Диана Палмер – Man of the Hour: Night Of Love (страница 8)

His mouth touched her forehead. His breath was a little unsteady. So was hers.

“Let me unhook it, Meg. I want you in my mouth.”

This had always been his sharpest weapon, this way of talking to her that made her body burn with dark, wicked desires. Her forehead rested against his chin while his fingers quickly disposed of three small hooks. She felt the cool air on her body even as he moved her back and looked down, his posture suddenly stiff and poised, controlled.

“My God.” It was reverent, the way he spoke, the way he looked at her. His hands contracted on her shoulders as if he were afraid that she might vanish.

“I let you look at me…that last night,” she whispered unsteadily. “And you went to her!”

“No. No,” he whispered, bending his head. “No, Meg!”

His mouth fastened on her taut nipple and he groaned as he lifted her, turned her, suckling her in a silence that blazed with tension and promise.

Her fingers gripped his thick hair and held on while his mouth gave her the most intense pleasure she’d ever known. He’d tried to kiss her this way that long-ago night and she’d fought him. It had been too much for her already overloaded senses and, coupled with his raging arousal and the sudden determination of his weight on her body, she’d panicked. But she was older now, with four years of abstinence to heighten her need, strip her nerves raw. She was starved for him.

His mouth fed on her while his fingers traced around the firm softness he was enjoying. She felt his tongue, his teeth, the slow suction that seemed to draw the heart right out of her body. She shuddered, helpless, anguished, as the ardent pressure of his mouth only made the hunger grow.

He felt her tremble and slowly lifted his head.

“Noo…!” She choked, clutching at him, trying to draw his mouth back to her body. “Steve…please…please!”

He drew her face into his throat and held her, his arms punishing, his breath as ragged as her own.

“Please!” she sobbed, clinging.

“Here…!” He fought the buttons of his shirt open and dragged her inside it, pressing her close to him, so that her bare breasts were rubbing against the thick hair on his chest, teasing his tense muscles. “Meg,” he breathed tenderly. “Oh, Meg, Meg…!” His hands found their way around her, sweeping down her bare back in long, hungry caresses that made the intimacy even more dangerous, more threatening.

Her mouth pressed soft kisses into his throat, his neck, his collarbone, and she felt the need like a knife.

He turned her head and kissed her again, a long, slow, deep kiss that never seemed to end while around them the night darkened and the wind blew.

Somewhere in the middle of it, she began to cry—great, broken sobs of guilt and grief and unappeased hunger. He held her, cradled her against him, his eyes as anguished as his unsatisfied body. But slowly, finally, the desire in both of them began to relax.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered, kissing the tears from her eyes. “It was inevitable.”

She turned her face so that he could kiss the other side of it, her eyes closed while she savored the rare, exquisite tenderness.

When she felt his lips reluctantly draw away, she opened her eyes and looked into his. They were soft, just for her, just for the moment. Soft and hungry, and somehow violent.

“You’re untouched,” he said huskily, his face setting into hard, familiar lines. “Even here.” His hand smoothed over her bare, swollen breast and as if the feel of it drove him mad, he bent his head and tenderly drew his lips over it, breathing in the scent of her body. “Totally, absolutely untouched.”

“I…can’t feel like this with any other man,” she confessed, shaken to her soul by what they were sharing. “I can’t bear another man’s eyes to touch me, much less his hands.”

His breath drew in raggedly. “Why in God’s name did you leave, damn you?”

“I was afraid!”

“Of this?” His mouth opened over her nipple and she cried out at the flash of pleasure it gave her to feel it so intimately.

“I was a virgin,” she gasped.

“You still are.” He drew her across him, one big hand gathering her hips blatantly into the hard thrust of his, holding her there while he searched her eyes. “And you’re still afraid,” he said finally, watching the shocked apprehension grow on her face. “Terrified of intimacy with me.”

She swallowed, then swallowed again. Her eyes dropped to his bare chest. “Not…of that.”

“Then what?”

His body throbbed. She could feel the heat and power of it and she felt faint with the knowledge of how desperately he wanted her. “Steven, my sister died in childbirth.”

“Yes, I know. Your father told me. It was such a private thing, I didn’t feel it was my place to ask questions. I just know she was twelve years older than you.”

She looked up at him. “She was…like me,” she whispered slowly. “Thin and slender, not very big in the hips at all. They lived up north. It snowed six feet the winter she was ready to deliver and her husband couldn’t get her to a hospital in time. She died. So did the baby.” Meg hesitated, nibbling her lower lip. “Childbirth is difficult for the women in my family. My mother had to have a cesarean section when I was born. I was very sheltered and after my sister died, mother made it sound as if pregnancy would be a death sentence for me, too. She made me terrified of getting pregnant,” she added miserably, hiding her face from him.

He eased his intimate hold on her, stunned. His hand guided her cheek to his broad, hair-roughened chest and he held her there, letting her feel the heat of his body, the heavy slam of his heart under her ear.

“We never discussed this.”

“I was very young, as you said,” she replied, closing her eyes. “I couldn’t tell you. It was so intimate a thing to say, and I was already overwhelmed by you physically. Every time you touched me, I went light-headed and hot and shaky all over.” Her eyes closed. “I still do.”

His fingers tangled gently in her hair, comforting now instead of arousing. “I could have reassured you, if you’d only told me.”

“Perhaps.” She nuzzled her cheek against him. “But I had terrors of getting pregnant, and you came on very strong that night. The argument…seemed like a reprieve at the time. You told me to get out, and then you took Daphne to a public place so that it would be in all the papers. I told myself that choosing dancing made more sense than choosing you. It made it easier to go away.”

He lifted his head, staring out the darkened window. Seconds later, he looked down at her, his eyes lingering on her breasts.

She smiled sadly. “You don’t believe me, do you? You’re still bitter, Steven.”

“You don’t think I’m entitled to be?”

She shifted against him, her eyes adoring his hard face, totally at peace with him even in this intimacy now. “I didn’t think you cared enough to be hurt.”

“I didn’t,” he agreed readily. “But my pride took a few blows.”

“Nicole said you got drunk…”

He smiled cruelly. “Did she add that I was with Daphne at the time?”

She stiffened, hating him.

His warm hand covered her breast blatantly, feeling her heartbeat race even through her anger. He searched her eyes. “I still want you,” he said flatly. “More than ever.”

She knew it. His face was alive with desire. “It wouldn’t be wise,” she said quietly. “As you once said, Steven, addictions are best avoided.”

“You flatter yourself if you think I’m crazy enough to become addicted to you again,” he said with a faintly mocking smile as all the anguish of those four years sat on him.

Meg was arrested by his expression. The mention of the past seemed to have brought all the bitterness back, all the anger. She didn’t know what to say. “Steven…”

His hand pressed closer, warm against her bare skin in the faint chill of the car. “Your ballet company needs money. All right, Meg,” he said softly. “I’ll get you out of the hole.”

“You will!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, yes. I’ll be your company angel. But there’s a price.”

His voice was too silky. She felt the apprehension as if it were tangible. “What is the price?” she asked.

“Can’t you figure it out?” he asked with faint hauteur in his smile. “Then I’ll tell you. Sleep with me. Give me one night, Meg, to get you out of my system. And in return, I’ll give you back your precious dancing.”

4

Meg spent a long, sleepless night agonizing over Steven’s proposal. She couldn’t really believe that he’d said such a thing, or that he’d actually expected her to agree. How could his feverish ardor have turned to contempt in so short a time? It must be as she thought: he wanted nothing more than revenge because she’d run out on him. Even her explanation had fallen on deaf ears. Or perhaps he hadn’t wanted to believe it. And hadn’t he been just as much at fault, after all? He was the one who’d sent her away. He’d told her to get out of his life.

She wished now that she’d reminded him of that fact more forcibly. But his slowly drawled insult had made her forget everything. She’d torn out of his arms, putting her clothes to rights with trembling hands while he laughed harshly at her efforts.

“That was cruel, Steven,” she’d said hoarsely, glaring at him when she was finally presentable again.