Seconds after she had relaxed against him, she pushed herself away. “Oh!” she exclaimed softly. “I forgot that you were—”
“Naked. That’s right. But it’s too late now, baby.”
Chapter Seven
Masculine urges governed him now. His mouth moved over hers in a deep, long, questing kiss while his body settled heavily against hers. Angling his head first to one side, then the other, he made heated love to her mouth with his greedy tongue.
Shock was Rusty’s initial reaction. His wonderful nakedness was a stunning surprise. Then, before she could recover from that, she was swept up into his tempestuous kiss.
Her next reaction was spontaneous longing. It surged up through her middle, overwhelming her heart and mind, obliterating all else but the man who was ravishing her mouth so expertly. Her arms encircled his neck and drew him closer. Reflexively she arched against him, bringing her body in contact with his hard, rigid flesh.
Groaning in near pain, he buried his face in her neck. “God, it’s so full it’s about to burst.”
“What do you want, Cooper?”
He laughed harshly. “That’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“I know; but, what do you want me to do?”
“Either touch me all over or don’t touch me at all.” His breath struck her face in hot, rapid gusts. “But whatever you decide, decide now.”
Rusty hesitated only half a heartbeat before she ran the fingers of one hand up through his hair and settled them against his scalp. She used the other to comb through the crisp hair on his chest, massaging the muscles that had beguiled her.
Their lips met in another rapacious kiss. He ran his tongue over her lower lip, then drew it between his lips and sucked it lightly. The sheer sexuality of it electrified her. He took her moaning whimper as encouragement and began kissing his way down her throat and chest. He wasn’t a man to ask permission. Boldly he lowered his hand to her breast, cupped it, and pushed it up.
“I’ve been going out of my mind wanting you,” he rasped. “I thought I’d go insane before I touched you, tasted you.”
He opened his mouth over the smooth flesh that swelled above her tank top. He kissed it fervently, applying enough suction to draw it up against his teeth. He tickled it with his tongue at the same time he unhurriedly whisked his thumb back and forth across her nipple. When it began to respond and grow hard, he accelerated that fanning caress until Rusty was almost delirious.
“Stop, Cooper,” she gasped. “I can’t breathe.”
“I don’t want you to be able to breathe.”
He lowered his head and, through the cloth of her tank top, flicked his tongue against her raised nipple, playfully nudging it. Rusty’s heels ground into the bed beneath her and her back came off it. But even that revealing response didn’t satisfy him.
“Say you want me,” he said in a low, vibrating voice.
“Yes, I want you. Yes, yes.”
Driven by a wild, uncontrollable hunger, heedless of the consequences, she pushed him back and became the aggressor. Her lips moved down his throat and over his chest and stomach, striking as randomly as raindrops on parched earth. Each time her mouth touched his hair-smattered skin, she whispered his name. It became like a prayer, growing in fervency with each kiss.
“You’re beautiful, beautiful,” she whispered over his navel. Then, moving her head lower and rubbing her cheek in the hair that grew dense and dark, she said with a sigh, “Cooper.”
The passion she’d unleashed stunned him. He tilted his head up and gazed down at her. Her hair was sweeping across his belly. Her breath was disturbing his body hair. The love words she was chanting had more erotic rhythm than any he’d ever heard. Her lips...God, her lips...were leaving dewy patches on his skin.
Her head moving over him was the most erotic, most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. And it scared the hell out of him. He pushed her away from him and rolled off the bed. Standing at the side of it, he trembled visibly, swearing beneath his breath.
Hard, passionate, mindless coupling he could handle, but not this. Not this. He didn’t want any real yearning and feeling and emotion to be involved, thank you. He’d done every sensual thing that was physically possible to do with a woman. But no woman had ever expressed such honest longing. What Rusty had done suggested an intimacy between them that went beyond the physical.
He didn’t need that. No romance. No love. No thanks.
He was temporarily responsible for Rusty Carlson’s survival, but he damned sure wasn’t going to assume responsibility for her emotional stability. If she wanted to mate, fine, but he didn’t want her fooling herself into thinking that it meant something more than physical gratification. She could do whatever she wanted to with his body. He would permit, even welcome her, to indulge her most carnal desires. But that’s where it stopped. No one was allowed to trespass on his emotions.
Rusty stared up at him, bewildered and hurt. “What’s wrong?” Self-conscious now, she raised the sheet up to her chin.
“Nothing.”
He crossed the room and tossed another log on the fire. It sent up a shower of sparks that threw a brief, but bright, glow into the room. In that light, she saw that he was still fully aroused.