Fire and Rain (16 page)

 "It's all right," Luke said. "I just thought I knew all that mattered about men and women and sex. I was wrong."

 "What do you mean?"

 "I can't put it in words, but I know it's true just the same. Give me your mouth again, sunshine. I've never enjoyed just kissing anyone so much in my life."

 "But I'm not – not that experienced," Carla said, perplexed and pleased at once, her thoughts vaporizing at the heat of his eyes, her hands clinging to his arms because she was thoroughly off balance.

 Luke's eyelids lowered in reflexive pleasure as he ran his thumb over Carla's flushed lips. She followed his caresses with the tip of her tongue, caressing him in turn.

 "You're so damned honest," he said huskily. "Your words, your responses. I didn't know a woman could be that passionately honest. It's making things harder than I expected. Kiss me, baby."

 "What things?" Carla said shakily, letting Luke take the weight of her body as she reached up to give him the kiss he had requested. Then she heard her own words and buried her face against his neck, realizing anew precisely what that hard ridge of flesh was beneath his jeans – and aware, too, that his arousal made her feel proud and restless and more than a little curious all at once. "Er, besides the obvious, that is."

 "It's obvious, all right." Luke laughed softly, realizing that his changed body didn't frighten Carla as it had three years ago. He tilted her face up and saw the mixture of feminine pride and virginal curiosity in her expression. Amusement and passion warred for control of his body. Both won. "God, I wish I could stop time and keep you locked away forever. My own very private supply of sunshine," he said against her lips.

 When Carla started to answer, Luke took her mouth with a hunger that shook both of them. She felt vividly the velvet penetration of his tongue, the power and hardness of his arms lifting her, the world turning and dipping, ribbons of fire wrapping around them once more. When the ground came up softly to meet her, she realized that she was lying on one of the sleeping bags with Luke beside her, urging her closer and closer to himself. She trembled even as she pressed more intimately against his big body.

 "Are you all right?" he asked.

 "Yes."

 "You're trembling."

 "So are you."

 "I know. I barely had the strength to lift you."

 Carla's eyes widened and her hands tightened on Luke's muscular shoulders, silently pointing out the inherent power of his body.

 "Yeah, being weak came as a surprise to me, too," he said, his voice uneven with desire and laughter. He whispered her name and bent down to her mouth once more."I ache, Carla.Want to kiss me and make it all better?"

 The passionate whimsy of Luke's question made her smile. She was still smiling when his mouth came down on hers in a slow, complete mating that drew a moan from deep within her. He drank the small sound and thirsted for more.

 Luke's hands smoothed over Carla's body, seeking her breasts, caressing them in hot silence. Her cotton shirt and sheer bra didn't conceal her immediate response. He caught the hardened nipple between his fingers and plucked rhythmically, hearing her shattered moan, tasting it, feeling it, demanding it with the deep seduction of his kiss and the hunger of his hands.

 When Carla's breasts were hot and swollen, their tips hard and aching for more of Luke's caresses, his right hand slid down her body. Stroking, probing, smoothing, inciting, he savored the curve of her waist and belly. She arched against his hand, burning and shivering, needing something more, unable to tell him what she wanted because her mouth was wholly his, caught in a slow mating she didn't want to end.

 Luke's palm caressed her hips and thighs repeatedly, pressing against her, moving her in the rhythms of his tongue deep within her sweet mouth. Gently, inevitably, his hand eased higher and higher between her thighs until he could go no farther. His fingers curved around her and his palm began to move slowly, insistently, rhythmically; and the sultry heat that blossomed at his touch made him groan.

 His hands and mouth became harder, more demanding, dragging a broken sound from Carla, a sound that incited Luke unbearably. He wanted to hear more such cries ripple from her, wanted to coax them from her in a fiery, unending cascade, wanted to discover and savor and taste each of her responses. He wanted to consume her and find hot consummation in an unbridled intimacy he had neither sought nor desired with any woman but her, and he wanted it until he died.

 The broken whimpers Carla was making finally penetrated Luke's passion. He tore his mouth away from hers and dragged his hands free of her rich, alluring softness.

 "Luke – please – I—"

 In the moment before control came back to Luke, he shuddered like a man in torment.

 "Sorry," he said hoarsely, smoothing the hair away from Carla's face. "I'm sorry, sunshine. I didn't mean to frighten you."

 "That's not—" Carla's voice broke. "I didn't mean—"

 She tried to bring herself under control but couldn't. She made a ragged sound and captured one of Luke's hands, kissed his palm, then closed her teeth on it in helpless response to the baffling, conflicting feelings raging within her, wanting to caress and savage him at the same time.

 "Oh, baby," Luke said, closing his eyes, his whole body clenched in violent response. "You're killing me and you don't even know it."

 "I'm sorry," Carla said shakily, shocked by her own actions. "I don't know why I did that. I just – just—"

 He didn't wait for her to finish her sentence. "I'll forgive you if you do it again."

 "What?"

 "You heard me. Only harder, baby. Harder." Luke's body tightened as Carla sank her teeth into the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb. Her barely restrained violence told Luke that her frustration equaled his own, and she didn't even know what she was missing. The thought of giving her what she needed sent a searing rush of blood through his body that nearly undid him.

 Watching Carla, feeling as though he were going to lose control with the next breath or the one after, Luke lifted his hand, licked the small marks she had left on his skin and saw her tremble. His fingers closed on his collar and he pulled sharply. The shirt came undone with a rippling sound as metal snaps gave way, revealing a dark pelt of hair and muscles gleaming with firelight and desire. His hand shot out and wrapped around her head, pulling her against his naked chest.

 "Again," Luke whispered.

 Uncertain, Carla brushed her mouth over Luke's chest, raked him lightly with her teeth, tasted the salt of his passion and the fierceness of his restraint, inhaled the exciting smell of skin and soap and male heat. Slowly she put her mouth against Luke again, tasted him again, felt the unbridled sensuality of his response. A soft, fragmented sound came from her lips as urgency rushed through her, twisting her, making her ache. Her hands clenched against his chest.

 "Harder," Luke said, watching Carla with burning golden eyes. "Go ahead. Bite me. That's what you want. You're shaking and tied up in knots and you know I'm the cause of it and you want it to stop but you want it to go on forever, too. You're frustrated and on fire and confused and you want to take it out on me. Do it, baby.
Do it.
"

 With a small, wild cry, Carla did what Luke urged, what she wanted, what she needed. Her teeth sank sensually into the flexed muscles of his chest, testing his strength and her own restraint at the same time. He made a hoarse sound of pleasure and encouragement. Her fingers worked through the wedge of springy, silky hair, puffing and kneading, her nails biting into his hard flesh even as her teeth did.

 Luke laughed and urged Carla on while he undressed her. His words were dark and hot, punctuated by the ragged rush of her breathing and his own. The scoring of her nails down his chest was like wild, hot rain, and the primitive caress of her teeth was stroke after stroke of lightning scorching through him, setting him on fire. He didn't know how much longer he could endure the sweet torment, but he knew he was going to find out. The thought of denying himself one fiery instant of Carla's passion was worse than any frustration he might feel at the moment.

 With a hoarse groan Luke finally pulled Carla's mouth up to his own and devoured her in a ravenous kiss that would have frightened her only minutes before; but now she needed that fierce claiming more than breath itself. She put her arms around his neck, tangled her fingers deeply in his hair and gave back the kiss with an unleashed passion that matched his.

 The world spun again as Luke's hands moved over Carla like hard, warm rain, dissolving everything away, leaving her naked and shivering in his arms. He held her, felt her shaking, heard her broken breaths and remembered all the years he had spent dreaming of having her offer herself to him again and his own vow that he would be gentle if she ever did. Cursing his own nearly overwhelming need, aching, burning alive, he fought for self-control.

 Carla called his name, her voice breaking.

 "It's all right," Luke said tightly. "I won't hurt you, sunshine. You're so wild that I forgot you're not used to this."

 She forced herself to breathe. "C-can you get used to this?"

 "Being naked?"

 She shook her head. He saw the helpless shivering of her body and waited, but she said nothing more.

 "What?" he urged softly.

 Carla made an odd sound and dug her nails into Luke's chest in an unconscious gesture of sheer frustration.

 "Wanting," she said, her voice aching. "And not having. Wanting and wanting and
wanting
."

 Before she had finished speaking, Luke turned away and began stripping off his own clothes, throwing them aside. When he turned back to Carla and lay on his side again, she was sitting up, looking at him. All of him. He froze, motionless, regretting his haste and the fact that she had never seen a naked, aroused man before; and he had never been more aroused. He saw the change in her expression, the heedless passion suddenly checked, as though the blunt reality of his hunger had shocked her.

 "Still want me?" Luke asked, his voice rough with restraint.

 Carla's only answer was the glide of her fingernails over Luke's chest, down the center line of his body, below his navel to the thatch of dark hair. There she hesitated for a moment before she touched the evidence of his desire with curious fingertips. When he jerked reflexively, she looked up into his blazing golden eyes.

 "I don't know which is more exciting," he said thickly, "seeing your sweet curiosity or feeling it."

 "You don't … mind?"

 Slowly Luke shook his head, then caught his breath as Carla's soft fingertips found each irregularity in his hot flesh and lovingly traced it. He had never known such a fragile, tender, consuming exploration. He had never guessed that he could be so aroused without losing control, but he refused to consider letting go, because even in sexual release he had never known such wild pleasure as he was discovering right now.

 "Will you mind?" Luke asked, running his hand caressingly along Carla's calf, her knee, her inner thigh.

 "What?"

 "When I touch you the way you're touching me."

 Before Carla could answer, his fingers had discovered the soft, swollen, sultry flesh at the apex of her thighs. She made a startled sound and reflexively closed her legs around his hand.

 "Is that yes or no?" Luke asked, rubbing gently, finding and stroking the nub hidden within her soft folds.

 Carla's breath broke as pleasure showered through her, a wild, unexpected cascade of sensation that made her shudder. He felt the sudden, small melting, saw mist bloom beneath the firelight on her skin and wanted to lower himself over her, sink into her, filling her, bathing his aching flesh in her passionate response. Eyes closed, back arched, moving helplessly against his touch, she shivered again, melted again, searing him with her heat.

 "Sunshine?" Luke whispered, caressing Carla with tiny motions, tearing a moan from her lips. "Look at me."

 Carla's eyes opened, dazed by passion. His hand moved again, sliding over her, gilding her with the sultry rain of her own response. He wanted more, much more of her, but he didn't want to take it. He wanted her to give herself to him while she looked at him, knowing every bit of what was happening.

 "Don't hide, baby," he said softly. "Open for me."

 For a moment Carla looked at Luke; then his fingertips moved gently and pleasure shimmered and burst inside her. With a small moan she shifted her legs, allowing him greater intimacy, wanting it as much as he did.

 "That's it," he said, his low voice both praising and encouraging her. "Brace yourself on your hands and relax those beautiful legs for me."

 As Carla leaned back, Luke's fingers moved coaxingly, skimming her flushed skin, teasing her, asking silently for what she had given no other man.

 "L-Luke?"

 "It's all right," he said, his voice deep. "Just a little more. Open just a little more. Let me—" His voice broke as Carla obeyed, allowing him into her softness. "Oh, baby, you're like honey."

 He shuddered even as she did, pleasure rushing wildly between them at the slow glide of his caress, penetration and retreat, a silken measuring of her ability to receive the gift of his body. Slowly he rose over her, kneeling between her legs, redoubling and deepening his presence within her softness. When his thumb found and teased the velvet focus of her passion, she sank back onto the sleeping bag with a hoarse cry.

 Luke froze, afraid that he had hurt Carla despite all his care.

 "Don't stop," she pleaded brokenly, looking at him, moving helplessly against his hand, caught up in an urgency that stripped away everything but her incandescent need. "Oh, Luke, if you stop I'll die."

 "Sunshine," he said, "baby, are you sure?"

 Carla's body answered for her, bathing Luke in sweet fire, burning away all his questions. Slowly he lowered himself over her. The teasing of his fingertips was replaced by the hard flesh she had so recently explored. The satin caress sent ripples of pleasure through her, expanding rings of sensation that burst sweetly, melting her in rhythmic waves. Gently Luke rode the waves of her passion, letting them ease his way, merging with her gradually, lovingly.