Reluctantly she did as she was bid, her eyes riveted on Niall’s handsome face. She had forgotten how tall he was. His nearness forced her to arch her neck to accommodate his height.
“Closer still.”
She took another step, halting barely a hand’s breadth away. She could feel his body heat envelop her, could smell his musky male scent, a faint, natural fragrance that was disturbingly arousing. His chest seemed very bare, and she had to control the urge to reach up and touch his skin. Her fingers tingled with warmth, her palms ached to explore that smooth, bronzed expanse.
“Now wet your lips, pet.”
She wanted to refuse, yet his gaze held her captive to his will. His eyes were vividly blue and deep enough to drown in, and what she saw in their heated depths alarmed and excited her at the same time.
Obediently she moistened her lips with her tongue. “Like…this?”
He was watching her lazily, the curve of his lowered lashes like ebony silk. “Precisely like that. Now…hold me.”
“I…I am not sure how.”
“Permit me to show you.”
His fingers encircling both her wrists, he drew her off balance and forced her hands to his bare chest. Sabrina knew a deliciously feminine sense of frailty, of helplessness against his strength, as she leaned into him.
“Can you not do better than that?” he prodded softly. “Use your imagination, sweeting. Put your arms around my neck.”
Stung by his criticism, she found new courage. Trembling, wary, she raised her hands to Niall’s naked shoulders, feeling the hard resilience in his powerful body, the intoxicating warmth radiating from his bare chest. This was the last place she wished to be, pressed against his solid, aroused form, and yet it felt so…right. She cou
ld feel the reckless hunger begin to stir within her, slow and insidious.
“That is better.” The caress of his voice was so enticing that she could almost taste its honey in her throat. “Tell me what you feel.”
How could she possibly confess the effect he had on her? The sweet tightening of her nipples. The pulse of pleasure shafting deep in her loins. The brazen heat uncoiling within her…Sabrina was dismayed, even horrified, by the depth of her response to him. Longing welled up in her, and she found herself struggling against the burning desire to press herself more tightly against him, to feel his entire sinewed length.
“I feel n-nothing,” she lied.
With a smoldering look from those sapphire eyes, Niall reached up to touch her mouth with a forefinger. Gently he brushed her lower lip, gliding the tip slowly along the wet surface. “Then why do you shiver when I do this?”
His caress roamed lower, along the delicate underside of her jaw…Before Sabrina could protest, he had unfastened the clasp of her cloak and was moving downward along her throat…stroking the slender column with those strong, calloused fingers…until all she could think about was what they felt like on her skin.
“Why does your breath catch when I touch you here, sweeting?” His thumb massaged the soft, vulnerable hollow of her throat, the only skin exposed above the high neckline of her bodice.
Not waiting for an answer, he slowly bent his head. His mouth hovered over hers, his breath warming her lips.
A heated rush of feeling assaulted Sabrina. The enormous power of his body engulfed her, aroused and tantalized and lured. He was sexuality incarnate. Shameless. Compelling.
She could feel his rock-hard thighs pressing against hers, feel the rigid muscle at his groin…It was impossible not to notice how enlarged he was. The awareness sent her pulse running wild.
Sabrina closed her eyes, whispering a sigh of mingled despair and need.
Niall heard the soft sound and hesitated, feeling the fluttering pulsebeat under the fine skin of her throat. He was a master at gauging a woman’s minute degrees of arousal, and this lass was aroused. He knew he could seduce her and bring her to the point where she begged for him to take her. He could make her hunger to do his bidding. And yet he didn’t want to arouse her desire, or his own. His purpose for embracing her had been exactly the opposite.
Vainly he tried to ignore the heat surging in his loins as he tightened his hold. Almost angrily then, he bent his head and covered her mouth with his own, using far more force than necessary. He kissed her deeply, his mouth ravaging with blatant intent, his tongue thrusting boldly, powerfully.
It was an act of instinct that made her raise her arms and twine her fingers in his hair, yet Niall hadn’t counted on his own response. His senses jolted alarmingly at the taste of her, while heat coursed through him, pooling thickly in his groin. He knew a raw need—and felt the same need in Sabrina.
The lush honesty of her response stunned him. She was returning his kiss hungrily, measure for measure, with an innocent passion that startled him.
Desire knifed through him, sharp and insistent. He wanted to be lodged deep within her, wanted to feel her softness spread and filled by his man’s heat.
Cursing himself, Niall abruptly broke off his kiss, leaving her mouth wet and wanting.
Panting for breath, dazed by the power of his sensuality, Sabrina unwillingly opened her eyes and found herself clutching the waving thickness of his silky, blue-black hair. Her breasts felt heavy and throbbed for his touch, while the heat pulsing between her legs shocked her.