It was all there, in her eyes, desire and surrender and a slow-burning passion that needed only his kiss to set it blazing. A saint might have resisted but Conor had never made any pretense to sainthood. He was a man, with all a man's desires, and the woman in his arms had been in his thoughts for what might have been forever.
He said her name again, bent his head kissed her. Her lips parted beneath his, and they fell back against the pillows.
God, how sweet she tasted. Her kiss whispered of flower-filled meadows and summer breezes, of moon-washed nights and boyhood dreams lost in the harsh reality of manhood.
Slowly, he told himself, there's all the time in the world.
He slid his hands into her hair, cupping her face, holding her a willing prisoner under the plunder of his mouth while an electric pleasure sizzled through his blood. His thumbs followed the arcs of her cheekbones, then glided the length of her throat to rest for a heartbeat in the shadowed hollow. His mouth took the path his hands had taken; he pressed his lips to where her pulse raced beneath her skin and he felt her tremble beneath his kiss.
"Conor," she whispered, "I'm not..."
"Hush," he said, and slid his tongue between her lips.
She made a soft little sound in the back of her throat and her hands fisted in his hair, tugging him down to her, deepening the intensity of his kiss. The tip of her tongue curled against his in a sweet, silken caress. The feel of it made his blood leap. There had been so many women. A lifetime of women—and never a moment like this.
He drew back, holding her to him, and traced the features of her face with a fingertip.
"You are so beautiful," he whispered.
She smiled and set her hand over his where it rested against her cheek. Men had told her how beautiful she was for years but, deep in her soul, she could never bring herself to believe them, especially not when she saw her own face staring back at her from the newsstands. Her face was like an artist's canvas, her image upon it sketched by paints and pencils.
Besides, how could someone like her be beautiful?
But there was something in the way Conor said the words that made them real. She wanted to tell him so but he was touching her now, his hand moving over her body, cupping her breasts through the flannel of her nightgown, tracing the line of her hip and thigh. His touch was soft, butterfly light, but the heat of his fingers burned through to the marrow of her bo
nes.
His hand slid under the gown. She gasped as he stroked her ankle, her calf; his fingers moved up and up, along the warm, silken flesh, then whispered across the soft curls that covered the delta between her thighs.
Miranda cried out his name and arched like a bow in his arms. He rolled her beneath him and his fingers went to the buttons at her throat.
The buttons were so small, his hands so clumsy. They trembled as he slowly bared her skin to the cool night air and, at last, to the adoration of his touch.
She gave a keening moan as he bent his head and kissed her, nuzzling the gown away from her throat. His kisses burned against her flesh; his teeth nipped her skin and left the sweetest of wounds.
"Conor," she said, sighing his name on one long exhalation of pleasure. She reached up to him and he turned his head and kissed her palms, first one and then the other.
"Look at you," he said softly, as he drew the gown from her shoulders, "ah, sweetheart, look at how perfect you are."
"I'm not," she said quickly, "not perfect, Conor, never perf—"
His kiss silenced her. Her head fell back and his lips moved down her throat, to the curve of her breast.
"Perfect," he whispered, his mouth against her skin, "and so sweet."
Gently, he eased the gown from her body. And she, who had so often shed her clothing in full view of half a dozen people, felt a flush of embarrassment creep along her skin. Instinctively, she reached for the gown and tried to pull it around her, but he wouldn't let her. He caught her wrists and held them at her sides.
"You can't hide from me any longer," he said softly.
It was a lover's whisper, nothing more. She knew he had no way of knowing what far deeper meaning those words held.
Miranda took a deep, unsteady breath. "There's so much you don't understand."
"I understand this," he said, bending to her and kissing her mouth. His head dipped lower; she felt the warmth of his breath against her breast. "And this."
His lips closed around her nipple and she was undone. Something gave way, at last, deep within her. He was right; she couldn't hide, didn't want to hide. Not from him.
"Yes," she said, "Conor, yes, yes..."