Hostage Heart (22 page)

After quietly dressing, he made his way across the deserted yard, careful to avoid detection by the sentry on horseback. He slipped inside the silent ranch house and trod lightly down the hall. Pushing the door open, he saw Lark curled up in the bed like a lost kitten, looking excruciatingly feminine. She was beautiful, a woman, and she deserved to be treated as such, not like a child.

After undressing and allowing his clothes to fall in a heap near the bed, Matt blew out the kerosene lamp. Blackness engulfed the room, and he waited for his eyes to adjust.

The moon was just rising, sending slender streamers across the sky, vaguely outlining Lark’s sleeping form. Matt slid carefully into bed, not wanting to awaken her. Now was not the time to love her; they were both too exhausted. Instead, he moved to her side, fitting her against the curve of his body. Contentment eddied with simmering desire, but he checked it. Just the softness of her form in his arms and the fragrant scent of her newly washed hair were enough for him. A miracle had occurred today, he realized groggily. The miracle of life being handed back to him when he had thought everything he had ever loved had been destroyed—forever. Lark was his miracle of the heart.

Lark shifted, unconsciously nuzzling into the warmth. Vaguely she realized that something was different, and abruptly she awakened. It was still dark, although something told her dawn would come in another hour or so. Moonlight filtered into the room, softening the hard surfaces and providing a dim light by which she could see Matt, who was holding her in his arms. With growing dismay she realized that the length of her body was pressed against him. Her dismay turned to alarm. Matt was naked, and her nipples were already hardening, pressing insistently against his firm, warm flesh.

Her alarm dissolved in a matter of heartbeats as Lark studied Matt’s sleeping features. A strand of dark hair had drifted across his brow. A thin, almost unnoticeable white scar marred the corner of his left eye. Had he gotten that scar as a small boy? Without thinking, she caressed the area with her fingertips.

Matt stirred and slowly opened his eyes. He saw Lark’s guileless features, the concern in her dark, fathomless blue eyes. He felt her hip pressing against his loins. Heat uncurled through his body, and he felt himself hardening. She felt so good. It felt so right to be with her. Managing a smile, he lifted his hand and caressed her hair.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” he asked hoarsely.

Lark trembled as he continued to stroke her unbound hair. “I awoke for no reason.”

“You’re like a cat,” he murmured, “arching into my hand every time I stroke you.”

His words were dark and held much promise. Lark sighed, responding to his tone, unconsciously moving against him. She felt rather than heard his groan. Thrilled that such a featherlight touch could evoke in him a reaction of such magnitude, she leaned upward.

Matt felt Lark’s lips graze his, lips that were warm and filled with invitation. Sitting up in bed, his back against the headboard, he slowly undressed her, letting the cotton nightgown fall to the floor.

“Come here,” he told her gravely, positioning her across from him so that he could see her drowsy features. He studied her in the silence, drowning in the smoldering fire in her wide, vulnerable eyes and her parted, waiting lips. The moonlight softly caressed her naked form and he stared in awe of her lithe body. “We’re going to take this slow,” he told her, holding her gaze. “As slow as you want it to be. If you become afraid, tell me.”

Lark tilted her head, lost in the roughness of his voice and the warmth of his dove-gray eyes. “Is speaking allowed?”

He smiled faintly, caressing her smooth cheek. Her flesh had always reminded him of a ripe, golden peach. “I want my woman to talk to me in many ways. You can use your voice, your hands, and your body to speak to me.”

Her voice was breathy, expectant. “I see.”

Matt nodded, studying her intently. He pulled the covers off his lower body, exposing his total nakedness.

Mesmerized by the tightly coiled power of his body, Lark felt heat rush to her cheeks. He was dark with hair, and his muscles were well accentuated and radiated a heat that made her feel weak with need.

“Do I frighten you?” Matt waited patiently, seeing many conflicting emotions cross her face. Time, they had time. But could he fight his own inner need of her? Dear God, he was hard and ready for her right now.

Lark stared at his thick shaft, unable to tear her gaze away from it. A strange new sensation twisted through her lower body, the ache sharp, exquisite. “I’m not afraid.”

“Sure?”

“Well, maybe a little.”

Matt slowly rose to a kneeling position in the center of the bed. He spread his thighs wide and brought Lark between his legs. She knelt before him, her lashes against her cheeks, and gently he cradled her face, forcing her chin upward.

“Look at me,” he commanded quietly. She opened her eyes and he saw that the smoky blueness now flashed with golden flecks of fire. “You’re my woman,” he promised her thickly, running his fingers through her black hair. He began gently kneading her scalp, watching her eyes close from the unexpected pleasure. “Touching one another like this is good, my golden cougar. We should give one another pleasure, not pain. Yes, enjoy it….” And he captured her mouth, fire singing through him.

Lark moaned, the sound drowning within his mouth as his large hands cupped her breasts. The sensation was surprising, molten. Automatically she lifted her arms, her fingers gripping his upper arms for support. A small cry of delight was torn from her as his thumbs encircled the buds of her breasts. Pulling her mouth from his, she breathed in ragged gasps of air.

“Easy, easy, my woman, my own…let the feelings race through you. Feel, just feel…”

Stunned, whirling in a cauldron of spiraling fire, Lark released a whimper as he continued his slow assault upon her ripened senses.

Her cry rippled through Matt in waves and he broke out into a sweat. His own body was screaming at him, hammering at him to take her now, to make her his. His lips settled over the peak of her breast, and pulled it into the moistness of his mouth. Her fingers dug into his chest and she twisted and writhed against him, uncontrolled. Joy swept through him as he sampled her other nipple. Her cries continued and he marveled at her responsiveness.

“Sweet,” he told her raggedly, “my God, but you’re sweet….” He slid his hand downward across her belly, slowly circling the silky ebony mound with the palm of his hand. At first Lark tensed, but as he slipped his finger between her thighs, a shudder wracked her. “It’s going to be fine, my woman…Relax, let me help you,” he crooned, claiming her lips and moving his tongue into her warm, waiting depths.

Lark arched, moaning, at the same moment that she felt him sparking new fire to burning life by pressing his fingers gently between her dampened thighs.

“Lark,” he breathed against her, “let me touch you, let me ease your ache, my woman.”

Mindless, sobbing, she opened her thighs, feeling his fingers slip closer, closer, until…

“My God,” he rasped, “you’re so wet.” And he began to massage her molten feminine core, slowly moving one finger within her.

A cry of pleasure lodged in Lark’s throat. Fire expanded and leaped from deep within her. She pressed wildly against his palm, moving, moving to reduce the ache that was scalding her, burning her. The ache was too deep, the demand to be satiated too powerful, and she twisted her hips against his hand, wanting his finger to move more deeply within her, lost in a building crescendo.

Matt suddenly felt Lark stiffen, her fingers digging into his tightly bunched shoulders. Perspiration made her entire body gleam like gold in the predawn light as she arched deeply into his arms, a moaning cry of pleasure tearing from within her. He felt her walls clench around his finger and he moved more deeply, triggering more and more pleasure, the thick honey of her body surrounding him.

Suddenly exhausted, dazed by the unexpected sensation, Lark fell back into Matt’s arms. She stared up at him, wide-eyed, satiated. Weakness stole through every part of her, making her feel like a child in his arms. He was smiling down at her, pride reflected in his eyes as he gently stroked her core, feeling her body spasm and clench as he slid two fingers within her.

“You’re so fiery, so sensitive,” he whispered, laying her back on the bed. He caressed her damp cheek, stroking her hair to soothe her, to bring her back from her dreamy state. She arched her hips against his hands, twisting, pushing and she was once more shattered by another orgasm. He eased his fingers from her, giving her time to absorb the experience.

Lark tried to gather her thoughts. She reached out, her fingers touching his arm. “What…happened?”

He leaned down, worshipping her kiss-swollen lips. Smiling lazily, he slid his hand down to her mound of ebony hair and started to massage her once again, watching as her eyes became heavy-lidded with desire. “You gave me the gift of yourself,” he explained hoarsely. “A man can go a lifetime without his woman ever giving herself to him like you just did to me.”

Lark smiled weakly, thinking that he was like Holos, the light of her world. She slid her arms around his neck. “I want to make you feel like me. How can I do it? Teach me.”

Sweat stood out on his brow and upper lip. Matt rested his head against hers, his breath quickening as he felt her respond to his touch. “It will hurt,” he rasped, warning her.

“No…nothing you could do would hurt me. I know you’d never do it intentionally,” she whispered, kissing his brow and nose, then seeking out his mouth, wanting the powerful, commanding feel of his tongue against her seeking lips.

Groaning, Matt slowly covered her body. He broke her wild, sweet kiss, drowning in her lustrous gaze. “I’ll be as gentle as I can, sweet woman of mine. Trust me, just trust me…”

His words soothed the edges of her momentary panic. She felt his massive shaft begin to massage her entrance as his fingers had done earlier. She sighed, surrendering to the sensations, and became lost in so many new, wonderful explosions that she began to move unconsciously against him.

“That’s it,” Matt gritted out hoarsely, “rub against me. Enjoy it, golden cougar. Come to me…come to me….” He clutched the bedsheet and quilt in one massive fist, sucking air between his clenched teeth as she followed his coaxing. How long could he hold back? My God, but she was so wet and felt so tight against him.

Sweat beaded his furrowed brow, and each breath became an agony as her sweet, guileless body twisted and moved beneath his.

Lark felt another explosion building within her heated body. She was trembling now, clutching at Matt’s shoulders as she increased the tempo of her hips against his shaft. This time the ache went deeper and, yearning to soothe it, she angled her hips higher.

She was so small and tight! Matt felt the walls of her femininity pressing against his shaft. He gasped for breath, wanting to beg her to stop, to give him time to control his overwhelming need. But when she lifted her hips and pulled him barely within her, his control snapped. The need to claim her, to brand her, to make her his own, overrode all else. He crushed Lark to him and thrust deeply into her, smothering her mouth with his own, stifling her cry of painful discovery of a new, unexplored world.

The momentary pain made Lark stiffen. Burning turned to pleasure as her body relaxed inwardly around his hard, driving shaft. She felt Matt tense, as if he was holding himself in tight check. Her eyes flew open and she met his turbulent gray gaze as he broke the kiss.

“Just lie here,” he told her raggedly. “The pain will go away in a minute, I promise you.” He kissed her brow, nose, eyes, and finally her mouth.

Trembling, Lark slid her arms around his sweat-slick shoulders. Her heart swelled with such emotions that all she could do was kiss him and bury her head beside his. She felt stretched tight, so full, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant. Every second, her body relaxed around him, accepting him, sucking him deeper into her. Seeing the anguish in his face and hearing it in his voice, she sought to erase it and moved her hips slightly.

Matt groaned. “God…don’t!”

The pain in his face was replaced by something else, something primal and savage. Spurred on by these revelations, sensing her power as a woman, Lark tested her newly found discovery and moved her hips gently but insistently. She felt his thick stalk move more deeply into her. A soft moan of pleasure caught in her throat.

Gritting his teeth, Matt buried his head beside Lark’s. Every sweet movement of her inexperienced hips sent a burst of fire through him. He tried to pull out of her, but she clung to him, silently asking him to stay. Gulping for breath, he raised his head, dazed. He wanted her so badly. All of her.

She looked into his anguished eyes and framed his face with her hands. “Make me your woman. I’ve given you my heart, now give me yours….”

He nodded, unable to speak. As carefully as he could, he moved experimentally within her. She was so damned small and he was so large. Yet, to his amazement, he heard a familiar husky purr coming from deep within her, telling him that his tentative thrusts felt good to her. He slid his hand beneath her hips, showing her how to rock in motion with him. Her cries of pleasure increased and he abandoned himself to her wild, hungry body that was sucking him deeper and deeper into her. Each thrust of his hips burned him more, took him higher. She was damp with perspiration, their bodies fused. She was liquid and molten as he slipped back and forth within her tight, hungry sheath. And then he groaned, tensing.

Lark felt Matt grow stiff, like a bowstring pulled taut. His face went rigid, yet her newly awakened female senses told her to hold him, to twist her hips and prolong this feeling for him. She did so, and in moments he fell weakly upon her, gulping in sobs of breath. She smiled as a new warmth and contentment settled over her. She gloried in Matt’s weight upon her, in his utter maleness. Lark realized that her life had changed forever, and her heart felt free and joyous.