‘Keep still,’ Ran warned his quarry abruptly. It had come as a shock to discover that she was female. He had assumed that the attempted theft of the car was being carried out by a young boy.
As she heard and recognised Ran’s voice, Sylvie’s fear immediately changed to a mixture of relief and fury.
‘Let go of me,’ she demanded immediately.
‘Sylvie...?’ Ran stared at her in disbelief. ‘What the hell...?’
He had relaxed his grip on her hands but his weight was still holding her pinned to the ground and Sylvie wriggled protestingly beneath him, complaining.
‘Sylvie,’ Ran repeated, still obviously shocked by her presence. ‘I thought... I heard the peafowl and thought someone was... I thought you were trying to steal the car... I couldn’t tell who you were in the dark,’ Ran told her curtly as he read the disbelief in her eyes, her expression revealed to him as the moon grew in strength now that the dusk had given way to proper darkness.
‘What are you doing here anyway?’ he demanded sharply.
‘I needed some fresh air; the windows in my room won’t open and I...I decided I might as well walk over here and collect my car... And what about you? I thought you were supposed to be going on a date, not creeping around frightening people to death,’ Sylvie accused him angrily.
She was becoming acutely and very uncomfortably conscious of the way he was lying on top of her, her legs still entangled with his from when she had tried to escape from him, but now...
Sylvie drew a sharp self-admonitory breath at the direction her thoughts were taking. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to breathe and not just because of Ran’s weight on top of her. She was all too aware of how, when she did breathe, her breasts were pressing against his chest and even more dangerously conscious of the way her pelvis was accommodating itself to the shape of him. She could smell the warm summer night air on his skin and with it the much, much more intimate musky male scent that was him. Somehow or other during their struggle her T-shirt had become separated from her jeans and she was hideously aware that it was too late to regret now the fact that in redressing herself she had not bothered to put back on the sensible white bra she had discarded when she had gone to bed. Instinctively her free hand went to her body to check just how far up her T-shirt had ridden.
‘What is it?’ Ran asked her, his attention caught by the movement of her hand.
‘You’re heavy, Ran, you’re hurting me,’ Sylvie told him, not entirely truthfully, as she tried to bury herself in the night’s cloaking shadows, but it was too late and she could see from the sudden narrowing of his gaze as it followed the action of her hand that he realised, as she had just done herself, that her wretched T-shirt had ridden up far enough to expose the lower curve of her breasts.
The last thing, the very last thing she wanted was for Ran to study her body in any way at all, so why...why, the moment his gaze fell to her breasts, did they suddenly decide to react to his presence by swelling and firming, her nipples sensually flaunting peaks of explicit womanhood?
‘You’re not wearing a bra...’
‘Thank you, Ran, but I am already aware of that fact,’ Sylvie snapped at him through gritted teeth, her face hot with colour as she tried to reach the edge of her T-shirt to tug it down. But before she could do so Ran forestalled her, his own fingers curling round the thin white fabric.
Sylvie was in no doubt that Ran did intend to pull it down to cover her breasts. She could read his intentions quite plainly in his eyes. So how on earth what happened next did happen she was at a complete loss to know.
She moved, and so did Ran’s hand. Sylvie froze tensely as she felt his knuckles brush the underside of her breasts; immediately she made an awkward lunging movement away from his touch, forgetting that Ran had hold of the edge of her T-shirt. As she moved Ran tugged and then Sylvie tugged back and Ran let go.
Sylvie wasn’t sure which of them it was that made the small hissing sound, expelling their breath as her T-shirt, Lycra added to the cotton to ensure its smooth neat fit, reacted automatically to their tugging action and shot upwards, fully exposing her naked breasts.
Sylvie heard Ran curse and then saw him go very still; motionless herself, Sylvie waited. The sensation of Ran’s hand gently cupping her naked breast made her close her eyes in self-defence as she tried to stem the rapture that flooded through her. It wasn’t just what he was doing, it was the fact that she had once longed for him to touch her, to hold her like this so very, very much, and it was as though all that long-ago feeling and all that long-ago need had suddenly risen up inside her.
‘Ran...’ She heard herself whisper his name, but the hands she put out to him were there to hold him, not to push him away, and as she felt him lower himself slowly against her again the shudder that ran through her was one of desire and not rejection.
Very slowly and gently his fingertips stroked her breasts, shaping them, exploring them. The night air felt velvet soft and sensual against them but nowhere near as soft nor as sensual as Ran’s hands.
Carefully he caressed her and she could see the fierce gleam in his eyes as
he looked briefly into hers and then he was bending his head towards her, kissing her with a fierce, passionate intensity that left her totally defenceless. Helplessly she opened her mouth to the hungry demand of his, making a tiny soft keening sound deep in her throat as she responded and matched his passion.
There was something earthy, primitive, inevitable and unstoppable about what was happening. A soft breeze whispered through the trees bordering the gravel and hypersensitively Sylvie heard it, felt its warmth against her skin. The rough cloth of Ran’s shirt teased her breasts, making her ache for the feel of his hands against them again. His hands...his mouth... She heard him groan, his fingers biting into her skin as he drew her close, so close that she could feel the hard, aroused pulse of his body. Instinctively her own rose up as though seeking even closer contact with him. His mouth burned hotly against her throat as he kissed it, his head moving lower and lower still until she could feel its demanding heat against her breast.
Sylvie whispered in need, arching up towards him, almost sobbing in relief as his mouth finally closed over her nipple, caressing it gently, his tongue laving it and then flicking erotically against it before he started to suck on it with a rhythmic urgency that echoed the pulsing heat of his arousal.
Once, long ago, she had dreamt of Ran wanting her like this, needing her like this, all aching, fierce, demanding male passion. Tiny shock waves of desire were flooding sensuously through her, she wanted him so badly; eagerly she drew him closer and then froze as somewhere in the woods a fox screamed noisily to the moon.
Ran too tensed, lifting his mouth from her body as he turned his head in the direction of the noise.
Suddenly, abruptly, protected no longer by the heat of his passion nor the warmth of his body, Sylvie realised what she was doing. The gravel of the drive which previously she had not even noticed pressed sharply into her skin, and her face flushed with mortification as she realised how she must look, how she must seem to Ran, so pathetically eager for his kisses, for him, that she...
‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned him shakily as she yanked down her top and struggled to her feet. ‘I feel sorry for your...for Vicky...if all it takes to make you unfaithful to her is...’
‘You?’ Ran supplied tersely for her.