Tension began to build between them, a deliciously warm kind of tension that centred itself low down in her stomach and slowly inched its way outwards. Her pulses quickened, her breathing with it, and she felt the muscles in his thighs begin to tighten, heat fanning out from both of them.
‘Madeline…’ he murmured, then reached up to pull the hat from her head. Her hair tumbled down, wild and free, just how he liked it, and his hand was burrowing into the thick silken mass, cupping her head and slowly—painfully slowly bringing her mouth up against his own.
He tasted of champagne, his breath warm, face cold and clean-smelling. She found the parting in his coat and ran her hands inside it, exploring his rock-hard ribcage beneath the fleecy check he was wearing. A shaky sigh broke from him, sheer pleasure at her touch, and she sighed too, against his mouth, this kiss threatening none of the angry passion of the night before, yet just as poignant, making its own special kind of statement like a pledge.
Her head was resting in the thickly padded hollow of his shoulder by the time he drew his mouth from hers. ‘I’m not going to seduce you here,’ he said quietly, reaching inside his coat to capture one of her hands so that he could tangle his own fingers with hers, bringing it up to kiss her knuckles one by one. ‘And it would be a seduction if I were crude enough to make love to you here, on a cold bed of wood and coarse blanket.’ His eyes ran intently over her face, for once completely free of the sophisticated masks it usually wore these days. ‘It will be a soft bed and silk sheets for you, Madeline, my love,’ he promised huskily. ‘But I’m going to touch you,’ he added darkly, ‘touch you and caress you until you can’t think of any other man but me. And not because of any barbaric desire to inflict my own will on you, but because I just can’t help myself.’
He covered her mouth with his own again, slowly, luxuriously almost, deepening the kiss, and Madeline let him move at his own pace, too aware of the times before when she had inflicted her needs on to him. His hands drifted inside her coat, fingers lightly feathering along her blouse until they found her breasts, and she let out a soft sigh of satisfaction as he began stroking lightly.
Their coats formed a warm cocoon around them, their mouths drinking deeply of each other. Outside the birds were just beginning to waken, their spasmodic bursts of song barely impinging on the cosy little world inside the boathouse. A horse whinnied, its bridle jingling as it tossed its head, and the kiss broke reluctantly apart.
‘More,’ she demanded, not even bothering to open her eyes, her kiss-moistened lips parted and ready.
‘Patience,’ he admonished, and shifted their position, gently laying her down on the blanket so that he could lean over her, and he began parting the buttons of her shirt. She shivered as the cold air hit her exposed skin, bringing her lashes flickering upwards to find him gazing at her with black burning eyes.
‘No bra,’ he said.
‘Not for you,’ she answered, bringing his gaze up to clash with hers.
It was such a telling admission, one which sent a light tremor rippling across his resting body. Unbreathing, they gazed at each other for a long beautiful moment, feeling and allowing the tension to build between them until it played like static on the surface of their skin.
Then his eyes were back on her breasts, those thick curling lashes of his fanning his cheeks as he studied her lazily, the full firm mounds with their darkened circles and hard, tight, inviting nubs trembling a little as they moved in rhythm with her quickened breathing.
His own shirt parted quicker than hers had, his fingers fumbling with the buttons and dragging the two pieces of fleecy cloth apart to expose his own deeply tanned and muscle-packed chest covered in a thick covering of crisp black hair.
Features taut now with the control he was forcing on himself, he came over her and lowered his naked chest on to hers. Tiny darts of pleasure shot out in all directions, making her gasp and him groan.
‘Wonderful,’ he sighed, and she watched with an inner thrill his lashes close over his eyes in pleasurable response. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do this,’ he murmured thickly, burying his face in her warm throat, ‘feel your skin against my own.’
‘You said no seduction,’ she reminded him.
‘Trust me,’ he urged. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
His eyes closed again. Madeline watched the taut sensual line of his mouth soften, part and turn slightly to cover hers, and allowed her own eyes to close. Dominic knows what he’s doing, her brain chanted soothingly to her, and curled her hands inside his shirt. As the kiss deepened, her hand had already found the tight male nipples nestling in their bed of crisp black hair…
Her head was resting on his arm, cushioned from the hardness of the wooden floor. Their breathing becoming more laboured as the minutes ticked by. They could have been all alone in the world for all it mattered. Just the two of them, with Dominic caressing her breasts with the light pleasing touch of his hands, one jeans-clad thigh pressed between her own and moving in a slow tormenting rhythm along her inner thigh.
Several times they stopped kissing just to gaze at each other. No words; they didn’t seem necessary. As Dominic had said, he was in control of things. This was no seduction, just a beautiful loving they had shared many times in the past. Often here, by the river, sometimes in his apartment above the bank. Soon he would stop, as he always had, before things got really out of hand. Soon he would begin to withdraw, gently soothe her back to earth with his hands and his mouth, murmuring the same words she still recalled from years ago. ‘We h
ave to stop now, we have to stop.’ The chant played languorously in her mind. ‘We have to stop….’
But he didn’t stop. Quite when Dominic had lost control of the situation she wasn’t sure, but it was the zip sliding down on her jeans that alerted her to the fact that he was taking this further than he had ever done four years ago.
‘Dominic?’ she whispered uncertainly.
‘It’s all right,’ he assured her tightly. ‘I just want to touch you, Madeline. I need to…’ The words trailed away on a broken sigh as he eased the jeans away from her hips and slid his hand between her thighs.
Lightning struck the throbbing core of her being, sending her into a convulsion of gasps. And suddenly he wasn’t so slow and languid, but tight with urgency, his mouth hard on her own, his skin burning hot where he pressed down upon her, his fingers drawing a cry from her as she felt her body quicken, become engulfed in wild liquid heat, and she was thrown into a spiralling world she had never visited before, tumbling down and down with no control over herself or the feelings rocketing through her.
She cried out his name in sheer fright, her fingers clinging to him, nails digging into the sweat-sheened skin at his shoulders. She heard him mutter something, then those tormenting fingers sent her flying over the edge while he leaned over her, watching the rapturous torture convulse her body, his eyes bright and black with impassioned triumph.
When it was over, he pulled her to him, cradling her against the warmth of his body, rocking her to and fro as if she were a baby in dire need of comfort.
‘My God,’ she gasped when she found the air to do it. ‘Why?’ Bewilderment threaded her tone, her eyes wide and staring at the rickety old ceiling above their heads. He rolled away from her, covering his eyes with his arm, but Madeline could see the self-contempt in the tight line around his mouth.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.
‘Sorry!’ She sat up, dizzy with the drunken aftermath of what he had just done to her, and confused as to why he had done it. ‘Dominic—what was the difference between what you’ve just done and making love to me properly?’ she demanded in a strangled tone.