The Far Side of Paradise (14 page)

Taryn knew what he was doing—getting her accustomed to his touch, his nearness, like a nervous filly being broken to the saddle. And the subtle courtship worked; each touch eased her fears, set up a yearning that grew with the hours until she found herself dreaming of him, an erotic dream that woke her into a shivering hunger unlike anything she’d ever known.

Twisting onto her side, she stared past the misty swag of the netting into the warm night, and knew that for her the time of waiting was over.

Her breath eased, but restlessness drove her to switch on the bedside lamp and pick up her watch. Almost midnight—not called the witching hour for nothing, she thought and switched off the light, settling back against the pillows.

Only to toss sleeplessly. Eventually, she got out of bed and opened the screens onto the terrace. The air outside was marginally cooler against her skin.

A blur of movement froze her into stillness.

I
T WAS
Cade, gazing out at the night. He turned to watch her as she stood in the doorway. A silver bar of moonlight revealed the strong male contours of his face and the fact that he was still fully clothed.

He didn’t speak. Very much aware of her skimpy singlet top and shorts, Taryn swallowed to ease a suddenly dry throat and said abruptly, ‘I’ve had enough time.’

Almost expressionless, a muscle in his jaw twitched as he held out his hand. ‘So come to me.’

Taryn looked at him, toughly formidable, his handsome face almost unyielding in its bold angularity. He radiated power and an uncompromising male authority that should have warned her not to push.

Instead, it evoked something close to defiance. He was so clearly accustomed to being in charge, to taking women on his terms, not theirs.

‘You come to me,’ she returned and, although each word was soft and slightly hesitant, there could be no mistaking the challenge in both words and tone, in her level gaze and the tilt of her chin.

She expected some resistance and was startled when his beautiful mouth curled into an appreciative smile. Noiselessly, he walked across the terrace and, without
any further comment, drew her to him, enfolding her as though she was precious to him.

Held against his lean, muscled length, she sighed and relaxed. It was too much like coming home. Lashes fluttering down, she hid her face in his shoulder, every sense languorously accepting and eager.

A finger under her chin lifted her face, gentle but inexorable.

‘Look at me,’ Cade said, his voice rough and deep.

But she couldn’t—didn’t dare. Panicking, she thought, Don’t be such an idiot. If looking at him seems too intimate, how are you going to make love with him?

Shivers raced across her skin when she felt the warmth of his breath on her eyelids, and then the soft brush of his mouth across hers.

His voice was deep and low, pitched so only a lover would hear. ‘Open your eyes, Taryn.’

When he repeated the command she slowly lifted her lashes to meet a hooded, glittering gaze that melted her spine.

Instantly, his arms locked around her, crushing her breasts against his broad chest, and the intimate contact of his thighs made her vividly, desperately aware of his arousal.

And her own. Need consumed her, tearing at her with insistent velvet claws. When his mouth came down on hers, she opened her lips to his bold claim and gave him what they both wanted—her surrender, joyous and open and exultant.

Eventually, when she was clinging and helpless with longing, he raised his head. Eyes glittering, he asked, ‘Was that so difficult?’

‘No,’ she said on an outgoing breath and, before she
could change her mind, ‘But three days ago I should have told you I don’t believe in one-night stands.’

Releasing her, he said calmly, ‘Neither do I.’

He trusted very few people and presumably that applied to her too, but there was genuine understanding in his tone. He’d recognised the fears that swayed her—fears and caution that now seemed flimsy and foolish—and didn’t think any the less of her for them.

Yet when he took her hand, she hesitated.

‘Second thoughts, Taryn?’ His voice was aloof.

She reached up and touched his jaw, fingertips thrilling at the slight tactile roughness there. Cade held her hand against his mouth and kissed the fingers that had stroked his skin.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No second thoughts. I just need to know you’ll respect me in the morning.’ A tremulous smile belied the steadiness of her gaze.

Cade’s eyes hardened. Tension thrummed between them, fierce and significant.

Until he bent his head and kissed the corner of her mouth. ‘Not a whit less than I respect you now,’ he said deliberately.

Renewed confidence surged through her. She let him turn her and went with him into her room. Excitement beat through her, quickening as she turned to face him.

‘Do you want the light on?’ he asked, barely moving his lips.

‘No.’ She didn’t want any other light than that of the moon, a silvery, shadowy glow full of mystery and magic.

Cade’s eyes kindled into diamond-bright intensity, burning blue as the heart of a flame. ‘You take my
breath away,’ he said gutturally and pulled off his shirt, dropping it onto the floor.

Taryn’s breath stopped in her throat. He was utterly overwhelming, all fluid muscle and bronzed skin and heady male charisma. Acting on instinct, she reached out a tentative hand and skimmed his broad chest, fingertips tingling at the contrast of supple skin and the silken overlay of hair. Her heart pumped loudly in her ears and she sucked in a sharp breath at the raw, leashed strength that emanated from him, balanced by masculine grace and an aura of power.

She muttered, ‘And you are … magnificent,’ and pulled her little singlet top over her head.

Cade’s mouth hardened. For a second she froze, her eyes fixed on his face, but when he kissed her, deeply and sensuously, taking his fill of her, she forgot everything but his mouth on hers and the hands that slid across her back to hold her upright when her knees would no longer carry her weight.

When the kiss was over he scrutinised her face, his glinting eyes narrowing in the taut silence while his hands moved again, one down to her hips, the other lingering to trace the curves of her breasts before finally, just when she thought the tension inside her would have to be released in a groan, he cupped them.

Stunned and charmed, she shivered as he bent his head and kissed an expectant tip.

Desire uncoiled through her so swiftly it shocked her. Nothing, she thought helplessly when he eased her across his arm so that he could take the pink crest of a breast into his mouth—
nothing
in her previous life had prepared her for this charged, voluptuous delight.

At the sensuous tug of his lips, erotic little shudders tightened her skin and she closed her eyes, swamped
by the sheer immensity of the sensations sweeping through her.

Dimly, she realised that all her fears had been wasted—whatever had kept her from enjoying sex previously no longer applied. Shivering with a passionate intensity, she was transformed, taken over by a desperate craving for something she didn’t recognise, didn’t understand. Her back arched in unconscious demand, and Cade lifted his head and subjected her to a darkly probing survey.

Shaken by the hunger surging through her veins, she gasped as he eased her onto the bed. Colour burned through her skin and her lashes fluttered down when he stripped completely.

But once he came down beside her, she turned into him, seeking his strength to appease the hunger burning inside her. His arms tightened around her and he kissed the wildly beating pulse in her throat.

‘Open your eyes.’ It was a command, not a request.

She tried to steady her voice, force it into something like its normal sensible tone, but the words came out in a husky, languorous whisper. ‘It’s too much.’

‘What is?’ And when she didn’t answer he bent his head again and his lips closed over the other tightly budding peak.

‘Everything,’ she croaked, her pulse racing so fast she thought she might faint with the delicious thrill of his caress.

By the time he’d eased her remaining garment from her she no longer remembered that once she’d lain frozen and repelled by just such a caress. His hand moved between her legs and he began to press rhythmically and without haste, setting up a powerful sensuous counterpoint to the exquisite tug of his mouth. Insistent,
demanding pleasure built in the pit of her stomach, a driving, powerful ache totally beyond her experience.

‘Look at me,’ Cade breathed, lifting his head so that Taryn felt his lips brush against her breast with each word.

Molten rills of sensation raced through her—beautiful, devouring, possibly destructive fire, but it was too late to call a halt now.

Not that she would, even if she could. Heat from his body fanned her passionate reaction to the subtle masculine scent that was his alone, and the intoxicating seduction of his skilled caresses had gone straight to her head.

‘I think I’m shy,’ she muttered, not surprised when he laughed deep in his throat.

Except that a shy woman wouldn’t have yielded so quickly, so easily.

She’d wanted Cade from the moment their eyes met, her body surrendering to an elemental hunger her mind had refused to recognise. That hidden, barely registered excitement had tangled logic and caution into knots, sneakily undermining them and persuading her she’d be perfectly safe going to Fala’isi with him.

‘Shy?’ he murmured, his voice thick. ‘A little, perhaps, and tantalisingly elusive, but so intriguingly responsive.’

His fingers slid deeper, towards her acutely sensitive core, and suddenly desire fractured into light that filled every cell in her body with shimmering transcendent sensation, a rapture that took her totally by surprise.

Her lashes flew up. Hugely dilated shocked eyes locking with his, she came apart in his arms, so abandoned to the magic of Cade’s lovemaking she had no defence against her wild surrender.

He silenced the gasp that escaped her with a kiss so fierce and sensual she didn’t register the flare of satisfaction in his eyes. Her lashes drifted down and she lay cradled against him for several minutes while her heartbeat slowed into normality and the vivid consummation faded into the sweet laziness of sated desire.

Until Cade moved, positioning himself over her. Then, in a reaction she couldn’t stop, her body tensed. Bleak despair roiled through her. Willing her muscles to relax, she had to force herself to meet the keen, polished steel of his gaze.

‘It’s all right,’ he said abruptly. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

‘I know.’ Hardly breathing, she tried to unlock her muscles.

He bent and took her breast into his mouth again. And somehow, miraculously, passion conquered fear, floating through her in pleasurable ripples that almost immediately coalesced into a mill race of urgent, clamorous anticipation.

Cade lifted his head, narrowly examining her face, then said, ‘Yes?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed.

Blue eyes held her gaze as he eased into her by slow, sensuous increments and began to move almost sinuously, his male strength and power controlled by a will she dimly recognised.

Hunger poured through her in a violent rush, easing his passage with a flood that summoned voluptuous tremors through her. Instantly gauging her response, he thrust more fiercely and she gasped again, hips arching off the bed to meet him, the carnal rhythm projecting her into a world where all she had to cling to was this heady, dazzling sensation and the driving measure of their hearts against each other.

Lost in rapture, almost immediately she crested again in an infinitely more complex, intense culmination that hurtled her through some unmarked boundary on a soaring wave of ecstasy. Just when she was certain she couldn’t bear any more pleasure, his breathing became harsh and he flung back his head. Through barely open eyes she saw him reach his fulfilment, his arrogant face a drawn mask of sexual pleasure, every muscle in his body cording in hard tension.

Eventually, while the erotic satiation faded into a dreamy daze, Taryn tried to sort her scattered thoughts. Stupidly, strangely, she longed for some tenderness from him, some acceptance of their mutual ecstasy, but without speaking, he twisted away and settled beside her on his back.

Close, so close, yet not touching. And she needed his touch now, so much she felt the need aching through her.

‘All right?’ he asked, his voice rough.

Hold me,
she almost begged, but a remnant of common sense barred the abject plea. Terrified she might betray herself by letting the words free, she whispered, ‘I didn’t know it could be like that.’

His mouth crooked in a humourless smile and, without speaking, he turned onto his side and scooped her against him. His chest lifted as he said, ‘He must have been a crass fool, that fiancé of yours.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said quietly. ‘He loved me. But we were both so young … and I didn’t … couldn’t … ‘

His arms tightened when she stumbled, giving silent support. Oddly enough, it was as though the rapture she’d found with Cade had opened a door she’d slammed shut years ago.

When he asked, ‘How young?’ she told him.

‘Nineteen, and he was twenty-one. Far too young, my parents said, and they were so right, but. at first everything was like a romantic fairy tale. Only once we were engaged he wanted to make love, and he was bewildered—and hurt—when I couldn’t … ‘

She stopped and took a deep breath. Possibly without realising it, Cade was stroking her back and the slight, slow caress was soothing something more than her laboured heartbeat.

In a soft, dragging voice she said, ‘I still don’t know why I froze every time. He was experienced—I wasn’t his first lover. He said I was frigid. And I thought it was true because I was so certain I loved him. But I just couldn’t relax … ‘

Cade said quietly, ‘So he found someone new?’

‘Oh, no.’ She swallowed. ‘He tried everything. I think he saw my coldness as a challenge to his masculinity.’

She couldn’t go on. Antony had been utterly determined to overcome her frigidity. Sex with him had become an ordeal of new techniques, new attempts at seduction—from watching pornography with her to licking chocolate from her body—in his efforts to discover the magic caress that would miraculously turn her into the willing, eagerly passionate partner he wanted.