"I-I never was any good at this."
He slid the sweater back up her body, slowly, his hands gliding along the smoothness of her skin. She raised limp arms and closed her eyes as he pulled it off her head and tossed it beside him. Then she crossed her arms and stiffened.
He took hold of her wrists and drew her arms toward him. She resisted for a heartbeat, then shivered violently and let her arms drop to her sides. And still she didn't open her eyes.
Early dawn filtered through the dark green canvas of the tent walls and touched her skin, twined through her black hair in shimmering blue waves. Her flesh looked almost translucent in the glow. The slender curve of her throat was all softness and cream, touchable. So touchable.
"Look at me, Lainie."
She opened her eyes slowly, stared down into his. The thick darkness of her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. He traced a finger up the naked expanse of her stomach, between her bound breasts, and up the curl of her throat, feeling the fluttering beat of her pulse. Using only the tip of his finger, he traced the
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outline of her black undergarment. What had she called it?a bra?
She shivered and closed her eyes again.
A thousand gentle words rose in his throat. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, how easy it was to lose himself in her eyes and her touch and her kiss, but he wasn't a man who'd used those words in his life, and he found now that they were difficult to say. There was a breathlessness in him, a building need that made him want to hold her and feel himself inside her.
"Jesus, Lainie," he said in a cracked, hoarse voice. "You're so goddamn beautiful." He winced at his words, wishing he knew how to be poetic, how to do justice to the emotion that swelled in his heart and made it burst wide open.
She sat there like a frightened virgin, trusting and yet afraid. He knew that she wanted him, wanted him perhaps as much as he wanted her right now, but her life had been as hollow and empty as his had been, and she was still, even now, afraid to reach for what she wanted.
If only she knew how much he needed her. Not as a body beneath him or even as a woman beside him. He needed her in the darkness of his soul to put a light where none had ever been before.
He leaned forward and kissed her. He tried to make it gentle and loving, but when his lips touched hers, something inside him exploded. He wrapped his arms around her and dragged her against him, wanting to merge their bodies, their souls. A low, gravelly groan lodged in his throat.
She met his kiss, coiled her slim arms around his neck. His tongue pushed past her lips, parting them. She made a quiet, gasping sound and let him in, tightening
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her arms around him. Her fingers were trembling against his back; he felt the flutter softness of the movement against his shirt. Using his tongue and hands, he coaxed her, urged her to feel some hint of the desire that flooded his senses.
She responded, shyly at first, then with the first strains of passion. The flicker of her moist tongue against his wrenched through his self-control.
"Take off my shirt, Lainie," he whispered harshly against her lips.
She hesitated, then brought her trembling fingers to his shirt and unbuttoned it. He shrugged out of it and tossed it aside. They came together again, harder, naked flesh against near naked flesh. The damp heat of her body melted against his, until he couldn't tell where she ended and he began. The peaks of her breasts pushed through the stretchable fabric of her bra, the hardened tips scored his chest in pinpricks of fire.
He dragged her against him and rolled her over, pressing her into the fleecy pile of the sleeping bag. She lay on her back, looking up at him through dazed, passion-darkened eyes. He kissed her again, deeply, letting his tongue communicate all the poetic, romantic notions he couldn't speak.
She made a soft, breathy sound and curled her arms around him, arching up against him. Again he felt the teasing hardness of her nipples brush his chest.
Slow down, Killian. He took a ragged breath and fought for control. He wanted to wrench her bra off and bury himself in the softness of her breasts, lose himself inside her.
Shaking, he pulled back and kissed her chin, her cheeks, her temples. His lips lingered at the velvety curve of her ear, nibbled at the lobe. She quivered at the moist contact and moved restlessly beneath him. The
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artless, seductive movement jolted him, sent a new spear of desire shooting to his groin.
With effort, he confined his kisses to her throat, tasting, dragging the tip of his tongue down her neck, along the golden chain of the necklace. He kissed her pulse, feeling the throb of her life against his sensitive lips.
He moved downward, letting his face glide between her breasts, but not touching them, to the warm surface of her stomach. He kissed the hard, pronounced lines of her ribs and tickled her navel with his tongue.
She clutched his head, tried to draw him up. He resisted her pressure and moved downward, flicking open the copper rivets of her Levi's.
She squirmed a little, tried harder to draw him up. "No ... Killian, no . .."