Authors: Diana Palmer
She hadn't realized what an intimate turn the conversation had taken until he said that, and she bit her lower lip. It was vaguely flattering to have him admit such a thing, but it added to the subtle doubts she already had about being able to satisfy him. Love play was one thing; it was delicious with him, and she enjoyed it. But love play wasn't sex.
His lean fingers brushed lightly under her ear, making sweet shivers where they touched. “Relax,” he whispered. “You're all tensed up. There's no need to be defensive with me. I won't take you like this.”
She colored, feeling sixteen again with this devastatingly masculine man. Her fingers pressed lightly against his shoulders as she tried to keep her balance.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “Just relax. It won't hurt to let your body go soft against me, will it?”
“You're…” She hesitated, trying to find the words.
“I'm…?” he teased. He nibbled softly at her earlobe. “I'm aroused? And it embarrasses you to feel it?”
“Yes,” she burst out, burying her face in his throat.
His lean hands spread against her back, smoothing her against him with easy, stroking motions. “Give in, honey,” he whispered, his voice deep, silky. “Just relax. Lie against me and let me feel your heart beating.”
“Gabriel…” Was that her voice, sounding so weak and helpless?
“That's it,” he murmured. He could feel the tenseness going out of her, feel her breasts softly cushioned on his hard chest, feel her legs like silk over his. He reached down to the very base of her spine and moved her softly against his hips, loving the surge of pleasure it gave him.
“Oh, you…mustn't!” she cried. Her body felt hot. Blazing hot.
His face nuzzled against hers until he found her mouth. In the raging silence of the room, the only sounds were her frantic breathing and the slide of cloth on cloth as he brought her even closer and thrust his tongue hungrily into her mouth.
She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't fight. She gave in all at once, her mind in limbo, her body one long throb of exquisite sensation as his lean hands explored it with a delicious lack of restraint. He touched her in ways he never had before, learning all the soft contours of her body, brushing at her breasts, easing up her dress so he could caress the long, graceful line of her legs.
“Gabriel,” she gasped.
He bit her mouth, his teeth tender, his breath warm and smoky on her swollen lips. “I won't hurt you,” he whispered, turning her ever so slowly under him. His voice was husky with passion, his body vibrant with it. His mouth drew slowly, passionately, over her parted lips, letting her feel every texture of it.
Her body ached. It was a new sensation, different from the other times he'd kissed and touched her. She felt a kind of throbbing excitement all over, as if her skin were wide-awake and every nerve were being stimulated.
Her eyes opened as his lean hand began to work at buttons and fastenings, faintly accusing, faintly shy.
“You have a beautiful body,” he whispered tenderly, holding her eyes. “I want to look at it.”
Her lips parted. “I'm frightened.”
“Yes, I know.” He bent and kissed her with exquisite gentleness. “There's no reason to be. We're going to make a little love, that's all. Just the way we did once before.”
That relaxed her. Yes, she trusted him. He wouldn't hurt her. He wasn't Dennis.
She looked at his shirt, wishing it were out of her way so she could put her hands on his hair-roughened chest and explore its hardness. Her brows drew together in puzzlement. She'd never wanted to do that with anyone.
“What do you want?” he asked as he began the slow, sweet process of separating her from her dress and slip.
“I…want to touch you,” she said dazedly.
A corner of his mouth curved up. “Where?”
She lowered her eyes quickly. “There,” she whispered, brushing her fingers over his shirt.
“Take it off, then,” he murmured dryly.
She'd never done that before, either, but it wasn't so hard. Her slender fingers worked at buttons, struggling them out of buttonholes. Slowly his chest was revealed, all hard muscle and thick black hair and tanned skin. She almost caught her breath at the masculine perfection of it, right down to the firm muscles at his belt.
One of his long legs rested between hers. He shifted her a little, his hands moved, and suddenly she was bare to the hips. She stopped breathing and tried to grab the fabric, but his hands, warm and strong, caught her upper arms and eased her back down.
He shook his head slowly, “None of that,” he whispered softly. “You don't have a single reason to be afraid of me, and I'll never give you one. I only want to kiss your breasts, Maggie.”
Her face flamed. She never would have imagined that sultry look in his pale blue eyes, on that hard face. He smiled as he bent his head to her body; then his mouth opened over her whole breast and took it into the moist, warm darkness.
She trembled. Her hands clasped the back of his head, and as the magic worked on her she pulled him slowly closer. Her body began to move helplessly. She arched a little, her hands tugging.
He lifted his head, and she guided his mouth to the other breast, pulling him down with only a little shyness. The feel of his mouth on her was intoxicating. It made her breath come quickly, it made her body throb. She liked it.
His hands swept slowly down the silky length of her body while his mouth moved to her shoulders and back up her throat to her mouth. Insistent now, he divested her smoothly of the rest of her clothing and began to stroke her in the most unexpected and shocking way.
She started to protest, but his mouth slowly overcame hers, his tongue probing deeply, his hands moving again and finding wildly responsive flesh. She moaned sharply, her nails biting into his shoulders. Then she gasped and opened her eyes.
He lifted his dark head to look down at her with eyes that were as possessive as they were observant of all the exposed cream-and-mauve flesh. “What sweet little noises you make, Maggie mine,” he whispered, smiling into her eyes as the movement of his hands produced some helpless writhing. “That's it, sweet, just lie back and let me show you. No, don't try to get away. I won't hurt you. I won't hurt you, little one. I know exactly what I'm doing.”
And he did. He did! Once, she almost bit through her lower lip as an explosive spasm of pleasure rocked her. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she looked up at him in mute wonder, her body suddenly trembling all over in a fever so hot she couldn't bear it.
He bent and kissed her with exquisite tenderness. “Softly,” he whispered. “So softly, Maggie.”
The kiss echoed his words, was a tasting of mouths that transcended sexual arousal. There was a reverence in it, an unexpected beauty.
He stood up, every movement slow and calculated, and looked down at her helpless trembling as he stripped off his shirt and removed his boots. He turned, letting her see him as he removed everything else as well.
Her eyes possessed him, devouring all that glorious masculinity in a kind of shocked delight. He was tanned all over, hair-roughened muscle rippling with every movement he made. He took a deep breath at the blatant pleasure in her fixed stare and felt himself bristling with pride.
She didn't protest when he lay down beside her. Her slender hands reached for his face, drawing it down until she could give him her mouth.
She trembled as his hands found her soft body and slowly teased it again into the fierce, throbbing submission he'd won from her before. But this time he didn't draw back. He shifted over her, giving her his full weight for an instant before his forearms caught his weight. His sore arm felt the pressure, but he didn't flinch. His body was aching, throbbing, on fire to bury itself in hers. It was an anguish to hold back, to go slow. But he had to. He couldn't frighten her—not now.
His leg coaxed hers to move, to admit the hard shift of his hips against shocked softness. Her eyes opened, and she gasped as the reality of what was going to happen washed over her and brought back all the old fears.
But he sensed that. His hands framed her flushed cheeks, and he kissed her eyelids closed. “God made man and woman to join this way,” he whispered. “Not in animal lust, but in exquisite sharing. I want to give you pleasure. Let me have your body. Let me give you mine.”
She trembled at the tenderness in his deep voice, at the slow, exquisite probing. “Gabe, I'm…frightened!” she cried, her voice a keening mixture of apprehension and desire.
“I won't hurt you,” he breathed. He moved—tenderly—and held her eyes at the same time. “Watch me. That's it, watch me. Feel me, feel my body cherishing yours…”
It was the most incredibly intimate thing she'd ever felt. Never like this with Dennis, who had hurt her and forced her and never taken the slightest care of her body. But it was Gabe, now, Gabe's quiet, hard face above her, Gabe's body so warm and powerful over hers, his skin as hot as her own, his hips gently moving down, his body…penetrating!
Her mouth opened, her breath stopped, at the feel of him. Her eyes mirrored her frank astonishment. It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt at all, it was…Her eyes closed on a moan. It was…tender and slow, and he was…filling her…his body, locking, interlocking, moving, stopping, rising, probing…
His hand moved down her side, his thumb working at the hard nipple on one breast, his mouth tender on her face, adoring it, cherishing it, while his body made a miracle of this unexpected intimacy.
He was breathing as roughly as she was, but every movement was tender, calculated, unselfish. He smoothed back her damp hair as she trembled under him, straining upward, her arms holding him, her voice shaking with tiny, pleasured noises.
“It isn't sex, is it?” he whispered at her ear.
“No,” she agreed in a voice high-pitched with building pleasure. “Oh, Gabe…it's…not!”
His hips moved now in a slow, building rhythm, his skin gently abrasive against hers, his dampness clinging to hers, the sofa cushions shifting beneath them with the hard, sharp movements.
“When it…happens,” he whispered urgently, “don't…cry out. Bite me, claw me, but don't…cry out, they'll hear us.”
“Gabriel.” She was weeping, her voice thick with tears she didn't understand. Her body was like a puppet's, manipulated by his, possessed by his. She followed his movements with desperate abandon, blind with pleasure, her nails scoring him, her teeth against his hard shoulder, her tongue tasting his damp, salty flesh.
It was sudden. Like a flash of lightning, like summer hail. All at once, blinding colors came rushing down on her in a hot, sweet flood, and she threw back her head, arched her body in a tension that had to be fatal as it curled up inside her like locked steel. She made a sound she couldn't hear, burying it against his skin, and her body began to echo the sudden feverish, rough motions of his.
Crashing together, she thought in the back of her mind. Crashing together, we'll hurt each other!
Somewhere in the middle of the thought, her body burst into sweet flames. She heard his deep voice, biting back a harsh groan, felt him over her, felt him convulsing. Her mind welcomed the sudden oblivion that washed over her, the sweet pulsing aftermath of something she didn't even understand.
She was damp all over. It was hard to breathe. Her heartbeat was shaking her, like his, and she was so tired. So tired.
Her arms curled around his neck, and she began to kiss him languorously. On his chest, his shoulders, his chin, everywhere she could reach. Brief, adoring kisses that tasted salt and cologne and pure man.
“You made love to me,” she whispered. She sounded and felt awed.
“Yes.” His hands drew her with him as he shifted onto his back with a heavy, shuddering sigh. “Never like that, Maggie. Never in my life.”
“I thought we were going to hurt each other, at the last,” she murmured drowsily. “It was so…violent.”
“Violence, out of such tenderness,” he mused, giving a shaky laugh. “Oh, God, I cherished you,” he breathed fervently, crushing her against him. “Cherished you with every part of me!”
She trembled at the emotion in his hard voice, at the feel of him, the scent of him. She clung, nuzzling her face against his with tears staining her cheeks. “I don't mind anymore.”
He frowned. “Mind what?”
“If Dennis accuses us of being lovers,” she whispered at his ear. “I feel like shouting it to the world, telling everyone what a wonderful lover you are.”
He nipped her ear. “My mother would be shocked. She didn't raise me to seduce women in her parlor.”
She lifted her head and looked around, dazed. “Oh, my goodness,” she faltered, glancing down at him.
“Shocking, isn't it?” he murmured with a smile, looking down at the scattered clothing. He looked back up at her. “Shocking. And good. Right. Like marriage is going to be.”
“You don't have to marry me,” she began.
“I want to be with you,” he said simply. “Night and day. What we've just done is going to color our lives from now on. Lovers are pretty transparent,” he added quietly. “I'd lay odds the whole household, except for Becky, will know the minute they see us what we've done together.”
“Oh, no,” she moaned, hiding her face.
“Don't be embarrassed,” he said, smoothing back her thick short hair with a gentle hand. “It isn't proper to be ashamed of something that beautiful. You're my woman now. My wife. I'm going to take care of you and Becky as long as I live. And you and I are going to build a good life together.”
“It's asking a lot, for you to take on a ready-made family,” she said softly.
“I like my ready-made family.” He laughed. “Becky's a spunky little thing. I'll enjoy being her father. Just as I'll enjoy being a father to our other children,” he added, tilting her face up to his. “Do you want that, to have children with me?”
Her eyes widened. It seemed natural, now, to discuss such a thing. She found the thought not at all distasteful and wondered why. She didn't love him. She was attracted to him, she liked him. He didn't love her. He felt a sexual attraction and affection for her. But the way they'd loved…it had felt like loving.