Rexanne Becnel (18 page)

“Ah, woman.” He breathed the heated words against her sensitive ear. “You are like heaven. …” Then he grasped her shoulders and roughly pushed her away to hold her at arm’s length. “Like heaven,” he repeated in a rough whisper. “Or else hell.”

Joanna’s breath came in harsh gasps, and for a silent moment she stared up at him. She was too overcome by her intense reaction to him to disguise her emotions.

“Rylan,” she murmured, unaware how desire shimmered within her eyes. Her hands moved up to grip his taut wrists, and her thumbs slid back and forth in agitation against the smooth spot where his pulse beat. “Rylan—” She shook her head in confusion.

He closed his eyes against her artless appeal, and a tortured expression crossed his face. “Get away from me,” he ordered harshly.

But he did not release his hold on her, and even if he had, Joanna could not have done as he asked. Her hands slid up his forearm, reveling in the warm strength there. Her entire body burned to rub against him that way—to feel his hard form and coarse hairs against her softer yielding flesh.

As if he read her very thoughts and felt her very desires, Rylan groaned once more. Then he dragged her against him, buried his hands in the luxurious length of her hair, and forced her head up to his.

This kiss was not like the other. There was no restraint this time, no trace of caution or even control. His hands held her still before him, tangling almost painfully in her hair as his mouth crushed down upon hers. His tongue invaded her mouth fiercely and he tilted her back until she was held off balance in his arms.

She should have been terrified by his furious display of passion, and on one level, perhaps, she was, for he was like a warrior at battle. When he lay siege, it was to conquer his foe, and he was most assuredly conquering her. Her overriding emotion, however, was not fear but an intense yearning. Above all else she desired more of this battle he waged with her.

She arched, pressing her belly against him and yielding her softness to him. His tongue probed deep, sliding boldly within her mouth and sending tremors of excitement through her. She felt as if a fever gripped her, as if he stoked a fire within her, and with every sensuous caress of his tongue against her sensitive inner lips, the fire burned hotter.

What had begun as a last effort to gain back her freedom became, in his passionate embrace, something entirely new. She was gripped by a desire that drowned out all reason. Freedom was not what Joanna strained toward as she met his angry dominance with her own caresses and kisses. She answered his demands with pliancy. She succumbed to his urgency with unabashed acceptance. In the process, something altogether new blossomed between them.

His ardor was no less intense, yet what began in frustration and anger turned steadily more seductive. As he gained control, however, Joanna’s grasp of the moment slid away. One thing only reigned in her mind, and that was the wondrous panic that filled her. The higher he brought her, the more she wanted.

Her thin kirtle was less than nothing between them, for it slid along her skin in the most sensual manner imaginable. His clothing, however, was still an obstacle to what she desired most of all.

In a state of mindless pleasure she ran her arms up his chest until her fingers met at the center slit of his neckline. Warm curls tickled her fingertips, and she tugged at the interfering fabric. Rylan needed no words to understand her plea. With hardly a break in their kiss, he shrugged out of the offending garment then pulled her once more against him.

“Oh, yes,” she murmured as her breasts flattened against the pressure of his chest.

He bit at her lower lip, tugging with his teeth, then soothing the spot with his tongue. “You are a torment.” His hands roamed possessively over her back and down to her derriere. “A witch …” He pulled her up hard against him and brought her legs off the ground to wrap about his hips. “A temptation I should resist …”

Joanna held on as he lifted her higher and slid his kisses down her throat and chest to the cleft between her breasts. She burned everywhere for him. For his touch. For his kisses. For his possession.

He pressed the side of his face to the fullness of her breasts, then moved his knowing lips to the tight points of her nipples.

“You were meant to be loved,” he murmured as he turned his attention from one of her breasts to the other, leaving a round wet spot in his wake. “To be loved well and often.”

Joanna’s head fell forward. Her curling mahogany tresses made a curtain about them as she kissed the crown of his gleaming hair. “Then love me,” she whispered, hardly aware of her words. She squeezed as close to him as she could, wanting him everywhere. “Love me.”

In response he lay her down on the nearest of the beds. His movements were no longer abrupt and forceful, but they were no less determined. Joanna fell back onto the thinly padded pallet, still holding onto his neck. But he placed one knee on the bed beside her and pulled a little back, disengaging her hands from his neck. His breathing came hard and fast.

“Shall we go on?” he asked her hoarsely. His gaze moved from her eyes to her slightly parted, well-kissed lips, then farther down the length of her reclining body. There was such heat, such passion and desire in his eyes that Joanna felt it as distinctly as a touch. The pure physical pleasure of it made her shiver and arch helplessly beneath him.

“Yes,” she whispered as she met his eyes with her own passion-filled gaze. In that one dark waiting moment, as he poised above her, she was oblivious to anything but him. He filled her vision with his perfect masculine beauty. He surrounded her with his potent virility. He made her want nothing but him.

She raised one hand to his face and touched his chin lightly. One finger strayed to his lips, and with a low growl he took it between his teeth. His tongue toyed with the end of her finger, flicking over the neatly rounded nail. Then in an agonizingly slow move, he sucked her finger deeper into his mouth, all the while absorbing her with his soul-searching gaze.

It was more than Joanna could deal with. Forgotten were her reasons for tempting him—for seducing him. Her eyes fell closed and her breathing came faster and more shallow. She was burning with heat. She shivered from the cold. No, not the cold. Never the cold.

He released her finger and twined one of his hands with hers. With his other he slid the hem of her kirtle up her thigh to her hip. When his hand moved farther, to curve around her waist, then slide down over her hip bone to spread over her concave belly, her eyes opened in surprise. He seemed to know exactly where she ached most. First her breasts, now this yearning deep inside. Yet how could he know?

His expression was intent as he watched her reaction, and when she moved restlessly beneath his touch he smiled as if he were well pleased. Then he drew her hand to the top of his braies and held her fingers to the warm skin at his waist. He rubbed his hand upon her belly while he moved her hand against his, then smiled when her trembling fingers began to move in an answering rhythm. Of their own accord two of Joanna’s fingers slid beneath the tied waistband of his braies and moved hesitantly along the smooth skin there. He groaned softly and his eyes closed as his hand stilled upon her stomach. Emboldened by his response, Joanna moved her fingers toward his navel, brushing the dark spear of hair that grew there. This time he clutched her waist tightly with both his hands, dragging her down a little on the bed.

“Damnation!” he breathed the word harshly. Before Joanna could understand, he pushed her kirtle up past her hips and waist. He paused only a moment as he stared at her naked legs and her triangle of mahogany curls. Then he pushed the garment higher until her arms were freed from it and she was entirely bared to his view.

Joanna lay beneath his avid gaze, caught between shame and exultation. She was naked. No one had seen her so since she was a child. Yet he stared at her as if he would drink her in with his eyes, and she gloried in it.

Then he brought her hands to the top of his braies and once more taught her what he wanted.

As Joanna fumbled with the tie at his waist, Rylan lifted two long locks of her hair. He pulled them taut down to her waist, then slowly crossed them so that the two locks pulled across the peaks of her breasts.

“Oh!” Joanna’s eyes flew up to his and she dropped the ribbon tie in her hand. His eyes were hungry as they moved from her flushed face to the dusky rose tips of her nipples, then up once more to her face. He moved the locks of hair again, and Joanna’s senses jumped at the caress.

Like dry tinder prime for the spark, she leaped into flame under his expert touch. He teased but the taut ends of her breasts, and yet she ignited deep in her belly. His caress was light as a feather’s touch, yet the impact shook her to her very soul.

The fires of heaven, she thought as she sank down into those dark pleasures. She burned and yet she had most assuredly found heaven. In the mindless throes of burgeoning desire, she writhed beneath the pull of her own hair over her breasts and arched ever nearer the source of her delicious torment. Her hands clutched and found his forearms. His skin was damp, as if he too burned. But she had no time to wonder at that, for no sooner did she encircle his wrists than he twisted his hands and quickly caught her hands in his. In a silent—urgent—demand, he brought her fingers once more to the top of his braies.

This time there was no dropping the ties. Though her fingers trembled mightily, she unfastened the knot, all the while dissolving beneath his searing gaze. As the braies loosened, he caught her hands once more and pressed her open palms to his taut stomach, while with his other hand he drew his braies down past the knee propped on the bed, then down his other leg and foot, which still remained on the floor. When at last he was free of his confining clothes he covered her hands with both of his, then slowly drew them up his hard-muscled chest.

Joanna lay still beneath him, yet she was far from calm or placid. She dared not look at his newly bared skin—that private male part of him. She knew it was somehow meant to be a foil for her softer feminine core. And yet the earlier press of its aroused state to her belly proved it was entirely unlike any part of her. Instead she focused on the sensuous feel of his overwarm skin beneath her palms. The precise texture, the crisp hairs, the small nubs of his nipples, the urgent pounding of his heart: all these she reveled in and found infinitely exciting.

“By damn,” he whispered breathlessly. Swiftly he forced her arms above her head, then stretched out his full length upon her.

Joanna gasped, nearly swooning with the pure physical fulfillment of his hard weight pressing down upon her.

“Kiss me,” he murmured as he nuzzled her ear and throat. “Give me every sweetness. …”

She turned her face up to his at once, eager for the consuming pleasure of his mouth on hers. He would dominate her with his seeking lips and she would succumb. As always, however, they would both triumph.

Yet this time there was more than the press of his lips and the thrusting possession of his tongue. This time his entire body pressed sensuously to hers. His chest fitted against hers; his belly cleaved to hers; and their loins met in exquisite intimacy. Then his thigh shifted to part her legs and he nestled his jutting manhood against the dark warmth of her nether regions.

Joanna writhed in mindless anticipation. Somehow she knew this was the way it was meant to be between a man and a woman. Between them. When his tongue began its erotic exploration of her mouth, as she opened her lips to him, so did she open her legs to the heated prodding of his arousal.

“Rylan.” She gasped faintly against his lips. He lifted his head, but only a little, and stared into her heavy-lidded eyes. Then he seemed to focus more clearly, and she saw reality dawn upon his face.

“Christ! What am I doing?” He started to pull back, but Joanna was too immersed in the pleasure of the moment to allow him to stop. Not now. Not when he’d barely begun.

She slipped her wrists free of his slackened grasp. With one hand she circled his neck, drawing him back into their kiss. Her other hand she slid down his sweat-slicked back, along the ridge of his spine and lower, to the crevice where his hard buttocks curved.

He groaned against her mouth, still fighting the seductive pull of her young and willing body.

“Rylan. Rylan,” she murmured between the tentative incursions of her tongue between his lips.

He released a last groan and then capitulated. Like a starving man he came to the feast she offered, devouring her with his mouth even as he pressed into her moist warmth. He was steady but unrelenting, filling her with a completeness that both terrified and thrilled her. A brief tearing pain marred the perfect pleasure, but he caught her startled cry in his kiss. He pulled one of her knees up and settled fully within her. Then he paused and focused on their kiss.

With excruciating thoroughness he used his lips and tongue to bring her pleasure. He devoured her mouth, thrusting his tongue boldly within, then drawing her unschooled tongue out in an answering boldness. It was a dance of curiosity and discovery, a dance as old as time and yet new once more. He kissed her chin, her cheeks, her eyes. He breathed into her ear and bit softly at her lips.

Joanna might happily have expired from the sheer pleasure of his intimate caresses. It was only her desire to taste him in the same manner that prevented her from succumbing to the faintness threatening to overwhelm her. She nuzzled his prickly chin, then dodged his seeking lips as they sought to capture hers once more. She wanted to taste his neck. She wanted to bite at that projection on his throat, the lodging of Adam’s apple that women did not possess.

It was not prickly, she discovered as she moved small kisses down his throat. He swallowed hard as he submitted to her exploration, and she smiled as the apple bobbed against her lips. Then her smile turned to a gasp as he moved upon her.

“Oh!” She stared up at him, surprise evident in her widened eyes and startled expression.

“Ohhh …” she breathed as he moved once more in the same fashion. This time her eyes fell closed as the sultry pleasure of it washed over her. He moved so slightly within her and yet … and yet …