Force of Feeling

‘This is reality,’ he told her. ‘This is the way you make me react, the way you make me feel. You say you’re undesirable. To whom? A man without grace or intelligence, who once hurt you badly? Have you any idea how insulting I find it to be classed with him? Have you any idea of how angry you make me when you tell me that you aren’t desirable? Have yo

u any idea of how much you make me ache and long to take hold of you and show you just how wrong you are? I want you, Campion, and I think you want me, too.’

He was turning away from the mirror and towards her.

‘No! No, I…’

‘Yes.’ His voice, thick and oddly muffled, made Campion’s mind spin. She felt his mouth touch her skin, not teasingly or lightly as she had expected, but hungrily, fiercely, like a man out of control. She shuddered beneath its pressure, her throat arching back, her body absorbing the heat of his. She could feel the furious thud of his heart, and her own started to race in time to it. She moaned as his mouth savaged her throat. This was nothing like how she had imagined it might be. She had visualised him as a controlled, even distant lover, but there was nothing in the least controlled or distant about the way he was touching her. He shuddered against her and moaned her name against her skin. Somehow or other, her arms had tightened around him. Her breasts were pressed against his chest and, as he moved, it created a delicious friction against their tender peaks.

His hands moved over her, shaping her body, making her ache to touch him in turn. His mouth had reached her jawline now. She turned her head, her eyes wide and dark with arousal.

‘Kiss me. Kiss me, Guy…’

She wasn’t aware of saying the words, only of the feverish need building inside her.

He lifted his head, his hands cupping her face, his skin flushed with dark colour.

‘Oh, my God, yes. This is how I’ve wanted to see you. This is how I’ve wanted to make you feel.’ His lips touched hers, and she trembled. She felt Guy’s body tense, then his head lifted again so that she was denied the contact she craved. She opened the eyes she had closed in anticipation of the pleasure of having his mouth on hers.

He was staring down at her.

‘Open your mouth, so that I can kiss you properly…’

In a dream, she obeyed his command. It was nothing like the kisses she had experienced with Craig. Kisses which, if she was honest, had not really moved her at all. With Guy, it was different. Her whole body seemed to melt beneath the heat of his touch.

She felt him lift her, and marvelled absently at his strength; she felt the coolness of the bedclothes against her naked back, and the warmth of Guy’s weight as he took her back into his arms.

He kissed her again, lingeringly this time, as though she was a rare delight that had to be savoured, and she responded eagerly, hungrily to his touch, barely aware of the way she was caressing the naked length of his spine until he groaned against her mouth, unable to control the fierce thrusting movement of his body.

‘I wanted to do this slowly, to make it special for you, but you’re making it impossible for me to think of anything but how much I want you.’

Campion shivered, the words arousing her almost as much as his touch. This was a dream, it had to be, and she gave herself up to the pleasure of it voluptuously, arching her body sinuously to Guy’s touch, feeling pleasure and power flow through her as he responded to her allure.

‘You’re beautiful, even more beautiful than I’d imagined.’ His hand cupped her breast, and Campion tensed for a moment as he looked down at her, to where his hand lay against the paleness of her own flesh.

‘Beautiful,’ he repeated huskily, and Campion gasped as he bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth.

She had never experienced a sensation like it. Her whole body convulsed on a wave of feeling so strong that, for a moment, it almost frightened her.

A woman’s instinct she had not known she possessed told her that Guy was dangerously close to losing control. She touched him tentatively, stroking the narrow curve of his hip and the flat plane of his belly. She felt the harsh rasp of hair against her fingertips. It was an electrifying sensation. Instinctively, her fingers drifted downwards, and then stilled as she realised just what she was doing.

‘My God! What is it you’re trying to do to me?’

She froze as she heard the harsh, almost anguished words. Guy moved, looking down at her. He looked angry, and she shivered, all her old uncertainties sweeping back. She had hurt him somehow, done something he didn’t like. She felt confused and ignorant. It was ridiculous at her age to know so little about male sexuality. Craig had never encouraged her to touch him.

‘I—I didn’t mean to hurt you…’

Tears weren’t far away, but she fought them back.

‘Hurt me?’ She could feel Guy’s tension. He muttered something under his breath, and she felt her skin almost hurt with embarrassment. Then suddenly the tension seemed to leave him, and his hands were moving over her body, stroking her, caressing her, catching her up in a tide of sensation that allowed her to do nothing other than feel.

She felt the arousing stroke of Guy’s fingers against her inner thigh, and she held her breath, aching with an unfamiliar tension, an unknown need. She wanted… She gasped in protest as his hand moved away and then touched her again. She could feel his mouth moving softly against her shoulder, but neither sensation was what she wanted. She wanted… Her body started to shake, her throat tight with the effort of controlling the soft moans of need she was having to suppress. She moved, trying to tell Guy without words what it was she wanted, but he seemed oblivious to her need.

Then, so suddenly that it was almost shocking, he released her, bracing his hands flat against the bed on either side of her as he said quietly, ‘You weren’t hurting me, Campion, at least, not the way you meant. That was what you were dong to me—what I was just doing to you.’

She stared up at him, not knowing what to say, and then humiliation overwhelmed her. What kind of woman was she that she didn’t even know, that she had to be shown… She made a tiny sound of self-disgust and tried to turn away, but Guy wouldn’t let her.

He took her back in his arms and stroked her sensitive skin until she was pleading with him in breathless, husky whispers to end her torment, reaching out for him, touching him, sobbing in a mixture of triumph and release as he cried out her name and finally let go of the control he had used to keep them both in check.