought he was going to leave her, but instead he shrugged impatiently out of his jacket, tugging at his tie and then wrenching open the buttons on his shirt.
‘Oh, Rue, don’t stand there staring at me like that…touch me,’ he demanded rawly, taking her back in his arms, pushing her hands inside his shirt and then moaning sharply as she touched him. ‘I’ve been thinking about this all night,’ he told her thickly. ‘I told myself this morning that I wouldn’t…’
His hips ground against her as her hands smoothed his skin. He muttered something against her throat, but its meaning was lost as his body spoke for him, the hard pressure of him against her sending all rational thoughts flying from Rue’s mind, tiny mewling sounds of pleasure and impatience rising in her throat as she did her best to accommodate the hard thrust of his flesh, moving her body eagerly against his, tiny shivers of delight convulsing through her as he moaned against her skin and his hands found her breasts and kneaded their fullness through the cotton of her nightshirt, increasing the ever-growing ache between her thighs.
His mouth was on hers again, his tongue thrusting urgently into hers, as his body arched powerfully against her.
It didn’t need the erotic movement of his tongue and hips to show her what he wanted. She was aware of his need from the tingling tips of her fingers all the way down to her toes.
His tongue touched her lips, caressing them softly, his lips moving tormentingly against hers as he muttered, ‘I want you. I want to take you right here and now…to fill you with my body, and hear you cry out with pleasure. Is that what you want as well, Rue?’ he was asking her urgently, and as though he already knew the answer his hands moved to the hem of her nightshirt, lifting it so that her naked flesh was pressed against him.
Hot excitement licked through her veins, her body responding eagerly to his touch, to the hands that held her hips urging her ever closer to his own aroused flesh.
Desperate for the intimate contact of his flesh against her own, Rue pushed her breasts against his chest, thrilling to the sharp indrawn breath that seized him as he felt the hard points of her nipples rubbing against his skin. His hands slid round to the rounded firmness of her bottom, his hips moving with ever-increasing urgency against her.
His mouth burned her skin, biting into the tender flesh of her throat. Wild with the need he was generating inside her, a need that far outstripped anything she had ever experienced for Julian, she barely heard the metallic rasp of his zip, nor realised properly the purpose behind his movement as he turned her round and half carried and half propelled her back against the closed door.
The sudden sensation of the hardness of his bare thighs against her, the fine hair that grew there rubbing sensuously against her own far more delicate and tender skin made her go wild with need, moaning softly beneath her breath as her hips mimicked the fierce thrust of his, and his hand moved round to touch her so intimately that she had no defences against the sensations he was arousing inside her.
‘You’re so soft and moist,’ she heard him mutter shockingly against her ear. ‘So feminine and tempting. Have you any idea how much I ache to be inside you, Rue?’ And then, without waiting for her to answer, he added tormentingly, ‘Shall I show you? Shall I show you just what you do to me?’
And then it wasn’t just his fingers that were moving arousingly against her, and the need to have him inside her overwhelmed every other consideration and she moved eagerly and enticingly against him, wanting to feel the male strength of him filling the empty ache inside her. She felt his hands on her hips and shuddered mindlessly, anticipating the pleasure she would feel.
In the distance the church bells rang, and then abruptly, so abruptly that she could hardly believe it was happening, Neil released her.
Her eyes opened in pained disbelief to see him standing several feet away with his back to her. She heard him tug up the zipper on his suit, and over his shoulder he said tersely to her, ‘I can’t stay. I’ve got to be in London for one.’
As he saw the look of shocked rejection in her eyes, he swore savagely and came back to her.
‘Oh, Rue, don’t look at me like that…’
Pride made her pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go, holding her against the hardness of his body.
‘No, just let me hold you for a minute,’ he muttered against her hair. ‘You have the most disastrous effect on me, I hope you know that. I came here this morning just to see how Horatio was, and to tell you that I’d be away for a few days, that’s all.’
So it was all her fault, was it? She was the one who had deliberately and wantonly tempted him… was that what he was trying to tell her?
Her whole body went cold and she pushed him away.