Authors: Shirley Wine
But the soft gentleness of it flowed over her like warmed chocolate—smooth and all enveloping.
Emotion clogged her throat—filled her starved senses—fired the hungry ache gnawing at her belly.
"Witch," he murmured nuzzling the tender skin below her ear, "you drive me crazy with wanting."
"Keir—" her choked response was drowned in the warm cavern of his mouth.
His kiss changed, hard, carnal and demanding. His tongue stroked and retreated, over and over. Every sliding caress drove her higher, made her more incoherent.
And where he lead, she followed—hot and urgent, her mouth, her lips, her tongue melding with his.
Victoria moaned and writhed, wanting more.
"Gently—" he whispered, soothing her twisting body with his hands, his lips moving down her throat to the hollow in her shoulder, his teeth grazed the skin, the pulse at the base of her throat that throbbed to the beat of the kettle drum pounding through her body. "We have all the time in the world."
Did they?
As the anxious thought surfaced, Keir was so close, he sensed her slight withdrawal.
He lifted his head sliding his hands up and burying them in her silky tresses as he held her head immobile, watching her, intent and alert.
"I won’t hurt you," his eyes burned with molten fire.
She wanted to tell him she wasn’t afraid but the words wouldn’t shape in the dryness of her mouth.
"Once I hurt you—"
"Don’t—" she lifted gentle fingers and covered his parted lips. "It doesn’t matter."
And she realized it didn’t.
That infinitesimal hurt as she'd surrendered him her virginity had long since been forgotten. The hurts that lingered were ones he didn't know he'd inflicted.
He lifted his head and looked down at her, his eyes dark and intent, a hand cradling her cheek. "What is it?"
For one moment confession hovered on her tongue.
But his expression disturbed her and kept her silent.
She was afraid.
In that moment, she knew the repercussions of her secrets would be catastrophic. For them both.
"Kiss me.'" She shoved aside the uncomfortable thoughts.
His mouth came back to hers.
His hands closed over her breasts, confident and firm, thumbs rubbing tightly furled nipples. Her body arched, pressing her breasts into his palms.
His grunt of masculine satisfaction was echoed by her rasping moan. He caught her flailing arms and anchored them with one hand above her head.
Powerless in his grip, she writhed beneath his caresses. He suckled on her breast; the hard pull had her lifting off the bed.
As he moved his mouth to her other breast, he gathered a handful of her hair, draped it across her body and rubbed it over nipples tender from his ministrations.
Lifting his head, he watched her through heavy-lidded eyes as he stroked his hand down the hair draped across her body.
"Beautiful," he murmured, freeing her hands.
The deep, husky cadence of his voice thrilled her. She lifted her hands and cradled his face between her palms, bringing his mouth down to hers.
But this was no gentle kiss. It was hard seduction that demanded as it gave, replenished as it devoured.
A large hand stroked her breasts, finding one pert nipple and rubbing it between thumb and forefinger as he bent his head and suckled hard on the other.
A sobbing cry escaped and her head tossed restlessly from side to side as his hands roamed her body, her sides, and her thighs.
Quivering with anticipation, she rose up off the bed as he stroked the soft curls shielding her sex, and then slid long fingers past to stroke her there, where she was hot and aching.
Two fingers pressed in and filled her, then retreated.
Skillful fingers circled her entrance, and then pressed—and she gasped. His fingers slid away, played, and then returned to the same sweet spot, and pressed again until she was a quivering mass of sensation.
She grabbed at his wrist—beneath her fingers, tendons and muscle moved, as evocative as the fingers probing her—slowly and deliberately.
She opened her eyes and looked at his face, hard-edged, dark eyes black with passion.
Fully aroused, his gaze was locked on where his hand worked between her thighs. When he drew back, she moaned reaching for him, missing him.
But he refused to be hurried.
Taking his own sweet time, his mouth moved down her body, slowly, leisurely.
He wasn't gentle; everywhere his lips touched was hard, desperate and utterly possessive.
And this was what she craved. What she needed.
He suckled her neck, the hollow of her shoulder, and the tops of each breast. Then he suckled each dusky nipple.
There was no tenderness in him now; he was all hard, male demand. His hands swept down her body, over her hips and thighs and settled on her sex.
"Spread your legs," he commanded roughly.
Helpless, she obeyed the jagged order, the husky sound tinged with more than a hint of desperation. It thrilled her to know he wanted this as much as she did.
His grunt of masculine intent was so sexy and arousing. It left her quivering, wanting and so slick she could feel the moisture dewing on her inner thighs.
"Lift your knees." His husky voice rasped against her belly. The pressure of his hands under the globes of her bottom ensured she obeyed.
He lifted her, left her open and exposed to him.
He smiled at her.
All male.
Fierce, predatory and powerful.
He blew a hot breath on her swollen sex, the sensation so erotic a moan escaped. Before she came down, his mouth descended, lips surrounding it and he suckled, hard.
She shuddered and screamed, rising off the bed.
As she climbed toward a climax, two long fingers slid inside her, pressing deep. Upward, forward until she was lost to everything except the insistent demands of her body.
A shuddering gasping sob escaped as her whole body convulsed in spasm after spasm.
Before she fully came down from that pinnacle, he was there, his hard arousal prodding the entrance to her body.
She strained upwards. Wanting. Needing.
But Keir was in no hurry.
When he claimed her mouth, she tasted her juices on his tongue. Salty and erotic. He deepened the kiss. Hard, carnal and slightly cruel.
He teased her, his long hard cock just entering her a little and then withdrawing. Growing desperate, she lifted her body upward. She wanted more. His ravenous kiss had her gasping and panting and writhing under him.
His hands slid under her body and he lifted her and then with one hard thrust, embedded himself inside her.
Oh yes this was what she wanted.
She gripped him, fingers digging into the firm swell of hard buttocks.
Keir, his face blanked with passion, each powerful thrust stoked the fiery inferno building to a crescendo.
She clung to him, meeting him thrust for powerful thrust. The shattering sensations gathered momentum, and threatened to kill her with their intensity.
She was consumed by galloping pleasure. Slow at first and then faster. Her focus narrowed to this moment, a spinning, black, timeless vortex of sensation.
With a gasping cry she collapsed into wave after searing wave of white-hot fire.
Dimly, she was aware of Keir, rigid above her, muscles bulging in his neck and chest, head thrust back, teeth bared in a feral grimace, his face contorted in ecstasy akin to pain, as he poured himself into her, his powerful body trembling from the force of his release.
He collapsed on her in a tangle of leaden limbs.
They neither moved nor spoke, the thunder of their heartbeats, their ragged breathing, the only sounds in the quiet night.
At last he stirred and her hands, with a languid life of their own, stroked his damp skin, unwilling to lose such pleasurable contact.
Her hands slid across his shoulders, stroking and finding every muscle and sinew hidden beneath the hot satin of his skin.
Her fingernails trailed delicate spirals down his spine, delineating every rise and hollow. She caressed the swell of his hard buttocks, with their tantalizing dimples.
This was what she had been born for, sated with pleasure, drained and yet replete, alone but with a togetherness that was pure essence of delight.
"I'm too heavy," he murmured, and in one supple movement turned them until she lay draped over his powerful body, lax, satiated, and still joined.
He caught up her long tresses and scooped them over her back and then let them fall in a silken shroud covering them both.
For a moment she was seared with panic as she saw the muscles of his face harden and take on a granite cast. Those sexy lips that possessed the power to lift her to dizzy heights, tightened.
And she was afraid.
Now the first haze of need was past, she could see him beginning to think.
His powerfulness had already shaped her life. Was she crazy allowing him closer again, to free him from Davina’s toils?
"Not so bold now?’ he taunted, lifting her chin and refusing to let her hide in the shadows.
Victoria took a quivering breath and then smiled, lifting a hand and stroking it down one lean cheek, touching the corner of his mouth before running a questing finger along his lower lip.
"You could never frighten me."
"It’s been a long time for you." The large hands stroked down her back, seeking and finding every rise and hollow along her spine with sensitive fingertips, making her feel safe enough to give him her confession.
"Since the last time."
Keir held her away from him, his face a mask of shocked surprise, his lips tightened a moment as his throat worked while he absorbed the impact of her words.
He caught her against him, cradling her against his body in angry possessiveness.
"You fill me with shame," he said, his voice choked and husky. "That was why you dropped out of university? I screwed you up so badly?"
Victoria stiffened, her aroused senses shrieking in warning. She tried to push his arms away but found it futile. She was no match for his strength.
"It wasn’t your fault. You never hurt or frightened me. You would have stopped anytime I wanted you to. But I never wanted you to stop," she whispered fiercely, even now shying away from giving him the real reason she dropped out of varsity. "It was more the shock of my mother’s death."
His breath came in a soft, shuddering sigh, one hand stroking across her silky hair.
"The open adoring love in your eyes was my undoing," he confessed, his voice just a murmur in her ear. "After growing up here, you have no idea the temptation you presented me."
Victoria’s heart ached for the bewildered little boy buried in the man. She feathered soft kisses across his chest. "You had a grim childhood?"
"Only Logan’s open, uncomplicated affection made it tolerable." He rolled onto his back and flung one arm across his eyes. "He was three when my father married Muriel, too young to understand that to the stepfather he adored, I was a symbol of failure, to Muriel, the living reminder of Caine’s lifelong passion for the woman who left him."
"How could they?" Angry emotion colored her voice, and the tremor that shivered through his big body increased her anger. How could anyone be so unfeeling of a child’s needs?
"You sound ready to do battle on my behalf." Keir’s chuckle was one of genuine amusement. "I’m a big boy now. I don’t need anyone to fight my battles."
Anger fired her temper and she gripped his hair in her hands, giving it a sharp tug. "Who freed you of Davina?"
The moment she spoke, Victoria wished she could claw the words back.
The other woman’s presence suddenly loomed large in the lamp lit room.
"Who asked you to?" The harsh words hit her like a slap, destroying the closeness.
She struggled against the arms that were now imprisoning instead of cherishing. "Let me go."
"Oh no, my beauty," his voice was harsh in her ear. "You promised me the night. I’m a long way from sated yet."
Pain, choking and intense, threatened to consume her. He stopped her protest by the simple expedient of covering her mouth with his.
For one long moment, his kiss was hard and punishing, and then a shudder shook his body.
His lips softened, moved slowly, intimately over hers.
He kissed her gently, unhurriedly, content to savor her taste and the soft warmth of her body. A large hand splayed over her back, pressed her firmly against him.
Beneath her, his chest moved as he breathed, inside her, he flexed and moved, slowly at first, then with long languid strokes.