‘Do you know the temptation offered to me, I wonder?’ he groaned unsteadily. ‘Do you know how often I’ve dreamed of having you in my arms, your body against mine? You can’t even begin to imagine what it does to me to know that there’s been no other man. Why, Heather?’ he demanded, his voice suddenly velvet rough with male desire. ‘Was it because you’ve been waiting for me? For this?’
She could have stopped him, she ought to have stopped him. She should have told him that he was wrong, that she didn’t want him, and that her virginity was a result of chance and nothing else, but she was already in his arms and his mouth was moving on her skin with a hungry urgency that left her no room for thought.
Its slow and deliberate progress across her eyelids and cheekbones was infinite pleasure and infinite torture. She ached for him to kiss her properly, and with a wantonness the old Heather would never have exhibited she reached impatiently towards him, tugging on the thick softness of his hair until he lifted his mouth and she was able to press her lips against his in an aching torment of need.
She just caught his indrawn breath of incredulity, a brief moment of tension before he hesitated and looked down into her eyes, as though searching for something. She froze, not sure why he was hesitating, her old insecurities urging her to retreat. But as though he sensed her withdrawal, Kyle held on to her, bending his head and muttering something incomprehensible against her lips.
He said it again and this time she heard it, her skin crawling with heat and desire as he repeated thickly, ‘Open your mouth and kiss me properly. God, Heather, you can’t know how I’ve ached for the taste of you, for the feel of you, wanting me like this.’
Blindly she obeyed his command, aroused by the tone of his voice and its raw undercurrent of sexuality, almost as much as she was by his touch. Her lips parted, and she shivered beneath the rough caress of his tongue. She could feel his heart hammering against her skin, and she moaned protestingly at the restriction of their clothes.
She wanted to feel his body against her own, to stroke his skin and to know its silken warmth. She wanted to explore the male body that seemed so strong and inviolate, and yet that trembled at her lightest touch.
She felt the impassioned thrust of Kyle’s tongue, and accepted its dominance, letting herself melt into him, moaning a frustrated protest at the barriers between them.
‘What is it?’ Kyle demanded, lifting his mouth from hers. He was breathing very fast, his skin flushed and hot. She raised her hand to touch his face, wondering at its heat and strength, and he caught her wrist, touching his lips to her fingertips. Just the sensation of his breath against her skin was enough to make her quiver with need.
‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded again.
How could she tell him that she ached to feel the hardness of his body against her? That she longed for him to remove the mutual barrier of their clothes and to cover her instead with the hot skin of his flesh? She couldn’t.
‘It’s the light,’ she fibbed huskily instead. ‘It’s so bright.’
‘If I go and switch if off, will you promise me that you won’t disappear?’ he muttered urgently against her throat. ‘I’m so afraid that you’re just a mirage, a figment of my imagination, a Heather conjured up by my l…need for you.’
Had she imagined that tiny check? What had he been about to say before he changed his mind? She shivered as he got up to snap off the light. Before she had had a chance to accustom herself to the darkness he was back, taking her into his arms, kissing her with a fierce urgency that set her on fire. She trembled and then shivered beneath the intensity of his desire.
‘What is it, what’s wrong? Are you cold?’
She shivered harder beneath the slurred passion in his voice. The sound of it was like the purr of a wild animal, fascinating and dangerous at the same time.
‘You’re shivering.’ His arms tightened, constricting her breathing.
‘Only because I’ve never…I’ve never felt like this before.’
The admission was out before caution could silence it. For a moment she thought he was angry, and then he moved and she saw his face in the faint light coming in through the window.
What she saw there made her catch her breath in wonder. She had never imagined that any man could look like that for her.
She reached blindly towards him, and he gathered her against his body, holding her so that she felt every straining muscle; so that she was immediately and shockingly aware of his arousal.
‘I didn’t know.’ She whispered the words more for her own benefit than for his, but he heard them and asked roughly,
‘What? That you could make me feel like this, and share that feeling. Is that what you didn’t know?’ His voice was like a caress, soothing and yet exciting her at the same time. ‘Don’t ask me to let you go, because I can’t. I’ve wanted you for too long, Heather.’
He picked her up and she knew, before he put her down on the bed, what he was going to do. As he bent over her, she shook her head and he tensed.
‘What is it?’
She heard the strain in his voice, and it melted away the last of her doubts. This was no dominating male, confident of his power over her, but another human being, as vulnerable in his desire as she was herself. A man who wanted her and whom, in turn, she wanted. She felt no fear or apprehension, only a marvellous sense of release and rightness.
‘The first time your body touches mine, I want it to be without any barriers between us.’
For a moment she thought she had shocked him, and then he moved. Although his hands trembled slightly, he removed both his clothes and her own; there was no hesitation in either his movements or his voice as he gently covered her body with the silken strength of his own and said quietly, ‘You mean like this?’
She could hardly speak, she was trembling so much. Nothing had prepared her for the sheer pleasure of being so close to him; the weight of him pressing her down against the mattress, the small movement of his torso as he talked to her causing an almost unbearable frisson of pleasure to pulse through her breasts.
He caught her soft gasp and instantly his eyes locked on her.