Beloved (16 page)

254

Beloved

Diana Palmer

255

from her shoulders and the evening bag from her hands, tossing
both onto the sofa. His jacket followed it. He took her
hands and
lifted them to his tie.

She hesitated. His fingers pressed her hands closer.

With breath that was coming hard and fast into her
throat, she unfastened the silk tie and tossed it onto the sofa. He guided her
fingers back to the top buttons of his shirt.

The silence in the apartment was tense, like the set of
Simon's
handsome, lean face. He stood quietly
before her, letting her un
fasten the shirt.
But when she started to push it away, he shook
his head.

“Looking
at the prosthesis doesn't bother me," she said hus
kily.

^“
Humor me."

He drew her close and, pressing her fingers into the
thick hair
that covered his broad, muscular
chest, he bent to her mouth.

His
lips were tender and slow. He kissed her with something
akin to reverence, brushing her nose with his as he made light
contacts
that provoked a new and sweeping longing for more.

Her fingers contracted in the hair on his chest and she
went on
tiptoe to coax his mouth harder
against her own.

She felt his good hand on the zipper that held up her
gown.
She didn't protest as he slid it down and let the dress fall to
the
floor. She didn't protest, either, when
he undid the catches to her
longline
bra with
just the fingers of one hand. That, too, fell away
and his gaze dropped hungrily to her pretty, taut
breasts.

She stepped out of her shoes and he took her hand,
pulling her
along with him to his bedroom. It was
decorated in the same earth tones as the living room. The bed was king-size,
overlaid with a cream-and-brown striped quilted bedspread and a matching dust
ruffle.

He reached behind him and closed the
door, locking it as well.

She looked into his eyes with mingled hunger and
apprehension.
She knew exactly what he was going to
do. She wanted to tell

him how inexperienced she was, but she couldn't quite get the
words out.

He led her to the bed and eased her down onto it. His
hand
went to his belt. He let his slacks fall to
the floor and, clad only in black silk boxer shorts, he sat down on the bed and
removed
his shoes and socks.

"Your shirt," she whispered.

He eased down beside her, levering himself just above her
at
an angle. "I don't think I can do this without the
prosthesis," he
said quietly. "But
I'd rather you didn't see it. Do you mind?"

She shook her head. He was devastating at close range.
She
loved the look of him, the feel of his hand
on her face, her throat,
then suddenly whispering over her taut
breasts.

She arched under even that light pressure and her hands
clenched as she looked up at him.

"Are
you going to let me take you?" he asked in a soft, blunt
tone.

She bit her lower lip worriedly.
"Simon, I'm not sure—"

"Yes, you are," he interrupted. "You want
me every bit as badly as I want you."

She still hesitated, but then she spoke. "Yes, I
do." that was
all she said—she couldn't tell him her
secret yet.

He touched the hard tip of her breast and watched her
shiver.
"You beautiful creature," he said half under his
breath. "I only
hope I can do you
justice."

While she was searching for the right words to make her
con
fession, his head bent and his mouth suddenly
opened right on her
breast.

She caught his head, her nails biting
into his scalp.

He lifted himself just enough to see her worried eyes.
"I'm
only going to suckle you," he
said with soft surprise, wondering
what sort
of lover Charles Percy must have been to make her so
afraid. "I won't hurt you."

He bent again, and this time she didn't protest. She
couldn't. It
was so sweet that it made her head
spin to feel his hot, hard, moist

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Beloved

Diana Palmer

257

mouth closing over the tight nipple. She moaned under her breath
and
writhed with pleasure. He nibbled her for a long time, moving
slowly from one breast to the other while his hand
traced erotic
patterns on her belly
and the insides of her thighs.

She barely noticed when he removed her briefs and then
his
own. His practiced caresses overwhelmed her.
She was so en
thralled by them that she ached to
know him completely.

A long, feverish few minutes later, he moved between her
long
legs and his mouth pushed hard against her
lips as his hips eased
down against hers
and he penetrated her.

The sensation was shocking, frightening. She drifted from
a euphoric tension to harsh pain. Her nails bit into his broad shoulders and
she called his name. But he was in over his head, all too
quickly. He groaned harshly and pushed harder, crying out
as he felt her envelope him.

"Oh...!" she sobbed, pushing
against his chest.

He stilled for an instant, shuddering, and lifted
tortured eyes to
hers. "I'm hurting you?" he
whispered
shakenly
. "Dear God...
no, sweetheart!... don't move like that...!"

She shifted her hips in an effort to avoid the pain, and
her sharp
movements took him right over the edge.

His face tautened. He pushed, hard, his body totally out
of con
trol. "Oh, God,
Tira
,
I'm so sorry...!" he said through his teeth,
his eyes closed, his body suddenly urgent on hers.

He whispered it constantly until he completed his
possession of
her, and seconds later, he arched and
shuddered and cried out in
a hoarse groan as
completion left him exhausted and shivering on
her damp body.

She felt him relax heavily onto her damp skin, so that
she could
barely breathe for the weight. She wept
silently at the reality of
intimacy. It wasn't
glorious fireworks of ecstasy at all. It was just
a painful way to give a man pleasure. She hated him. She hated
herself more for giving in.

"Please," she choked.
"Let me go."

There was a pause. He drew in a long breath. "Not on
your life," he said huskily.

He lifted his head and stared into her eyes with an
expression
on his lean face that she couldn't
begin to understand.

"Charles Percy," he said
deliberately, "is definitely not your

lover."

She swallowed and her face flamed. "I...I never said
he was, not really," she stammered.

He supported himself on the prosthesis and looked down at
what he could see of her damp, shivering body. He touched
her delicately on her stomach and then trailed his hand down to her
thighs. There was a smear of blood on them that seemed to
capture
his attention for a moment.

"Simon, it hurts," she
whispered, embarrassed.

His eyes went back to hers. "I know," he
replied gently. His
hand moved gently between her long
legs to where their bodies
were still
completely joined, and she caught his wrist, gasping.

"
Shhh
,"
he whispered. Ignoring her protests, he began to touch

her.

Shocked at the sudden burst of unexpected pleasure, her
wide eyes went homing to his. Her mouth opened as the breath came careening out
of her. She caught his shoulders again, digging her
nails in. This was...it was... Her eyes closed and she moaned
harshly and shivered.

"That's it," he whispered, easing his mouth
down onto hers as she shivered and shivered again. "This isn't going to
hurt. Open
your mouth. I want you to know me
completely, in every way
there is." His
hips moved slowly, and he felt her whole body
jump as his sensual caresses began to kindle a frightening sweet
tension in her. "I'm going to teach you to feel
pleasure."

She gripped his shoulders and held on, her eyes closed as
his mouth worked its way even deeper into her own. She moved her
legs around his muscular thighs to help him, to bring him
into
even closer contact, and gasped when she felt
his invasion of her grow even more powerful, more insistent. The pain was still
there,

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Beloved

Diana Palmer

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but it didn't matter anymore, because there was such pleasure
overlaying
it. She wanted him!

She
heard her own voice sobbing, pleading with him, as the
frenzy of pleasure grew to unbearable proportions. She was be
yond pride, beyond protest. He was giving her
pleasure of a sort
she'd never
dreamed existed. She belonged to him, was part of
him, owned by him.

His movements grew urgent, deep. He whispered something
into her open mouth but she couldn't hear him anymore.
She was
focused on some dark, sweet goal,
every muscle straining toward it, her heartbeat pulsing in time with it, her
tense body lifting to
meet his as she
pleaded for it.

His hips shifted all at once in a violent, hard rhythm
that
brought the ecstasy rushing over her like a
wave of white-hot
sensation. She cried out endlessly as
it swept her away, her body
pressing to his in
a convulsive arch as the pleasure went on and
on and on and she couldn't get close enough...!

This time, she didn't feel the weight of him as he
collapsed
onto her exhausted body. She held him
tightly, pulsing in the soft
aftermath, her
legs trembling as they curled around his. She could
hear his ragged breathing as she heard her own.

A long time later, he lifted his head and looked down
into her wide eyes. He smiled at the faint shock in them. "Yes," he
whis
pered. "It was good, wasn't it?"

She made an embarrassed sound and hid
her face against him.

He smiled against her hair. "I thought it would never
stop,"
he whispered huskily, brushing damp strands of hair away
from
her lips, her eyes as he turned her
toward him. "I've never been
fulfilled
so completely in all my life."

She searched his eyes, seeing such tenderness in them
that she
felt warm all over. She reached up and
touched his damp face
with pure wonder,
from his thick eyebrows to his wide, firm
mouth and his stubborn chin. She couldn't even speak.

"You must be the only twenty-eight-year-old virgin in
Texas,"

he murmured, and
he wasn't joking. His eyes were solemn. "Did
you save it for me, all these years?"

She didn't want to admit that. He probably guessed that
she
had, but only a little pride remained in her
arsenal.

She sighed quietly. "I never knew a man that I
wanted
enough," she confessed, averting a direct
answer. She dropped
her gaze to his broad, bare chest where the thick hair was
damp
with sweat. "I suppose you've lost
count of all the women you've
had in
the past few years."

His finger traced her soft mouth. "I haven't had a
woman since
Melia
died. I dated Jill, but we were never intimate."

Her surprise was all too evident as she met his rueful
gaze.
"What?"

His powerful shoulders rose and fell. "A one-armed
man isn't
a lover many women would choose. I've
been sensitive about it,
and perhaps a
little standoffish when it came to invitations." He
searched her eyes. "I've always been comfortable
with you. I knew that if I fumbled, you wouldn't laugh at me."

"Never
that," she agreed quietly. She looked at the way they
were laying and flushed.

"Now you know," he murmured with a warm smile.

"Yes. Now I know."

"I'm sorry I had to hurt you." Regret was in
his eyes as well
as his tone. He traced her eyebrows. "It had been too
long and I
lost control. I couldn't pull
away."

"I understood."

"You were tight," he said bluntly. "And
very much a virgin.
I apologize wholeheartedly for every
nasty insinuation I've ever
made about
you."

She was uncomfortable. Was he apologizing for making love

to her?

He tilted her face back up to his and kissed her tenderly.
"I
won't say I'm sorry," he whispered into her mouth.
"You can't
imagine how it felt, to know
I was the first with you."

She frowned worriedly.