She had told herself that it wouldn’t be like that if she touched him again. She had told herself that the response she recalled was the result of infatuation, exaggerated by an imagination reluctant to let go of the sparkly romance that had turned into car-crash viewing. But she had lied, not knowingly, but out of ignorance and wishful hopes because the discovery that Jaul could still deliver a kiss that could set her on fire was downright terrifying.
Struggling to catch her breath, she looked up at him, into eyes dark and glittery as a starry night, and for a split second of madness she wanted to drown there and turn time back in its tracks. Instead, she rested her cheek against a broad shoulder, breathing in the musky, clean scent of him like a hopeless addict. He smelled so good, he smelled so right that it frightened her. She quivered, insanely aware of every line of his long, lean body against hers and the terrible wanting rising inside her like a drug haze she couldn’t possibly fight and win against. ‘Jaul?’
Long brown fingers cupped her cheekbones. ‘Give me your mouth again,’ he husked.
No, that wasn’t going to solve anything and she knew it, but still she tilted her head back like a programmed doll and he kissed her again, longer and deeper, harder and stronger and her senses went spinning off into a fantasy land of rediscovery. It had been so long, far too long since she had even had a kiss and what could be said about a kiss? she scorned inwardly. A kiss was no big deal even with an estranged husband and he was so good at kissing, so wickedly erotic he should have been bottled and sold like precious oil. He lifted her up against him with that easy strength of his that had once thrilled her to the marrow. He hitched her legs round his waist, nuzzled his mouth against her throat where she was, oh, so sensitive, oh, so responsive, and suddenly her whole body was vibrating like a tuning fork, greedily reaching for every sensation and drinking it in.
Her eyes were tightly closed as if what she didn’t see didn’t have to be accounted for. This wasn’t her doing this and letting Jaul carry her upstairs. This wasn’t what she wanted but, oh, dear heaven, how much she wanted him! That mad, frenzied wanting was throbbing and pounding through her as unstoppable as a runaway train. She buried her face in his shoulder in despair at her own weakness.
‘I can’t do this...I can’t,’ she whispered feverishly.
In an awkward movement, Jaul nudged her head up and found her mouth again, briefly, devastatingly. ‘Yes, you can, because in your heart you know I will never hurt you again.’
‘It’s not that simple—’
‘It is as simple as you will allow it to be,’ he growled, his breath fanning her cheek.
But nothing was ever that simple with Jaul, her brain reminded her. Sometimes he was too clever, too devious for her, while she was a straight-down-the-line open and honest person. He pushed a door open and then he kissed her again and carnal heat engulfed her in an irresistible tide, washing away every thought.
She was lying on something soft and yielding and above her Jaul was virtually ripping off his T-shirt, smooth brown pectoral muscles rippling down washboard abs before her eyes. And seeing that beautiful body again was too much temptation all at once because her hands rose of their own volition and smoothed up over that torso from the vee rising out of the loosened waistband of his jeans to the narrow waist and up over the lethal strength etched into the sleek lines of his hard, muscular chest. The heat of him burned her palms and a clutch of longing pulled in her belly. Desire was like an old familiar stranger, controlling her, silencing her, heightening the craving to a dangerous level. She couldn’t have him, she shouldn’t have him, but the hunger was intolerable and more than she could withstand.
He came down to her again, hot and half naked, peeling off her top and then her bra, filling his hands with the pouting mounds of her breasts, fingers grazing her tightly beaded nipples and tugging them before he put his mouth there with hungry urgency. Her back arched, arrows of flaming need slivering through her quivering length to the heart of her. Sweet sensation tugged at her with every suck of his lips, every lash of his tongue, and then he kissed her again and her fingers knotted in his black hair. Tiny little sounds broke in her convulsing throat as he tugged off her panties and traced the swollen flesh between her thighs. A single finger pierced her and she cried out, already so hot, so ready she was wet and oversensitive.