If You Believe

He reached for his towel and unwound it, letting it fall to the floor in a heap of white.

Mariah stared at his aroused, naked body in awe. A tingling heat crept through her blood and splashed in fiery strokes across her cheeks. The dull throbbing inside her sharpened, took on a painful, needy edge. "Oh, my . . . "

A slow, lazy smile spread across his face. "See what you do to me, Marian?"

He leaned toward her and pulled at the sagging drawstring waistband of her pantaloons. The flimsy linen slid away from her ticklish flesh, leaving her bare-skinned and exposed to his burning, intense gray gaze.

A shiver tore through her body.

"Dont be afraid," he breathed, tossing the undergarment over his shoulder and crawling into bed alongside her. The old mattress sagged beneath his weight, the metal frame creaked.

"Im not. . . . " She breathed the incredible words aloud.

He pulled her to him. Their naked bodies came together in a wall of searing heat.

She tilted her chin up and looked at him. A slow, seductive smile curved his lips as he bent down for a kiss.

Mariah closed her eyes, waiting for the moist, welcoming feel of his mouth.

His lips molded to hers, a soft caress that she answered with boldness, touching her tongue to his. She heard the hiss of his indrawn breath, and the sound filled her with a giddy sense of her own sensuality. She coiled her arms around him, held him tight and pressed her breasts against the hard wall of his chest.

She kissed him with all the passion shed hoarded for years. She licked him, laved him, nipped at him with her teeth. Her tongue met his, coaxing, teasing, probing, until they were kissing with blind, desperate passion.

The roughened pad of his fingertip grazed the tender flesh beneath her breast, tracing the pale globe with tormenting slowness. Then, in agonizing inches, he moved his knuckle upward, gliding toward the straining pink peak.

Mariahs breath caught, held in a quivering gasp. Anticipation tumbled through her in an excruciating wave. She shivered, squeezed her eyes shut. Her body turned liquid, melted, as his thumb and forefinger closed around her pebbly nipple, drawing it out in a few gentle—then not so gentle—plucks. He squeezed the hardened tip and twirled it lightly back and forth before cupping the fullness of her flesh in his hand.

The damp heat of his palm enveloped her breast, sending shooting sparks of fire throughout her body.

Mariahs breath broke into short, breathy gasps that burned all the way up her throat. The dull throbbing in her stomach radiated outward, lodging hot and hard between her legs. Restlessly, needing something she couldnt name, she writhed in silent agony.

Fire filled her body, scorched her senses. The rapid, deafening beat of her heart hammered i

n her ears, matched the dull throbbing of her desire.

He drew back and let out a shaking breath. "Touch me, Mariah. . . . "

She wanted to. God, she wanted to. "I . . . I dont know how. "

"Try. " He said the single word quietly, on an exhalation of breath that wafted across her damp forehead.

She moved her hand slowly upward. Wincing, biting down on her lower lip, she touched his neck.

"Lower," he said in a smiling voice.

Her fingers slid into the hair that furred his chest. She closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of him. Each strand of his chest hair seemed separated from the rest, wiry and soft. Her breath released in a quiet sigh of wonder. It filled her with a heady boldness, this right to touch his body at will.

"Lower. "

She moved her hand downward again, through the thicket of his chest hair, over the hard rim of his last rib, to the soft, muscular concave of his stomach.

He shuddered. Goose bumps patterned the skin beneath her fingertips.

"Lower. " His voice was ragged, his breathing labored.

She wet her lips again and pushed her hand down, down.

Suddenly the soft, firmly muscled expanse of his stomach was gone. Instead, she felt the mound of hair that grew between his legs.