Her Leading Man (25 page)

“
Please, Christina, I want us to be
friends.”

Friends? Fat
chance

When she didn’t respond, he said—and Christina
could hear the
frustration in his voice, “More than
friends. I—I’ve never met anyone like you.
I’ve never
felt this way
about anyone else. If you were older . . .
I mean, if I were
younger . . . I mean, if I were
a
different sort of . . . I mean, I desire you.
Honestly,
I
do. I don’t understand how you
can even doubt
that.”

She did doubt
it. In spades.

“
But—but I don’t think it would be a good
idea
for us to—to have an affair.”

He blushed. To her absolute astonishment, Martin
Tafft, who was a
sophisticated man of the world if
Christina had ever met one, blushed when
he uttered
t
he
word
affair
. She said, “Yes, Martin. You conveyed
your message very
well.”

“
But, I
still don’t think you understand, Christina.”

His tone was pleading now
.
“I want you to
understand.”

She looked at him for a moment before saying,
“I understand,
Martin. Thank you. I’d like to go now,
please.”

He stood aside, and she walked to the door, trying
to adopt a dignity
that felt as far away from her at
the moment as Peru. Martin didn’t move
until her
hand touched the doorknob, and then she heard a
sudden movement, and
he was there beside her.

“
Wait! I
can’t let you go like this.”

She turned, confused. What the devil was he playing
at now? If they
prolonged this painful scene much
longer, she wouldn’t be able to contain
her frenzy
or, worse, her tears.

His hand closed over hers and drew it away from
the doorknob. “Wait,
Christina. I can’t—I won’t—I
don’t want— Oh, hell.”

With that, he drew her into his arms and kissed
her as if they were
soul mates separated for centuries
and only that moment reunited. Christina
knew that’s
what he felt, because she did, too.
She kissed him back, with all the
passion she’d
kept banked for so many years. She’d never felt
physical desire
before. She’d never wanted to feel
every inch of a male’s body before she met
Martin.
She’d
studied anatomy with the eye of a serious student
and scientist. She
hadn’t equated the parts of
the bodies she’d studied with her own
vulnerable
flesh, much less with her feelings.

She did now. When Martin’s mouth softened and
became—not less
urgent, but less frantic—she felt
as if her bones were melting. Her knees
wobbled.

Sensations danced through her body as if a ballet
company had taken to
pirouetting about in her insides.
Her heart soared and swooped and
soared
again,
until she wasn’t sure she could maintain her
consciousness.

“
I can’t help it,” Martin moaned as his soft,
warm
lips moved from her mouth to her throat and his
tongue found the
pulse at the base of her neck that
was fluttering and throbbing like the
wings of a hummingbird.
“I can’t help myself.”

Christina, whose brain had become fogged, wasn’t
sure what he meant
by that. It sounded hopeful, actually,
although she didn’t want to press her
luck. In
order to encourage him without saying something that
might trigger his
overpowering and inconvenient conscience,
she said “Mmmmm” in a way she
hoped
conveyed how delicious she found his tender
assault.

He pulled her closer to his body—a feat she
wouldn’t have
believed possible until it happened—and she felt the solid evidence
of his desire for her.
Christina, who had studied human reproduction in
as
remote and
impersonal a manner as it was possible
to study such a thing, felt such a
thrill of lust and
anticipation, she almost swooned on the spot.

So he did desire her. Yes! Martin Tafft, the only
man whom Christina
had ever desired, desired her
back. And unless she missed her guess, he was
going
to take
her up on her offer of a sexual liaison whether
he wanted to or
not
.

That didn’t sound quite right, but Christina didn’t
take time to
straighten it out just then. Her brain was
in too much of a muddle.

Oh, but this felt good. As his hands began to make
a tentative survey
of her body, she wanted to writhe
into him She heard a gasp, realized it had
come from
h
er
own lips, and marveled at the body’s ability
to
function
without help from the brain.

“
This is wrong,” Martin muttered even
as his
hands
fumbled with the buttons on her blouse.

“
No, it’s not,” she assured him, starting in on
his
shirt buttons.

Since she was still wearing her camel-riding
clothes, they didn’t
have to trouble
themselves with
corsets, stays, stockings, garters, and other
impediments
to their
pleasure. By the time Martin had finished
unbuttoning her
shirt and she had
shrugged it
off, there was little to interfere with his
exploring
hands except a thin
lawn chemise. He made short
work of that, and soon she stood
before him, bare
from the waist up.

It seemed almost a reversal of roles to Christina
t
hat Martin should be more hampered by his clothing
than she. But he
was. As he gazed avidly at her
bosom, which was behaving very perkily under
his
scrutiny,
with her nipples already puckered and ready
for his touch, he had to divest
himself of his suit
coat, vest, and suspenders, before he could rip his
collar off and then
hurry out of his own shirt.

“
God,” he whispered—and it sounded like a
prayer
of thanks, “you’re beautiful, Christina. So
beautiful.”

Christina, who had been taught by a family filled
with militant
feminist females and right-thinking and
supportive males, and who couldn’t
even conceive of
fainting,
again darned near fainted. Feeling suddenly
shy and unfamiliar
with the sensation, she reached
slowly for Martin, gazing at him in much
the same
way
as he gazed at her.

Because he was beautiful, too. She’d hadn’t really
considered what lay
beneath the gentlemanly attire
he wore each day. But now she feasted her eyes
on
his manly
attributes.

Tall and lean, he yet boasted a deliciously muscled
body. His shoulders
and arms were sharply defined
by his musculature, and his chest was broad and
firm
and
lightly decorated with fine, light brown, curly
hair. He even had the proverbial
washboard belly. He
was a perfect, healthy, red-blooded, firmly
contoured
American male. Just like the kind Christina had
studied
in
her anatomy classes—but with his skin on,
thank God.

“
Oh, Martin,” she whispered, awed, even as
her
own awe surprised her. She hadn’t anticipated being
surprised by any
man’s beauty. She’d figured she’d
be fairly immune, what with her anatomical
studies
and
all.

She wasn’t. She was as vulnerable as a woman
with no experience,
half her brains, and a head full
of fluff.

Slowly, they came together. Christina could only
close her eyes and
glory in the feel as their naked
chests touched. His chest hair tickled her
breasts delightfully.
She was even more delighted when his
hands tenderly
caressed her back and ambled, ever
so slowly, across her torso and down to
her waist.
From there they caressed their way up, until his
thumbs barely
touched the base of her breasts.

Everything inside her clenched, and a riot of
anticipatory
pressure began building low in her belly
and between her
thighs. She knew what that meant,
even though
nobody, in all of her classes, had
admitted
that
women could feel these sensations.

Her father, a broad-minded man and a doctor, as
Christina wanted to
be, had cleared up any doubts
she’d had on that score, bless him. He and her
mother
had
discussed sexual matters with her, frankly and
openly, before she started
taking physiology and anatomy
classes. They’d wanted her to be prepared
for
t
he
world and considered
education her best weapon
in conquering obstacles to success.
As her father and
mother had both told her, many’s the bright young
woman whose
ambitions had
been thwarted by compulsions
of the flesh.

Even knowing and understanding all the things her
parents had tried to
teach her, she’d never have believed
how magnificent a sexual encounter could
be.
Until
now, because she was experiencing it firsthand.
When Martin’s hands moved up to
cup her breasts,
and his thumbs teased her erect nipples, she nearly
shrieked from
pure
pleasure.

“
You’re
so lovely, Christina. So beautiful.”

The scintillating, almost electric, sensation she
felt
every
time they touched had spread through her
whole body. She felt as though she
were tingling all
over and pulsing like a firefly. A fierce desire to
feel
Martin’s
stiff sex engulfed her, and she reached between
them to touch him through the
fabric of his
trousers.

He groaned. “My God, Christina . . .
”

Not too worried, but craving to understand, she
whispered, “Is it
all right to do that, Martin?”

He sucked in a breath when her hand curled
around his shaft.
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed, it’s perfectly
all right.”

Good. She’d figured it must be
.
With
his full approval,
she continued to investigate. Mercy sakes, he
was hard. It wasn’t
merely her intellectual curiosity
that led Christina to a craving to see it
with her own
eyes. A little worried about shocking Martin,
but being propelled
by her own urgent needs,
Christina whispered, “Let’s go to the bed,
Martin.”

“
Right.”
His voice was ragged.

He surprised her by all but dragging her to the
bed, ripping the
counterpane and blankets aside, and
falling onto the cool white sheets with
her in his
arms
.
She landed on top of him, with her legs
tangled
with
his.

“
We’ve got to get rid of these clothes,”
M
artin
gasped after an impassioned kiss,
during
which
Christina discovered she’d been maneuvered
over
onto her
back with
Martin on top of her. She was
surprised that so much physical action
could take
place without a person’s even being aware of it as
it was
happening.

“
Yes,”
she panted. “Let’s. I’ll undo my trousers.”

She was surprised when he chuckled. When she
shot a sharp glance
at him—her eyes had been closed
until she heard his laugh—she was worried
to see
him
shaking his head. He looked as though he were
in the grip of strong emotions,
which was as it should
be
—but
that chuckle worried her.

“
What is
it?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.