The sense of wonder at his revelation that he reciprocated her feelings couldn’t prevent her still being anxious about the pain she’d suffer if anything ever happened to him—or, worse still, if he should ever leave her. But realising that was just old programming kicking in, because she’d grown up fearing that if she got involved with a man he would behave in the same destructive way as her mother’s various unreliable boyfriends, Kit knew she had to trust that her own path was more hopeful. But she still wanted to come clean about her fears to Hal.
‘I’ve guarded my heart against falling in love for so long because I’ve had no good example of a man being sincere or keeping his word, and I witnessed the devastation that caused my mum. I was determined not to repeat it. But nothing could have prepared me for a man like you, Hal.’ She smiled. ‘Or the effect that you would have on me. I found myself dangerously fascinated by you almost straight away, and that feeling has grown stronger. So much so that I can’t be remotely sensible about what’s the best course of action for me any more.’
‘What kind of action does your heart want you to take?’ Hal prompted, his tawny eyes turning to a deeply hypnotic liquid gold that silently and irrefutably conveyed how aroused he was.
Unable to deny her need to touch him intimately any longer, Kit slid her hand round the back of his neck and slowly brought his face towards hers.
‘My heart tells me to kiss you until I’m drunk with the taste and flavour of you. Until it beats in tandem with yours. God knows I’ve tried, but I just can’t seem to resist you. But I’m sure you know that already, don’t you?’
‘I don’t take anything for granted where you’re concerned, baby, but I was hoping you’d say that. And I want you to know that I’m so sorry you had such a rough time of it growing up. But that time is past. And if it’s a place of your own that you want, then I’ll get it for you. I’m no psychic, sweetheart, but I can tell you right now that your future is looking much brighter.’
Even though his loving words thrilled her, and reassured her that he understood her need for a place that she could call her own, Kit couldn’t totally dispense with her anxiety about it. ‘I—I don’t just want a place of my own any more, Hal,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t care where I live so long as I can be with you. Is that—is that possible, do you think?’
‘Is it possible? Surely you know by now that’s what I want too?’
Even before he crushed her lips beneath his Hal was expertly undoing Kit’s buttons and sliding his hands inside the material of her pyjamas to cup her breasts. Then as their kiss deepened, with both their mouths opening hungrily to accommodate the other’s searching tongue, his fingers tugged on the aching steel buds of her nipples to inflame them even more. If Kit thought anything at all in those incendiary few seconds, it was about for how long and how passionately he would pleasure her. In turn, would she be able to repay him with equal pleasure?
She needn’t have worried. Proving he was as instinctive a lover as she could wish for, Hal’s fingers and thumbs started to ease her pyjama bottoms down over her svelte hips. As soon as he’d done so his hand returned to slide between her silken thighs and stroke over the sensitive bud at her moist centre.
Trembling with anticipation, Kit tore her lips away from his and dropped her head down onto his iron-hard shoulder. She’d had no idea that such staggering gratification was even possible until she’d fallen in love with this man. ‘Hal, please...’ she couldn’t help her voice breaking with need.
‘There’s no need to beg me for anything, baby,’ he responded huskily. ‘I know what you want and I know what you need. I know it because I feel the same. I want you so much that I think I’ll die if I can’t have you.’
He was kissing the smooth skin on her neck and nibbling it at the same time. Then in one smooth movement he lay back on the bed and, with his hands firmly on her hips, eased her body over his.
‘I don’t want you to die,’ Kit breathed, her hands fumbling at the fly of his jeans and tugging them down as carefully as she could over his strong, muscular thighs. Her blood palpably thrummed, because the need to feel his possession suddenly grew urgent.
Hal didn’t hesitate to oblige her. Shoving aside his black silk boxer shorts, he plunged his hardened silken shaft deep inside her and, lifting his hips, pressed upwards. Before, his persistent taps at her door had rendered her terrified, in case it was the precursor to a ghostly visitation, but now Kit’s full-throated cries of pleasure echoed uninhibitedly round the room instead, banishing any sense of sadness and regret that it might previously have held.