But then she took him in her hand and he knew it was
she
who had the power to make his heart stop beating. His breath clogged in his throat, then eased out on a long, shuddering groan when, with a hesitant, untutored caress, she explored and tortured and drove him to a new level of desperation.
He grew rigidly still above her, fighting for control, holding himself together by a tether no stronger than a length of silk thread.
“Make me your wife,” she murmured, and lifted her hands to his hair. With her eyes holding his, she tugged the black ribbon free. His hair spilled over his shoulders, pooled in black drifts across the rosy tips of her breasts.
She threaded it through her fingers, caressing its length with a lover’s touch. Bringing a handful to her face, she closed her eyes and breathed in its scent.
“Make me your wife,” she said again, her green eyes dark and dancing as she pulled him down. Down into her heat Deep into her arms and made a place for him between her thighs.
He hadn’t known he’d been beaten. He hadn’t guessed that a woman so small could destroy his will with whispered words and a silken touch.
She had the strength now. She had the power. He surrendered to it willingly. Gave it over with a long, slow stroke...and discovered the exquisite, searing pleasure of defeat.
On a sharp, indrawn breath she arched against him, welcoming him home, taking him deep, as he buried himself in sleek, wet heat and tight, clenching muscle. He ceased to exist past the feel of her. She was liquid fire surrounding him. She was shivery sighs and soft, trembling flesh beneath him.
If he could stay inside her forever, it wouldn’t be long enough. His fear was that if he withdrew he’d find out it was all a dream. But then she moved beneath him. She sighed his name, whispered a lover’s plea. And he was lost.
He pumped once, twice, and with an oath of denial, gave in to the rush that came far too soon. His climax was violent. Consuming. Complete. He rocked his hips against hers, extending the pleasure, deepening the contact to the sound of her own stunned cry of release, the taste of her on his tongue and the clutch of her fingers in his hair.
Eight
L
ong after he’d rolled to his back and away from her, long after he’d drifted into a sprawling, sated sleep, Mackenzie lay in his bed and watched the moonlight dancing through the window.
A hundred feelings feathered and floated around in her head, competing for and tangling with a delicious sense of weightless suspension. Excitement. Embarrassment. Wonder. Elation. She turned her head on the pillow and watched her husband sleep.
Love.
Hope.
He was wrong. He was
so
wrong. She
didn’t
give her trust too easily. And he wasn’t immune to the urgings of his heart. He couldn’t have made love to her so sweetly, with such exquisite attention to her needs, if he didn’t care.
She felt herself flush with the remembered heat, the intimate touch of his hands and his mouth. Her gaze strayed to his powerfully muscled body—to that part of him that was covered by a drift of white sheet and moonlight—and she wanted him again. The strength of her need stunned her.
She’d never thought of herself as a sensual person. And she’d never dreamed she could have given herself so wantonly to any man. But Abel Greene wasn’t any man. He was
her
man, and she was going to do everything in her power to take care of the needs of his heart—just as she intended to take care of the needs of his body.
She wasn’t going to have the strength to accomplish either, though, if she didn’t get something to eat. She needed nourishment. Soon. She’d been too jittery to eat much of the wonderful wedding feast Scarlett and Maggie had prepared, and the toast and coffee she’d had for breakfast that morning had worn off long ago.
Easing carefully out of bed so she wouldn’t wake him, she grabbed the first thing within reach and shrugged it on, then hugged it to her face and breathed in the essence of Abel Greene. His discarded white dress shirt was scented of him—it even felt like him, big and substantial and sensually rough against her bare skin.
She rolled up the cuffs as she shuffled out of the room, then fastened a few buttons on the way to the fireplace. Soft fire glow lit the room, accompanying the flicker of the candles that still burned and scented the cabin with cinnamon, bayberry and vanilla.
Mimicking the actions she’d seen Abel do dozens of times since she’d been here, she opened the mesh screen covering the fire, hefted a piece of birch and settled it on the grate. Then she stood back and smiled when the flames licked and caught hold.
“I think you’ve got the hang of it, Mackenzie Greene,” she said, pleased with herself, pleased with the sound of her new name as she closed the screen, brushed off her hands and padded into the kitchen.
The wedding cake on the counter beckoned. She flicked on the light over the sink, casting the kitchen in more shadow than light, and hunted up a knife. Suddenly she was ravenous. She didn’t bother with a plate or fork. She sliced a piece of the richly frosted white sheet cake, picked it up with her fingers and brought it to her mouth.
That’s how her husband found her.
The overhead light blinked on, startling her. She whirled around, her mouth full of cake, her fingers covered in frosting and her heart in her throat.
He stood just inside the room, arms crossed over his bare chest, a broad shoulder propped against the wall. The jeans he’d pulled on rode low on his hips, the zipper at half-mast. He was barefoot and she would bet her last penny, bare beneath those jeans.
And he was the most extraordinarily beautiful man she’d ever seen.
In contrast, she was excruciatingly aware that standing there in his shirt, her hair wild and bed mussed, she must look about as provocative as a grocery sack.
She swallowed a mouthful of cake, then gave him a sheepish smile.
“I got hungry,” she confessed, stating the obvious with a self-conscious little shrug that sent his shirt slipping off one shoulder.
He just stood there, his black eyes taking a slow, thorough inventory, starting with her bare toes and crawling unhurriedly up the length of her body before finally landing on her face.
The fire in his eyes was unmistakable. She felt an answering flame, amazed that she could look like this and he could still want her.
“Would you...like some...” Her voice trailed off as he walked unerringly toward her. “Cake?” she finally managed to say.
Then she exhaled on a thready little breath at his murmured “Please.”
Spellbound by the look in his eyes, she stood motionless, sexual tension vibrating between them.
“You said something about cake.” His voice was so soft it took her a moment to realize she hadn’t imagined it.
“Right. Cake.”
With her heart hammering, she turned back to the counter to cut him a slice—only to have him snag her wrist and turn her around to face him.
“No.” His slumberous gaze dropped to the cake she held in her fingers. “This is the piece I want.”
She stopped breathing. His voice was so deep. So drugging. So impossible to deny, as he drew her hand and the half-eaten piece of cake slowly toward him.
She thought she’d known anticipation. She thought she’d understood seduction—then he taught her new meanings of both. With his eyes holding hers captive, he brought her hand to his mouth, drew both the cake and her fingers inside.
Her knees turned to noodles as he lavishly and lazily licked the icing from her fingers, then treated her palm to the same lush strokes of his tongue. His eyes turned stormy and dark as he pressed her open hand to his face and bit the fleshy part of her thumb.
Thunder rumbled through her blood as he kissed the little sting away. Lightning sizzled through her body as he lowered his hands to her waist, lifted her and set her on the counter.
The countertop was cold beneath her bare bottom. The heat in his eyes warmed her as he lowered his head to hers. Instead of the kiss she yearned for, he made a pleasured sound deep in his throat and licked a dollop of frosting from the corner of her mouth.
“You’re very sweet,” he murmured, his breath whispering against her lips. “And very messy.”
She swallowed and felt herself melting as his tongue flicked out again, playing with the seam of her lips, eating at the corners of her mouth like she was a piece of candy and he was the kid who’d discovered the candy store.
“I think I’ll have some more.”
Arousal built like a summer storm as he glanced down at the cake, scooped a fingerful of frosting and brought it to his mouth.
His eyes locked on her face, he slowly licked his finger, taking a long, considering taste.
Desire knotted in her breast then unraveled in a sharp, arching rush as she watched the slow strokes of his tongue, mesmerized, electrified.
“Good.” His voice was a rough, sultry whisper that drew her eyes to his. “But I like it better on you.”
Sweet lord, he was going to tease her to deadh.
She gripped the edge of the counter with trembling fingers, as with carnal attention to the play of his hands, he smeared the icing from her chin to her bare shoulder.
She didn’t have the will to suppress a shudder when his mouth followed the trail of his finger. Like a gourmet sampling French pastries, he savored and sipped and licked his way down her throat, across the rise of her collarbone and, with a combination of lips and teeth and tongue, glided over the length of her bared shoulder.
She whimpered when he lifted his head, let her head fall back against the cupboard door as his hands rose and freed the buttons on the shirt she wore. With tantalizing attention to each inch of flesh he revealed, he peeled it down her arms, exposing her breasts to his slumberous gaze.
“I seem to have developed an insatiable taste for... frosting.”
The explicit intent of his rumbled words sent her entire body into sexual overload. Her nipples were diamond hard and tugging at places deep and low even before he laved them with frosting, then drew each one alternately into his mouth.
Sweet, sharp pleasure engulfed her as he suckled and nuzzled and feasted. Desire clawed at her as she cradled his head to her breast and begged him to set her free.
His control broke the same time hers did. With a guttural oath, he scooped her roughly off the counter and laid her on her back on the table. She reached for him, lifting her hips as he moved between her legs, freed himself from his jeans and entered her in a swift, hard thrust.
She cried his name. He swore hers and gripped her hips, tilting her to better receive him...again...again...again.
Each thrust took her higher, until she was no longer aware of the table, cool and hard beneath her back, the kitchen light, harsh and bright in her eyes. She was only aware of him, and that awareness consumed her. He was magnificently aroused. Aggressively male. His eyes were closed. His head thrown back, the cords oh his neck distended and glistening with perspiration. His hair trailed down his back like a spill of black ink as he set a rhythm as savage as the warrior he resembled and as abandoned as the erotic thrill of their joining.
In a blinding rush he transported her to that exquisite peak where sensation dominated and passion ruled. And where love for this man could not be denied.
His little bird looked broken. Damning himself for an animal, Abel reluctantly withdrew from the sweet, tight haven of her body. He tugged up his jeans and zipped them, then leaned over the table to assess the damage.
Her eyes were closed. Her arms limp, her palms upturned where they lay on the table by her head. He bit back another oath when he saw the delicate flesh of her breasts reddened and swollen from his rough treatment.
“Did I hurt you bad, green eyes?”
Her eyes fluttered open. Her kiss-swollen lips lifted in a sultry little smile. “You hurt me good...so good,” she murmured and let her eyes drift shut again. “I don’t believe I’ve ever known anyone who enjoyed frosting as much as you do.”
He told himself it was relief that let the small smile get away from him. Then he reined it in, reminding himself that no matter what she said, he’d treated her badly.
“Don’t move,” he ordered as he left the kitchen to get a blanket, suppressing another smile at her mumbled “Don’t worry.”
He hadn’t intended to attack her. He’d woken, found her gone and gone looking for her. He wasn’t entirely insensitive. His concern had been that she might be feeling self-conscious about their lovemaking. He’d wanted to offer some assurance that she’d pleased him—and to assure himself that he hadn’t been too rough with her.
Instead of finding a timid and contemplative little sparrow, he’d found a summer bird in full feather. And he’d been blown away. Everything about the look of her—from her tiny bare feet to her tousled hair, still studded with wisps of crushed baby’s breath, to the sight of his shirt covering her to her knees and trailing provocatively off one shoulder—had tempted him to steal another kiss, induce a shivery sigh.
It wasn’t supposed to have gone any further than that. He’d just wanted a kiss. Just a promise of more pleasure, until after she’d rested and he’d gotten himself under control. But a kiss hadn’t been enough.
She’d been incredible. An intoxicating blend of wide-eyed innocence and pagan seduction.
When he returned to the kitchen with the blanket, the pleasure of seeing her in all her pink, naked glory almost waylaid his resolve to back off and let her be. With a grim set of his mouth and a determination to see to her needs, he eased her up, bundled her in the blanket, then carried her to the sofa in front of the fire.
“Don’t go,” Her voice was small, her eyes soulful when he’d turned toward the kitchen.
“I’ll be right back,” he assured her, troubled but not surprised by his need to reassure her. “You need something to eat.”
Her eyes narrowed, then glistened with a sweet, seductive fire.
“Something more substantial than cake,” he added, and got the hell out of there before he gave in to the temptation to unwrap her and take her one more time.
She ate with the enthusiasm of a lumberjack. Either he’d never noticed or she’d kept herself in polite control until now. She dug into the sandwich he’d made her like she hadn’t eaten in a week—or like a woman who’d lost more than her sexual inhibitions.
He’d never dreamed she’d be such a delicious little wanton. And he’d never factored in this insatiable need to make love to her.
He didn’t want to explore the reasons why. He sure as hell didn’t want to dwell on them. He wasn’t a kid whose hormones led him around. He was a man who prided himself on his control.
And she was a woman who had the ability to strip that control to the bone.
He glanced at the clock. And swore. It was barely seven o’clock. There was a lot of darkness left in this night. And a lot of woman on his sofa, willing to let him take advantage of it and her. He couldn’t let it keep happening. He hadn’t hurt her yet, but if he gave in to every erotic craving she brought out in him, they’d both be in need of medical attention by morning.