Lips That Touch Mine (33 page)

He felt contractions shake her body. She
tightened her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper, driving him
to a shattering climax. But in the hard rush of his release, he
regretted taking something so intimate from her. His body
shuddered. His conscience shuddered. He'd been unbearably
selfish.

The caress of her warm palms sliding beneath
his shirt and up his bare back made him sorry he'd been so quick.
He raised up on his elbows and saw a soft, satisfied smile on her
swollen mouth. She'd enjoyed it, but he could have given her so
much more. He'd let himself get carried away, had let his demanding
body set the pace.

She tugged the back of his shirt. "Why don't
you take this off?"

Her request surprised him. He'd expected her
to grow shy and want to go home.

"It's not fair that I'm the only one who is
completely exposed," she said, shaming him for yanking his drawers
down like an unfeeling cad.

He rolled to her side. "I'll get your
garments for you."

She hooked her arms around his neck. "Surely
you don't want me to leave yet?"

He wanted to keep her in his arms, beneath
him or on top of him, all damned night. Every night. And that
scared the hell out of him. He couldn't tell her that, so he said
nothing.

Her smile faded. "Are you disappointed in
me?" she asked, insecurity bleeding back into her eyes.

No. He was disappointed in himself.

He stroked her cheek, the feel of her soft
skin making him regret his hastiness. He'd needed her so badly, but
had missed so much. "I hadn't planned for this to happen."

"Does that mean you're sorry?"

"Not in the way you think. I've wanted to
make love with you since I met you. But I shouldn't have taken
advantage of the situation."

"I came to you in my undergarments. How can
you think you took advantage of something I was freely offering? I
wanted this, Boyd." Her lashes settled lower, seductively lower,
over her gorgeous eyes. "I'd like more."

So would he. More than she could ever know.
"Are you certain you can't get pregnant?"

A deep sadness stole into her eyes,
smothering the starlight he'd been admiring. She nodded and
withdrew her arms from around his neck. "I had a bad miscarriage
almost two years ago. The doctor said I'll never conceive
again."

The desolation in her voice broke his
jealously guarded heart wide open. He had brothers who had
children. He had a niece and two nephews he adored. Deep in his
soul, he hurt for her, felt her loss, understood her heartache.

Words were useless at times, and this was one
of those times. He drew her against him. She came willingly,
letting him hold her for a long, long time in his silent apartment,
the two of them listening to the mantel clock ticking toward
dawn.

He'd lain on his sofa hundreds of times, a
few of those times with a woman, but never with this tenderness in
his heart. He felt protective of Claire. He wanted to shield her
from her own memories, from all the hurts she'd suffered, kiss away
her tears, and fill her life with joy.

But he suspected the only way to offer
comfort was to share her grief. He kissed the top of her head that
she'd nestled beneath his chin. "Did Jack cause your
miscarriage?"

o0o

Claire drew back and met his eyes. "No," she
said, understanding why Boyd was asking. "Jack wanted our baby. My
body just wasn't fit enough to nurture a child."

Boyd's dark eyebrows tweaked inward, his gaze
sweeping over her healthy body as if questioning how it could be
true.

"I wasn't in the best of health at the time,"
she said, answering his unspoken question. Two years of fear, scant
meals, and Jack's rages had taken a toll on her body. She shivered,
glad that Jack, and that whole wretched existence, was behind her.
"It's chilly in here. I'm thinking your bed would be far more
comfortable," she said, praying he would understand her desperate
need to be held for a while.

Long lashes half concealed his honey-brown
eyes as he studied her. Finally, without a word, he pulled away and
stood beside the couch. He hitched his trousers up over his hips
and buttoned them.

Claire reached for her drawers, accepting his
silence as a rejection.

"I'll take you in," he said. He bent down and
slipped his arms beneath her. To her surprise, he cradled her body
against his chest and carried her through a door off the parlor. He
lowered her feet to a plush carpet beside a huge four-poster bed,
then turned back a thick quilt. She slipped between linens that
smelled freshly laundered, and he tucked the bedding around her
shivering body. "I'll build up the fire," he said, then left the
room.

She lay in the dark, hearing the rattle of
the stove door and the thump of wood being chucked inside. Seconds
later, the sound of water splashing told her he was in the water
closet washing up. She relaxed back into the thick pillows. Her
mind was still a little fuzzy, but she was nowhere near as confused
as she'd been before making love with Boyd. In fact, she felt an
amazing sense of peace.

She'd taken a risk—and a lover.

She'd opened the cage.

Boyd entered the bedchamber with a lantern
and sat it on the stand beside the bed. He stood with a white towel
hooked around his neck, his lean, hard torso completely bare. Dark
hair fanned across his chest and over muscle and sinew that gleamed
with drops of water he hadn't toweled dry. His wet, slicked-back
hair shone like onyx in the lantern light, emphasizing the shadowy
fringe of his eyebrows and lashes...and those dark eyes that made
her burn.

The force of his gaze tightened her stomach
muscles.

He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. "I
want to make love to you the way you deserve to be made love
to."

Of all the things he might have said to her
in that moment, none could have filled her with more confidence or
joy. She turned back the bedding to welcome him, her lover.

Muscles shifted across his shoulders and
tapered, naked back as he bent to lower the lantern wick. The room
turned golden, his skin bronze. Unabashedly, she watched him shuck
his trousers and drawers.

She'd seen Jack's body through peeks and
glimpses, the young girl in her too shy, the experienced woman too
intimidated, to openly appraise him. But she wasn't shy or afraid
tonight. The woman in her took a good, long look at the man she was
inviting into bed, into her heart, into her life.

Boyd was impressive in every way.

He slipped beneath the covers and reached for
her. She moved into his arms, coveting the warmth radiating from
his hard body. The tangy smell of soap clung to his neck and chest
where she nestled her head.

"What a surprise you are," he said, a tinge
of awe in his voice.

She smiled against his chest, enjoying the
rumble of his voice beneath her ear, enjoying his approval. She'd
surprised herself too. "It pays to be daring at times," she said,
recognizing the truth of her words.

"How daring do you feel now?" She lifted her
head, expecting to see humor in his eyes.

She saw banked fire instead.

He scraped his blunt fingernails across her
scalp, sending a delicious shiver through her as he slipped his
fingers into her hair. "I want to touch you all night, starting
right here." He drew his thumb over her lips. "And give you so much
pleasure you beg me to stop."

She'd never begged, but when he rolled her to
her back and kissed and nibbled and stroked her until she was
mindless and gasping, she considered it.

And he hadn't even touched her below the
neck.

"Roll onto your stomach," he said near her
ear. A wicked thrill zipped through her, stealing her ability to
speak. She hesitated, unsure what he was asking.

He kissed her neck. "Trust me."

She would. Oh, she would. She rolled onto her
stomach, trusting that whatever he did to her would be heaven.

He sat up and spanned her back with his
talented artist's hands, moving his warm palms over her skin with
slow, fanning strokes that made her moan. The tips of his fingers
dragged across her skin, leaving behind a trail of gooseflesh that
made her shiver with pleasure.

His hands were magic, melting away the
tension in her neck, her shoulders, her hips, and lower as he drew
his hands down the length of her legs in long, gentle strokes.

She moaned.

And sighed,

And moaned again. "This is sinful," she said,
her body so relaxed she could barely force out the words.

"I learned how to do this from a Chinese lady
a few years ago."

"For a worldly man, you've missed an
important lesson. You're not supposed to talk about other women at
a time like this." .

"Not even if she's old enough to be my
great-grandmother, and our relationship was platonic?"

She arched her eyebrow. "That may give you
some leeway."

He slid his thumbs along her arch and around
the ball of her foot, pushing up beneath her toes. She moaned,
unable not to.

"I like making you moan."

"This is taxing, but I can bear it a bit
longer."

He laughed and kissed the arch of her foot.
"Tell me when it becomes too much for you."

She smiled into his feather pillow, basking
in the feel of his hands caressing her body. The depth of his
kindness and the pleasure he was giving her were beyond anything
she'd ever experienced. So was the feeling of his lips kissing a
leisurely trail up the backs of her legs. She gasped when he nipped
the flesh on her bottom.

"Turn over," he said, his voice ragged, his
request gentle.

Her heart pounded as she rolled to her back,
exposing herself to him.

He sat on his knees above her, appreciation
shining in his eyes as he stroked his hands up her body. "You are
an artist's dream. Your legs and curves and smile are a work of
art." He leaned down and kissed her lips. "You're perfect." He
kissed her breasts. "Enchanting." He kissed her navel.
"Ravishing."

He kissed her—where she'd never been kissed
before.

She gasped from the shock and the avalanche
of pleasure rushing through her. She threaded her fingers into his
hair, intending to make him stop, but she couldn't. Within seconds,
she was moaning to the point of embarrassment, and praying he would
never stop.

As if he sensed her racing toward the edge,
he rose above her and stretched out on top of her. The weight of
his body pressing her into the mattress thrilled her. She shifted
her knees and he settled his hips between her thighs.

She smoothed her palms over his back, loving
the feel of his hard body, the crisp hair on his legs that brushed
her inner thighs as he pushed inside her.

She released a deep, satisfied sigh. "I've
never been touched this way."

He nibbled at her lips. "You should always be
touched like this."

"I'm available tomorrow evening."

A smile tilted his mouth, but she saw more
than his handsome face. She saw the other, more serious man looking
back at her.

She lifted her hips, making him groan and
bury his face in her hair. She flattened her palms across his
smooth, tapered back, savoring the feel of him, the weight of his
body shifting and pressing into hers.

She would never get enough of him, this
playful, serious man who was kissing her senseless and stealing her
heart.

How would she manage to love him for only one
night?

His kisses grew deeper, his thrusts firmer,
until they were both half-crazed, gasping and clinging and
squeezing—and then she was there: leaping from the peak of the
mountain they'd been climbing, hurtling into turbulent currents
that shuddered through her body, twisting and spinning her out of
control. She cried out, grasping at his sturdy shoulders as he
lunged hard and followed her into the vast blue sky.

She soared away on the wind, gloriously,
wonderfully free.

o0o

As Boyd's heartbeat calmed, he watched
Claire's breathing slow, and her lashes flutter as she drifted into
sleep. She lay on her back, her body flush with his, her hair
splashed across his pillow like rays of sunshine.

He'd always prided himself on maintaining
control of himself both physically and emotionally, but this woman,
this vulnerable widow, had shaken his control and moved him beyond
his wildest imaginings.

Her daring had stunned and impressed him. Her
lusty, playful participation in lovemaking had thrilled him. Her
confessions had torn his heart out. What man could touch her soft
skin without wanting to give her pleasure? How could this
energetic, passionate woman be too unhealthy to carry a child?

He stroked her silky hair, knowing he could
make love to her a million nights and not get enough of her. Even
now, he yearned to wake her with a kiss.

He held her in his arms for hours, stroking
her hair, watching her sandy lashes twitch against her creamy skin,
knowing he was completely and utterly trapped by his need for
her.

It scared the hell out of him.

But it scared him more to think she could get
hurt again. He couldn't let that happen. She'd suffered too much
already. She was a beautiful, giving woman trying to do good in the
world. He didn't agree with her methods, but he admired her for
standing up for what she believed in. He would stand beside her. He
would protect her in the only way he could.

"Are
you awake?"

Boyd's warm breath caressed Claire's temple,
and she snuggled against him, loving the feel of his warm skin
against hers. "No."

He chuckled and ran his hand over her bare
hip. "Then I'll have to find a creative way to wake you up."

Her skin thrilled to his warm palm as he
skimmed his hand over her body. She leaned her forehead against his
collarbone, reveling in the smell of him and the hint of soap that
lingered on his skin. She rubbed her cheek against his chest,
basking in the softness of his springy chest hair.