He had seen the bruises on Christa’s body. If he touched her now, held her, kissed her, there was no way he was going to be able to be as gentle and restrained as she needed him to be. Even kissing her so briefly just now, he had had to fight to hold back the urge to crush his mouth down on hers, her body beneath his.
He had never dreamed he could be the victim of such primeval instincts and needs. He had never come even close to feeling anything like this before—but then he’d never been in love before.
* * *
Christa frowned as she walked into the silent, empty kitchen. It had taken her longer to shower and dress than she had anticipated, her arms aching by the time she had shampooed and dried her hair, to such an extent that, instead of dressing properly as she had planned, she had simply pulled on a big, loose, soft shirt. It covered her from throat to knees, after all, the pale triangle of the cotton briefs she had on beneath it barely visible. And if it was possible—just—to make out the dark areolae of her nipples against the paler flesh of her breasts, well, surely she and Daniel had now reached a stage in their relationship, had a degree of intimacy between them which, even if they were not actually as yet lovers, meant that he would understand that her mode of dress had nothing to do with enticement or provocation; that her fall had affected her more physically than she had wanted to admit.
Where was Daniel, though? She opened the kitchen door and walked back into the hallway. His study door was open and she could see a light on inside the room. Calling out his name, she pushed open the door and walked inside, stopping abruptly as she saw him. He was seated in his chair—fast asleep.
A wave of love and tenderness rolled over her as she watched him. Impulsively she walked over to him, dropping down on her knees beside him, saying his name softly.
He muttered something in his sleep but didn’t wake up properly. The light from the fire played across his face, revealing its strong bone-structure. Christa reached out and touched him, tenderly tracing the shape of his face. Love and longing filled her, along with a deep sense of gratitude to fate and to Daniel himself.
A less tolerant, less understanding man would not have been so patient with her, so…so caring. Daniel had a strength which she suspected few other men could match. She could depend on him utterly, she recognised, trust herself to him completely and without reservation.
Hot tears filled her eyes as she slowly leaned forward and gently kissed his mouth.
The first few buttons of his shirt were unfastened and she slid her hand inside it, taking comfort from the warmth of his flesh against her palm, the steady rise and fall of his chest as she leaned her head against it. It felt so right being here with him like this. He felt so right.
Lovingly she stroked the strong column of his throat with her fingertips and then replaced them with her mouth, a caress which began as a tribute to him as a very special human being, but which changed with deceptive speed to something far more intense and sensual as her body suddenly registered its desire for him and its reaction to the scent and taste of him.
Helplessly Christa surrendered to the need pulsing through her, her lips clinging to the warmth of his skin as she caressed first his throat and then his shoulder, her hands impatiently pushing aside the barrier of his shirt as she drank in the scent of him and moved closer to him, her own shirt dragging against her body, exerting a brief pressure on her breasts that made them ache sensitively for the firmer stimulation of Daniel’s hands.
Christa shuddered deeply, her eyes closing as she visualised him touching her, removing her shirt and then cupping her breasts lovingly in his hands, his eyes looking deeply into hers as he slowly stroked the sensitive peaks of her nipples. She could feel the heat and desire her own thoughts were generating right down deep, down within her body.
Shocked by it, she instinctively sought to subdue it, pressing herself closer to Daniel, steadying herself by placing a supporting hand on his thigh, an instinctive and unthinking action, unplanned and automatic; but when her fingertips relayed to her the information that even in sleep Daniel’s body was aware of her, it wasn’t shock that made her fingertips linger for a startled heartbeat on the rigid swell beneath his jeans.
The ache within her body intensified as she fought down the temptation to run her fingertips caressingly over him—and not just her fingertips, she acknowledged as her heartbeat alternated between a fast, dizzy racing and a slower heavier thud.
Bemused by the unfamiliar extent of her own sensuality, she didn’t even realise what she was doing with the hand she had lifted from his thigh until the shirt she had unfastened fell away from her body, revealing the swollen firmness of her breasts and the silky sheen of her skin.
Slowly she unfastened the buttons of Daniel’s shirt as well, breathing in sharply as she studied the bronzed strength of his chest, with its soft arrowing of dark hair. She touched it experimentally, marvelling at the combination of hard, warm flesh and soft, silky hair and then, helpless with longing for him, she leaned forward, burying her face against him, breathing in the scent of him, slowly kissing her way up over his breastbone until she reached his throat, until the swollen peaks of her breasts were only a breath away from the naked warmth of his chest.
All she had to do was to release the breath held pent up in her lungs and the gap between them would be closed.
A small frantic moan bubbled in her throat as she suppressed the desire to rub herself against him, the need to feel his flesh, his body, against hers. Quickly she kissed his throat instead, tracing the line of his jaw, the shape of his mouth…his sleep-closed eyes.
Only his eyes weren’t closed any more.
Embarrassed, guilty heat poured through her body as she suddenly realised what she was doing.
‘When…when did you wake up?’ she asked him in a suffocated, faltering voice.
‘Am I awake?’ Daniel groaned. ‘I thought I must be dreaming.’ He saw her flushed face and reached out and touched her cheekbone with one finger. ‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ he told her huskily. ‘I can’t think of a more sensual compliment a woman could pay a man than the one you’ve just paid me.’
In her embarrassment Christa had already started to lift her body away from him, but Daniel’s hands on her arm stopped her, his thighs closing around her, trapping her.
Christa trembled as she saw the way he was looking at her, his study of her slow and heart-rockingly sensual as he took his time, his glance lingering for so long on her mouth that she gave a small erotic shiver, nervously wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, but that was nothing to the sensation that poured through her as he fixed his attention on her breasts.
‘I didn’t mean…I just wanted…I never…’she began to stammer, her whole body beginning to burn with the heat of the way he was looking at her, of her own knowledge of just what his concentrated study of her was doing to her.
‘You don’t have to apologise, Christa…or explain,’ he told her softly as he lowered his head towards her body. ‘If you feel for me just one tenth of the need I feel for you right now…’
Christa gasped out aloud, her whole body arching in sensual shock as his lips closed delicately over one nipple. She had fantasised about him caressing her like this, but the fantasy came nowhere near being anything like the reality.
With his hands splayed across her back, under her shirt, supporting her, Christa found herself arching back in an almost pagan pose of abandonment to the unbearably erotic movement of his mouth against her body.
The firelight highlighted the creamy paleness of her body, threw into relief the outline of her breasts and the darkness of Daniel’s head against them.
When she cried out in sharp, high arousal, he released her nipple gently. Christa shuddered as she looked down at her body and saw the damp gleam of her own sensually transformed flesh.
A fine sensual shudder rippled through her body, as though it had been touched by the lightest breath of air. In the pressure of Daniel’s hands against her skin
she could feel the fiercely controlled force of his naked desire; see it in the glitter of his eyes.
‘Oh, God, Christa,’ Daniel moaned as he leaned forward, his face hot and damp against her skin as he pressed his open mouth against her belly, his tongue circling her navel. ‘I want you…I want all of you,’ he told her throatily as his hands slid to her thighs.
‘No, Daniel. Wait…Please…there is something…Take off your jeans,’ she whispered shakily, her colour mounting as he lifted his head and looked at her, her words shocking her almost as much as they had evidently surprised him; but there was no recalling them now, and besides…
‘I want to see you, Daniel,’ she told him. ‘I want to touch you, to…’ Hesitantly she reached out and let her fingertips rest lightly against his jeans-clad thigh. She trembled visibly, wondering if she had gone too far, if the complete stillness of Daniel’s body meant that he was turned off by her almost aggressive sensuality. She had never felt like this before, never experienced any desire to touch a man, caress him as she was doing now with Daniel.
‘Please…’ she begged achingly, her whole body suffused with colour and heat.
‘You’re supposed to be resting,’ Daniel protested, but she could see from his eyes what her whispered plea was doing to him, and when he reached for his zip his hand was trembling almost as much as hers had done.
He undressed quickly, almost matter-of-factly, without either embarrassment or vanity, accepting her silent study of him with its uniquely feminine blend of bold anticipation and shy, tender awe. Only once did he hesitate, pausing to look at her and say gruffly, ‘I thought I knew all there was to know about being a man, about my own sexuality, but the way you’re looking at me right now…’
Christa could see in his eyes his love for her. It removed the last of her defensive barriers, her voice catching with emotion as she told him bravely, ‘You’re so beautiful, Daniel.’
‘Beautiful? Oh, Christa…’ His body shook slightly as he laughed ruefully. ‘Now I know why they say love is blind.’
‘Not blind,’ Christa assured him. ‘Just the opposite, in fact, and you are beautiful to me, Daniel. Inwardly as well as outwardly…I would still love you for the person you are even if you didn’t look like this,’ she told him quietly, huskily, her eyes blurring slightly with tears as she leaned forward and gently kissed the inside of his thigh.
‘Christa…’
She heard the warning in his voice—and ignored it-as the desire she had kept so carefully controlled suddenly erupted hotly inside her, and, by the time Daniel had lifted her to her feet, standing up with his arms wrapped lightly around her, her body pressed close to his, silencing her soft protests with the urgent, passionate demand of his mouth, she was openly trembling with the force of her need for him.