‘Life made me that way, and things are happening so fast between us.’
‘Because we both want them to.’
‘True,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m hardly the most attractive woman in my group of friends, so why pick me?’
‘Who can account for attraction?’ he said with an evasive shrug, guessing this was all about a gentle lead up to the inevitable.
‘So you’re not another gold-digger with profit in mind when I become a world-famous artist?’ she teased with a cheeky look.
He laughed out loud and she laughed with him. ‘You’ve certainly got a talent for turning things on their head. I know you’re joking, but let me reassure you that you’re by far the most fascinating as well as the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and your delaying tactics are second to none.’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Yes.’
‘So...?’
‘So, I’ve told you before, I like a challenge.’
‘So do I,’ she assured him gently.
The frown had faded from her face but there were still questions in her eyes he didn’t want to answer. Beneath her outwardly confident exterior Kimmie still felt crushed and shamed by the wedding fiasco, and was so ready to be hurt again he wished he’d never spoken to his uncle, had never considered getting married just to please Theo, and had certainly avoided throwing Kimmie into the ring as a contender. How could she be certain of him when they hardly knew each other? And yet he felt the stirrings of something for her that was out of the ordinary. If she ever found out that he had even half an eye on searching for a suitable bride, she’d be devastated.
‘Kiss me,’ she whispered, distracting him.
His troubling thoughts stood no chance against a sensual onslaught by Kimmie. He wanted to know this woman in every way there was and when their lips touched and he plundered her mouth he knew it would only be a short time before he claimed her completely.
Kris unpeeled each of the towels in turn until she lay beneath him, completely naked.
‘No,’ he warned when she automatically moved to cross her arms over her chest again. Taking hold of both her wrists in one big hand, he pinned them lightly above her head. Then, slipping one muscular thigh between her legs, he parted them just a little...just enough.
‘You really want this?’ he murmured, making absolutely sure she was with him every step of the way.
‘Yes,’ she breathed.
Dropping kisses on her body until she relaxed, he moved down the bed, making everywhere he touched quiver with pleasure. Stroking and soothing, he finally dipped his head to give her the most intimate kiss of all. She tensed with a gasp, having never experienced anything so sexually adventurous. The level of intimacy was shocking at first, but it flung her into a new world where anything and everything was possible if it made her feel like this. Her gasp soon softened into a series of rhythmic moans as her body undulated in time to the laving of Kris’s tongue. He knew exactly what to do and how to prolong her enjoyment...when to hold back and when to start again. He didn’t need to tell her to relax. She was fully engaged and responsive. The hunt for release was an all-consuming passion, her only goal.
‘Yes, now,’ she gritted out and, unlike before, he didn’t make her wait.
She screamed wildly and repeatedly as she claimed her reward, and then groaned contentedly as the crashing waves of intense pleasure gradually subsided into pleasurable little clenches. ‘Good...so good,’ she managed as he started again.
But this time he left her hanging right on the edge. ‘No...don’t stop!’
* * *
Nothing she could say would move him to rush. Protecting them both, he moved to kneel between her legs and fisted his erection. Her throat dried at the sight of Kris’s massive hand barely able to enclose it. She’d never been this close to so much man before, had never inhaled such a potent mix of heat and sex. Kris was powerful, sex incarnate, and all the more desirable in her eyes for being so dark and rugged against her fragile skin. He hadn’t shaved recently and his stubble was thick and black and sharp. His wild hair had dried and the tiny gold hoop in his ear glinted in its depths. Tattoos on his upper arms pointed up the size of his biceps, while his chest was broad and strong. Everything about him excited her. He was the personification of danger and she was aroused by his brutal, swarthy good looks. She wanted him, and had no intention of waiting this time. Bending her legs, she spread them and, cupping each thigh, she held them apart. She had to have this...him, before she returned home. She was hungry for the touch of a man who knew what he was doing in the bedroom before she resigned herself to mediocrity again.
Kris refused to be hurried and nothing she could do would change his mind. The fact that he stared down, taking note of her readiness, and then did nothing to hurry things on, only aroused her more. Smoothing the hair back from her face with his free hand, he dipped his head and kissed her. It was as if he had to make one last check that she was up for this. His breathing was the only thing that gave him away. It was a little heavier now. But it was nowhere near as hectic as hers, Kimmie realised when she paused to listen. Everything about Kris was on a grand scale, while she had never felt smaller when he brushed just the tip of his erection against her.
‘Please,’ she heard herself beg. ‘Don’t make me wait. I need you now. Please...’
‘You’re not frightened?’
‘No!’
Kris’s answer was to brush himself repeatedly against her. It was the most incredible feeling, like everything he’d done to her before, only ten times more effective. When he allowed just the tip of his erection to catch inside her, she stilled, buoyant on a wave of pleasure but afraid to move in case he took it as a signal to take her roughly. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kris was measured and completely in control to the point where she groaned with disappointment when he withdrew and whimpered excitedly when he allowed himself to penetrate just a little way inside her. Her nipples were so tight they hurt and her breasts had never felt heavier, while between her legs had become a swollen, greedy place. Air hissed between her teeth as he inserted the smooth, rounded tip again, and this time she was rewarded with a little more pressure as he began to stretch her.
‘Oh, no,’ she cried as he pulled out again. ‘Please...’
Reaching beneath her, he cupped her buttocks to raise them even higher off the bed. Her world was composed entirely of sensation. She didn’t care what he did. And then he leaned forward and very slowly took her to the hilt. She cried out at his invasion and bit hard into the muscular flesh of his shoulder. He tasted of heat and sex and sunshine, and hot, clean man. And she growled as she held herself open, inviting more. Having positioned her for maximum pleasure, Kris allowed her to get used to the sensation of being completely filled by him before moving slowly to withdraw. The loss of him was such a shock she cried out again, but he didn’t make her wait long before taking her again. Inserting himself carefully, he sank deep and then repeated the steady move several times more, which quickly brought her to the edge. This time when she said ‘Please,’ all it took was several firm thrusts to make her lose control and, as she did so, Kris remained deep inside her where he could massage her to the finish. Writhing helplessly beneath him as the orgasm gradually faded, she could only ask for more.
‘Much more?’ he suggested with a raised eyebrow.
‘Oh, yes, I think so,’ she gasped.
Floating on some higher level of awareness, she was content to obey him for once, when Kris said he would do all the work and she must lie still and concentrate on sensation. ‘Nothing more, just that,’ he urged.
She’d do so happily, and had no complaint as he efficiently brought her to the edge again. ‘Now,’ he commanded softly, and she did exactly as he instructed.
An hour or so later, confident she was used to him after about her fourth cataclysmic release, Kris turn
ed her so he was kneeling behind her on the bed.
‘Raise your hips,’ he murmured, ‘so I can touch you while I take you.’
Resting her head on her forearms, she lifted her hips as high as she could, and was instantly rewarded by the sensation of Kris’s big hands holding her in position as he filled her and touched her all at the same time.
He wasn’t so gentle now, and he pounded into her as she commanded him to work faster... ‘Harder...! Now...! Please now!’ Her loss of control was noisy and wild, but Kris’s hands were firm on her buttocks to keep her in place so she could enjoy every last pulse of pleasure. Wailing, she thrashed about, but his grip was firm, giving her no alternative but to take everything he had to give her. Bucking helplessly in the throes of an orgasm so extreme she doubted either of them could survive it, she finally slumped on to the bed while Kris worked some magic with his hand to make sure she was quite finished.
‘More?’ he queried when she was finally quiet.
‘Stop teasing me... Let me catch my breath. Don’t you need a rest?’ she demanded groggily. Turning her head, she smiled a secret smile. ‘Obviously not,’ she murmured contentedly.
Moving behind her, Kris proved her right. Wrapping his body around hers until they were like spoons, he rested her leg on top of his and, having spread her wide, he took her again.
CHAPTER TEN
NOW SHE WAS over her fear of sex, intimacy with Kimmie was wilder and more fun than he could ever have anticipated. And intensely pleasurable too.
Far from tiring of each other, let alone getting tired, it seemed the more they had, the more they wanted from each other. She was demanding. He was too. Even now, with her back turned to him, she had curled up in a ball, raising her buttocks as high as she could to tease and tempt him into delivering more prolonged and diligent attention. She was so tight and hot, and so surprisingly inventive. Far from the ingénue he’d first thought her, Kimmie Lancaster was an extremely sexy woman who’d been trapped in a shell of inexperience and lack of opportunity.