She settled back in her chair, gazing at the stars, surprised that Cole would enjoy just sitting quietly.
After a time he asked her, “What’s your father do?”
“He retired last year from his job as a pharmaceutical salesman.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Yes, five sisters.”
“I’ll bet your father’s spoiled rotten.”
She laughed. “He might be at that. I’ve never seen him cook anything.”
“I can’t remember learning,” Cole remarked. His thumb moved back and forth over the back of her hand, tickling lightly, making her acutely aware of his proximity, his touch.
“Want something to drink?”
“No, thanks.”
He scooted closer, dropping his right arm around her shoulder, taking her fingers in his left hand.
She was ready to protest if he turned to kiss her, but he settled back to gaze at the sky. Somewhere in the distance a forlorn howl drifted through the night. Close at hand, dogs barked an answer.
Marilee listened, wondering what it would be like to grow up in the country, to live in a big house as Cole had. She tried to visualize what he would have looked like as a small boy. Instead, into her mind flashed the enticing image of his lean tanned body at poolside, his blue eyes dancing.
With the lightness of a breeze, his fingers grazed the back of her neck, then drifted across her shoulder and along her upper arm. The swift singing current that raced in her veins was enough to bring her to her feet.
“Cole, I need to get home,” she announced firmly. He stood beside her and placed his palms on her shoulders, the knit sleeves of his blue shirt tightening around his biceps.
Ignoring the heated touch of his hands, she brought up the subject she had managed to avoid all evening. “I want to take Jack’s balloon home. I don’t want you to buy a new one.”
“I’ve already told him to buy one and that I’d pay for it. I don’t go back on my word.”
“You’re making the inevitable more difficult.”
In a soft voice, he drawled, “Here’s the inevitable—and I’ve waited much too long.”
Her mouth felt dry while the hammering in her ears almost drowned out the sound of his voice. He reached out, pulling her into his arms. His smile vanished as his voice deepened. ‘This is as certain as the wheat turning gold beneath the Kansas sun.”
When he leaned down to kiss her, taking her mouth and stopping her mild protest, she knew she had made a mistake. She should have asked him to take her home the moment dinner was over. The thought faded into oblivion, driven away by total awareness of Cole, his mouth, his lean frame.
He parted her lips, invading her mouth with an assurance that confirmed his words. Why did his kiss have to feel right? So exciting? Finally, she pushed away slightly to whisper, “We shouldn’t. I shouldn’t. Not now. Please …”
“Shh, witch.” His mouth brushed hers lightly. “No negative statements, no rejection. Not between Us.”
“Cole, I want this to end, finish. Period.”
He shook his head. “Impossible. You’re an enchantress, an auburn-haired Circe who’s bewitched me.” Once more his lips feathered over hers, melting her resistance.
The lightest brush of his mouth was electrifying, tripping the hammers, revving the tiny motors to send steamheat boiling in her blood. His lips pressed hers eagerly, parting them to give him access to her mouth. She was held fast in his arms while his tongue demanded her response, the sweet, fiery clash that raised temperatures instantly.
His lips trailed kisses to her throat, overwhelming her. Her bones melted. Her lashes dropped as she sought his lips for another incredible kiss that would sweep her beyond logic.
While one strong arm held her about the waist, the fingertips of his other hand drifted across her neck, over her bare shoulder, down, down across the thin cotton covering her breast.
She gasped and twisted. “Cole, leave me some peace! I don’t want
this …”
“You don’t want my mouth here?” His lips brushed the soft curve of her full breast. He held her still while his fingers trailed lower over her hip. Kiss for kiss, input matched output. She couldn’t stop. Throbbing sensation was sending the voltage to dangerous levels.
His mouth, his hands, made her tingling body clamor for attention. Steadily, his wandering fingers and fiery kisses were overloading her system, obliterating every thought for survival. She had known from the start, from the first tempestuous kiss, that she was lost to him.
It had been so long since she had been passionately loved. She was achingly vulnerable and she knew it, but the knowledge was useless. She felt ambushed, unable or unwilling to protest.
He held her close, leaning over, bending her body under his. His long legs pressed against hers and she felt his maleness. One hand roamed up the curve of her spine, caressing, sliding down to the small of her back. His fingers moved slowly to the nape of her neck, massaging her lightly, starting a shower of fire.
“Cole, I don’t know
you. …”
she agonized.
“Hush, woman. This is magic, it’s fire meeting fire. We complete each
other. …”
Shifting her in his arms, he kissed her again. One of his hands brushed across her breast, caressing a taut peak. She arched her back instinctively at his touch and whimpered, the sound muffled by his mouth on hers.
Cole, almost a stranger, became something else, someone needed, another part of herself. The breathtaking hunger he had awakened escalated to an urgency that made her writhe. His rough fingertips slipped beneath a thin strap, sliding it over her shoulder, pushing the green cotton down carefully, his gaze following the material.
Closing her eyes, she tilted her head, her hair swinging lightly over her bare shoulders as his fingers slipped the other strap down with slow deliberation. The faintest rustle of material drifted over her trembling body as he pushed the sundress to her waist, baring her breasts to his appreciative gaze. His forefinger and thumb teased her hardened nipple, then his mouth sought her breast. His dark brown hair brushed against her, its softness tormenting while his tongue abolished her reluctance.
The chemistry of attraction between them was volatile. Overpowered with desire, she felt weak in the knees. Never in her life had a man been able to arouse her so swiftly, so completely. He rained kisses over her tender, pale breasts, across her throat while his hands continued stroking her, caressing her back, the nape of her neck.
All rational thought was gone. She was swept into a vortex of passion. Urgency racked her, intensifying to desperate longing. Her hips arched against him.
“That’s it, Marilee,” Cole murmured. “Touch me, love me.”
Sliding her hands over his strong back and powerful muscles, she traced his sharp shoulder blades, roving down to his narrow waist. “Cole
…”
she began.
“Shh, honey. You’re a golden girl. You have a warm, golden body. With your beautiful red hair you’re like a goddess, a sorceress. So lovely, so desirable.”
Each word was a stroke, smoothing away loneliness, erasing disappointment and fear, heightening an emotional need that was as strong as the physical. “Pure nonsense,” she managed to whisper, even as she clung to him. “You’re ridiculous. I’m a plain, ordinary schoolteacher.”
He kissed her throat. “Something happens between us when we touch, you know that.” In the silvery moonlight his blue eyes held her spellbound while he whispered, “This is destiny. I’m never here at this time of year. How often have you crashed a balloon?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. His mouth conquered her protests his plundering tongue making her senses clamor for more. Ablaze, she returned his kisses with unbridled eagerness, her tongue meeting his. Hot, intimate, each clash set wild tingles racing.
Her response was primordial, timeless. Craving exploded, spreading its fury, compelling her to yield. He moved away briefly to pull his shirt over his head and drop it on the ground. Moonlight splashed across his dark chest, highlighting his muscled shoulders, the powerful biceps. He bent
his head to kiss her breast, cupping it gently in his large hand.
She groaned in anguish. “We mustn’t do this!”
“Of course not,” he breathed over her bare midriff. Singeing forays of his tongue built a conflagration that burned insistently.
Like candlelight in a blizzard, her protests were suddenly extinguished. His fingers pushed down the sundress. He knelt, slacks pulling tautly over his knees and thighs while his hands rested on her hips, holding her.
She swayed as his intense gaze took in all of her golden body, especially the blurred triangle of red-gold curls, half-hidden by her flimsy white lace panties. The sight of his dark hands on her pale skin enflamed her beyond reason. It didn’t matter that she scarcely knew Cole Chandler, that he was in her life only temporarily, that he could hurt her. She wanted him … now.
“You know this is special,” he said as if in answer to her thoughts. He spoke with a breathlessness that made her feel as if she were the only woman in the world for him.
Rising, he wrapped his arms around her to kiss her again, his mouth reaffirming his words, heightening her desire.
His furred chest met her sensitive breasts, making her draw a deep breath. He swept her into his arms then laid her down on the chaise. In a lithe movement he stretched out beside her and pulled her against his hard length. She was drowning in sensation and mindlessly wrapped her arms around him.
In the moonlight his blue eyes devoured her. His lower lip was full and sensuous, red from her kisses. “Have you ever, with any other man, felt what you feel with me?” he demanded huskily.
She didn’t want to admit the truth. Her
reaction to him wasn’t logical … but it was real. She felt the magnetism between them in every pore. While she mulled it over, the burning desire in his eyes made her ache. He didn’t have to touch her to get a response, to have a devastating effect on her.
Persisting, he said, “Answer me, Marilee. I want to hear you say it. I already see the answer in your eyes. When I look at your mouth, your lips part. You respond to me just as I do to you.”
“I shouldn’t,” she whispered, even as her skin tingled whenever it was pressed against his own naked flesh.
“Ah, yes. And I respond to you. You look at my mouth like you just did and I feel as though I’m going to burst with my need for you. I can’t stop now. Together, we’re extraordinary. The passion that explodes between us when we touch is fabulous. It is to me.”
“You’re not fair,” she said breathlessly. “You’ve cheated me, blackmailed me into
dinner …”
He brushed her lips with his.
Ignoring the scalding sensation of his mouth, she turned her head to continue the charges. “You’re seducing
me …”
“You like this.”
“You won’t
listen …”
She gasped, her fingers biting into his shoulder as he kissed her throat.
“I’m listening to every word. Tell me you don’t want this, honey.” His head drooped forward to kiss the valley between her breasts.
“Cole, oh please!”
His gaze locked with hers. He sat up and tugged off his boots, his socks. He rose, unfastening his heavy silver belt buckle. She felt unable to move as she watched each unhurried movement of his hands. He unfastened the dark slacks, letting them fall, revealing his unforgettable body, bronzed, muscled, so male. A triangle of black underwear was peeled away. Cole was as nude as when she first saw him, only now he was fully aroused, ready for her.
She longed to reach out, to touch his smooth copper flesh. Her fingertips, as if of their own volition, drifted over a solid, hard thigh, through short, curling hairs. She heard him gasp as he sank down, stretching out to pull her against him. One arm pinned her to him as his mouth seized hers.
His hand began stroking her long, silky legs, making her writhe with uncontrollable desire. His fingers traveled over her intimately, exploring her moist warmth. She gasped, crying a muffled protest as his bold fingers moved insidiously to arouse her to a frenzied peak.
And then he brought her over the brink, beyond the point of return. There were no more protests, no denials. She was consumed with a yearning for him, a desperate longing to encompass his hard male body.
Her kisses conveyed her frantic urgency, driving him to the edge of turbulent desire. Before his lovemaking had been devastating; now it was like wildfire. Her restraint burned away like flaming dry leaves. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him forever.
“Ahh, sweet witch, you’re magic to me! I can’t get enough. I want to make you want me as badly as I do you.”
“Cole!” She squirmed with ravenous hunger and he eased her onto her back.
She was aware of the rough canvas of the chaise against her bare skin while she watched wide-eyed as Cole moved over her. Locks of his brown hair hung on his forehead and his temples. A sheen of perspiration made his skin glow. With each movement, the muscles in his back rippled beneath her hands. His knee pushed her legs apart and he came down above her, holding his weight off her.
Her limbs felt heavy. She quivered with undisguised longing, wanting him, needing him beyond anything she imagined possible. Every brush against his strong arms, his flat stomach, made her desire him more. Leaning down, he kissed her hotly while she arched her hips to receive him.
Penetration made her cry out, a muffled sound smothered by his kiss. He continued relentlessly, taking her in strokes that carried them both on a rising current of sensation. The first moment of pain had disappeared and ecstasy burst within her. Pleasure and need were one, generating a hot flood of passion.
“Now, little green-eyed witch …” Cole said, his lips on her ear. “Now,
I’ll
make you mine …”
She barely heard him. No longer did she have five senses, but only one—touch. All the others converged into total awareness of Cole and his possession of her.
She clung to his powerful frame, her fingers spread across his back, pulling him to her. Her slender legs held him tightly as the fervor that bound them heightened.