He was right, darn him. Only she had no time to dwell on that fact because his mouth finished its descent and locked to hers with rock-solid possession. This was no tentative kiss, no prelude to seduction, but the thing itself. In living, glorious color that had starbursts going off inside her and her brain going into a meltdown.
And she went under just as he’d predicted she would. Without a whimper of protest. Without so much as a token attempt to push him away. And she couldn’t even claim it was because her hands were trapped between them because he immediately uncrossed her arms for her so that he could get closer with his big, hard body.
She might have been embarrassed if she wasn’t enjoying the kiss so much. But nothing had ever felt so right. Well, nothing except his kisses. It had been this way since the very first one. She’d acknowledged then what she knew now. She belonged here, in his arms. Whether he felt a corresponding need, she did not know, but she craved his touch.
Did he sense it? Was that why he was so sure of himself? Of course he did…he was too world savvy not to. But none of that explained whyhe wanted to marryher .
CHAPTER FOUR
EVEN THOSE THOUGHTSsplintered as his tongue demanded and received entrance into her mouth. His taste intoxicated her and she let him pull her firmly into his body, reveling in the electric charge of contact when her breasts pressed against his chest.
She pulled at his shirt and then scrabbled for buttons, hungry for the feel of his hot skin. They came undone despite the clumsiness of her fumbling fingers and she luxuriated in the silky dark curls that swirled over his chest. He was such a masculine man…everything about him screamingprime specimen of the male of their species.
His muscles were granite hard against her exploring fingertips. His sheer size both intimidated and aroused her feminine sensuality.
He made a growling sound in his throat and dragged her into his lap. Planned or not, his desire for her pulsed between them as he had promised it would. She could not deny the harsh reality of his erection pressed against her thigh or the way the hands holding her trembled against her own flesh shimmering with sensation.
But it was so much more than mere physical feeling. She loved this man and her heart craved this intimate connection as fervently as her body.
His hands slid over the silk of her dress, caressing her curves and inciting feelings that never ceased to shock her. This was what passion was supposed to feel like—not forced, not muted, but so full, so real that every atom in her body shimmered with delight. His hand skimmed up her calf, taking the dress with it and baring her legs to him. He stopped when his fingertips brushed the apex of her thighs through the sheer lace of her panties.
He groaned and pulled his lips from hers. So he could see what he had touched. “Very sexy.”
She couldn’t form a word to respond. She looked down at herself, sprawled in abandon across his thighs, her legs spread slightly, her thighs quivering with need. She could smell her own musk and rather than embarrass her, it excited her further to think she could respond so totally to this man’s kiss.
His bronzed chest gleamed under the muted light cast by the single torchère lamp she’d left on for her return home. His dark body was such a contrast to hers that she was lost in the visual pleasure for long moments.
“I’d like to see you in front of a fireplace, lying naked on a thick rug. Aroused,” she said, shocking herself as she admitted one of her favorite nighttime fantasies out loud.
He didn’t look taken aback, though; he looked interested. “There is a fireplace in my bedroom. After we are married, I will be very pleased to see that you get your wish.”
“I haven’t said I’ll marry you.” Where the wit to say so came from, she didn’t know, but she suspected that self-preservation was as instinctual as sexual intimacy.
“You will.”
“Maybe.”
He chose that moment to slide his finger up and down along the edge of the scrap of fabric that covered her feminine center. She moaned and arched toward his touch, wanting him to move his finger just a fraction of an inch to the left.
He repeated the caress, his expression feral. “I will convince you.”
“You can try,” she invited, one hand diving to cup the hardness that proved his desire was every bit as real as hers.
She was not a bold lover, but it was imperative for her newly discovered feelings to make him acknowledge, if only tacitly, that this was far from one-sided.
He gasped and then cursed and it was her turn to smile.
Pleasure zinged through her at his response. Perhaps her lack of boldness in the past was because her single sexual liaison had occurred when she was barely nineteen. Her previous lover had been older and a whole lot more experienced than she.