He waited for the panic, the rejection, but Summer sat frozen, completely rigid. He moved his hand slowly, cupping, stroking, trying to tell her with his quiet touch that she didn’t have to be afraid of him. He wanted to bury his face in her breasts, to suck so hard on her nipples that she cried out in pleasure and pain, begging him to suck her elsewhere. But if it took every ounce of willpower he had, he would force himself to hold back. She had been his dream for as long as he could recall, and he wasn’t going to destroy this chance. He would prove to her he wasn’t the savage she feared.
At his gentleness, Summer closed her eyes in wonder. The lean, callused hand was so hard, so very strong. Frighteningly strong. Shouldn’t I be afraid? she thought with bewilderment. But there was nothing startling about Lance’s touch. Instead, the heat of his palm against her flesh was stirring, arousing, exciting. Her budded nipple throbbed almost painfully. She wanted to press her breast into his hand, to offer him more of herself.
As if he could read her mind, Lance brought his other arm around her body, to fondle her left nipple. Summer gave a soft, involuntary murmur of approval. She could hear his breath in her ear, as shallow and rapid as her own, feel the pulse of his heart against her back, the scalding heat of his bare chest against her skin. The quiet heat affected her strangely. Slowly, moment by moment, she felt her tense, rigid muscles soften, grow weak.
With a breath of a sigh, she relaxed back against him. She was so tired…so tired of fighting, of being strong. But she had someone to lean on now. She closed her eyes.
When, a moment later, through a daze, she heard Lance say in a husky half whisper, “Lie down, princess,” she didn’t protest. Obediently she did as he wanted.
Lance shifted so that he was wedged against the wall, giving her room on the narrow cot, and gently turned Summer to lie full length on her back. Her naked body was fully open to his gaze, his for the taking.
Slowly, though, carefully, he stretched out on the cot beside her. He was half-afraid to do more for fear he’d attack her. The way he was feeling right now—his body throbbing, his erection stiff as a poker and on fire for her—he was liable to explode. God, he wanted her. But he had to go slow, he had to force himself to wait.
Lassoing his control, he searched her upturned face. Her eyes were green and questioning, her lips soft and parted and vulnerable. He’d had so little softness and warmth and beauty in his life, he didn’t know what to do with it now. He didn’t know how to show a woman tenderness…
If Summer had been a mare, he would know how to act. He knew how to gentle a wild mare. In taming a mustang, a Comanche would breathe into her nostrils, make her learn his breath in order to claim mastery. He could make Summer learn his breath, accept his touch.
With quiet determination, Lance bent his head and covered her mouth with his. When his tongue slid between her lips, he felt her stiffen for the barest instant, but then she parted for him, letting him thrust deeper.
He kissed her for a while, letting her grow accustomed to the taste of him, letting her feel the press of his body now and then, the caress of his palm as he kneaded her breast. In a while, when he finally felt she was ready, he moved his lips from her mouth to her chin, the slim column of her throat, the delicate line of her collarbone, and lower.
She made a gasping sound deep in her throat when his mouth claimed her nipple, but she didn’t try to pull away. He set to work suckling her, first gently, then harder…then soft again, changing the rhythm, the method of torment…drawing back to blow on the wet, glistening bud, raking the pebbled peak lightly with his teeth, his tongue licking and soothing where he’d hurt. She was breathing hard by the time he let his hand move down her silky body, to cup between her legs.
Her sharp gasp made him raise his head and whisper against her lips, “No, don’t tense up. I’m just going to touch you.... This’ll make it easier for you to take me.”
She seemed to relax against her will, and lay there passively as he stroked the feminine cleft between her thighs. In a minute, though, he could feel the sexual tension begin to grow in her body.
He kept up his tender assault, readying her for him…probing her secrets gently…thrusting his middle finger slowly inside her, deeper, deeper…then withdrawing, only to thrust again…wetting his finger with her pearly dew and letting it glide over the aching center of her womanhood…rubbing the hard little nub with exquisite concentration. After a few moments the hairpins in Summer’s grasp slipped unheeded from her fingers, and she raised her hands to clutch his shoulders.
When finally he heard her soft whimper of pleasure, Lance felt a surge of desire so powerful, he thought he might shatter. He shifted his weight then, moving his denim-covered knee to ride intimately between her thighs, pressing hard against her crotch. As he’d wanted, her hips began to thrust erratically against the pressure.
“Lance…?” Her voice was a whisper of confusion. “What…are you doing to me? I’m so hot…”
“That’s okay, princess,” he said hoarsely. “What you’re feeling is good. Move against my leg…ride me.”
Summer closed her eyes against the fierce heat flaring within her, consuming her, against the fierce, unbearable ache between her trembling thighs. She felt so feverish, so wild. She had to get closer to him or she would die—and Lance seemed to know it. He had gripped her squirming hips in his powerful hands, forcing her to accept the hard pressure of his rocking thigh, the rasping friction that was driving her mad.
Suddenly, helplessly, her entire body went rigid. Desperately she clutched at the muscles of his sleek shoulders and let out a strangled cry at the brutal rush of feeling, the savage fire that streaked through her, but she was powerless against the fierce sensations, the passion that seemed to be tearing her apart. Frantically she arched against Lance as her body shuddered violently.
“Easy…” she heard him whisper roughly in her ear. “Easy, princess.”
She couldn’t possibly have responded; her breath rasped in her throat as she tried to draw in air.
Lance didn’t say a word; he only held her, his damp forehead pressed against hers as he waited for the explosion of ecstasy to pass.
Eventually, when she regained awareness and could feel again, she realized his lips were feathering over hers, across her cheekbones, her eyes, her temple. All the while he was murmuring to her in a strange tongue, whispering to her softly. It had to be Comanche. She might not understand the words, but she couldn’t mistake the tone…his voice tender and caressing as a lover, not the cold, heartless stranger she had feared.
Still dazed, she felt his hard body shift as he reached down and unbuttoned his pants and drawers. Felt the thick pulsing heat of him as
his rigid flesh sprang free of the confining denim and knitted cotton.
Summer knew a moment of panic as that swollen granite shaft brushed against her bare thigh, but then she realized Lance was looking at her, demanding in a hoarse voice that she look at him.
“Summer?” His hot, dark eyes holding her gaze, he ran his fingers slowly, deliberately, over her lips, dipping in between, making her taste her own essence. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No…” She could barely get the rasped reply past the dryness in her throat.
“You know we’re not finished?”