Slave to Love

Silence fell. Having to brace herself for what was coming next, Roberta turned to face him. At last he was beginning to look a little frayed around the edges. A dark frown intensified the brooding beauty of his eyes and his mouth was turned downwards—not sulky but tense, as though he was having difficulty holding it under some sort of control—harrowing enough to reach in and squeeze that weak part of her that loved him so badly.

‘Come home,’ he said gruffly.

Her heart squeezed again in wretched reply to that rough-voiced plea. But her eyes remained unmoved as they held on to his.

‘No.’ She shook her head, damp tendrils of silky hair clinging to her unhappy face. ‘No, Mac. You and I want different things out of life. If I let you talk me into coming back, then I would be living a lie to myself, and I just can’t do that any longer.’

‘What lie?’ he rasped, striding across the room until he was standing right in front of her. His hand came up to cup her cheek, the thumb sliding beneath her chin to lift it up so that he could look fiercely into her eyes. ‘You still want me,’ he claimed. ‘And that’s no lie!’

‘Yes,’ she sighed, not bothering to deny it, especially when he must be able to feel the way her pulses were leaping at even the simplest touch from him. ‘But what do you want, Mac?’ she asked him sadly. ‘Me, the whole person, with a mind and feelings to consider—or just the body that responds so excitingly to yours?’

‘My body responds to you in the exact same way,’ he countered huskily. ‘You think I do all the taking, but we take from each other. All the time, every time.’ He moved his fingers in a feather-like caress over her skin that sent sweet sensations of delight sprinkling through her. ‘Even this,’ he murmured as she let go a shaky sigh. ‘Such a light caress, yet it’s enough to make you quiver with pleasure, and my fingers are tingling as if they’re touching the most exquisite substance ever.’ His other hand came up, sliding around the back of her neck to tip her head gently. ‘I only have to look at you to want you, and I know it’s the same with you. We’re good together!’ he stated with soft ferocity. ‘Why are you trying to throw it all away?’

Why? Roberta closed her eyes, trying to shut out the dark flame burning in his eyes. He was right. Every word he had said was oh, so true! But that wasn’t all of it, was it? This wild, wanting sexual need assuaged only one small part of her aching soul—what about the rest?

‘I want more,’ she told him thickly. ‘I need more from you, Mac.’

‘More of what, for God’s sake?’ he ground out. ‘More of this?’

With an angry tug, he took hold of her robe and wrenched the two pieces of towelling apart to expose her shoulders and the smooth slopes of her creamy breasts. Her gasp of protest was lost in the angry way he hooked an arm around her waist to pull her lower body against him then lifted the other hand to her breasts. His fingertips only had to brush lightly across her sensitive nipples to have them springing into tight, tingling buds of life. He lifted dark and smoky, passionately hungry eyes to hers in silent challenge and she groaned, shaking her head in mute denial, her soft mouth drawn tensely back against her teeth to stop herself from responding.

It was a test. She acknowledged that as she stood stock-still in front of him and tried her damnedest to fight his deliberate onslaught on her senses. And, because she fought him, the caresses went on and on until her flesh began to quiver, her breathing so erratic that it sent her heart stuttering out of rhythm and she had to clench her whole body to stop herself giving in to the urge to let her spine begin a supple arch towards him, which would be the first sign of her impending surrender.

But she managed—managed right up until the moment when he brought his mouth into the battle. And then it became a living hell, if only because she knew she just didn’t have it in her to fight those wonderful lips. And the blood began singing in her head as his tongue curled sensually around her own, her body arched, and her arms went helplessly up around his neck.

‘God in heaven, woman!’ he muttered hotly as he drew away from her clinging mouth. ‘Don’t you know we already attain the ultimate? Any more of your more and we’d risk dying!’

‘Sex!’ she choked out wretchedly, her green eyes opening to flash him a bitter look. ‘Do you have to bring everything down to sex?’

‘It’s what we have!’ he rasped. ‘And a hell of a lot more than most people ever know! And you,’ he warned, ‘are lying to yourself if you try to dismiss all this as nothing!’

‘I am not dismissing it,’ she denied, her body trembling as she tried to back out of his possessive grasp. ‘But on its own it isn’t enough!’

‘It has to be enough!’ he said thickly. ‘Because I can’t offer you more, and you’re fooling yourself if you think you can walk away from it.’

And, to prove his point, his mouth took hers with such devastating power that she melted—melted like wax on a burning candle, melted to his kiss, to the feel of his hands as they fumbled with the knot on her robe then thrust the fabric away. Melted to the raw, sensual feel of her naked flesh pressing against the roughness of his clothes. Melted as he moved his hands urgently down her body, the caress filling her limbs with a dark resonant warmth that had her clinging weakly to him as those knowing fingers glided over her baby-soft skin until they reached her hips where they curved possessively, holding her firm in front of him so that he could thrust his own hips against her in a sweet, pulsing rhythm of need.

He was as aroused as she was, and that made her melt all the more. This kiss was like no other they had ever shared—hot and hungry, so hungry that she couldn’t seem to get enough of him and took his head between her hands, drawing him closer with tense, trembling fingers. The action had her body stretching, arching, a tight sting of pleasure rushing through her as her naked breasts rubbed against his heaving chest, her nipples tight and throbbing.

And she felt like easy meat to the ravaging hunter.

But, worse, she didn’t car

e.

‘You want me,’ Mac claimed thickly.

‘Yes.’ She didn’t even try to deny it. He was already caressing her so intimately that he had to know anyway. But conceding that much did not mean she liked herself for it, because she didn’t, and along with the shame of knowing how easy she was for him came the burst of anger—the kind of anger born of hot, sweet passion—and on a surge of pure animal revenge she slid one of her own hands down his body to touch him, felt his violent surge of pleasure and dragged her mouth from his so that she could flare at him in triumph. ‘And you want me!’ she claimed, the words scraping huskily over her love-dried throat.

‘I’m not the one trying to deny it,’ he gritted. ‘You are!’

‘Oh!’ she groaned as he moved his fingers in an intimate caress that set her whole body shuddering in response. ‘You swine!’ she whispered helplessly.

‘For making you feel this good?’ Mac smiled a lazy smile that was full of sensual triumph. ‘I can make you feel even better,’ he murmured temptingly against her parted mouth. ‘Here and now, or preferably back in Chelsea, where we won’t be disturbed. You only have to say the word...’

The word. The word was ‘yes’—that was all—just one simple word and he would carry her away and all of this would be forgotten. It even hovered on the tip of her tongue, urged there by his knowing caresses and the devastating tenderness of his kiss.

He did an unexpected thing then. Instead of consolidating on the victory he was having over her senses, he pulled away, kissed her once more very gently on the mouth, and carefully folded her robe back around her body. Then he took hold of her hand and guided it back to his own ardently pulsing body. ‘You,’ he whispered roughly. ‘Only you. Come home to me, bunny rabbit. Don’t make me beg.’