Swept Away By a Kiss (39 page)

As though sensing her need, he slid his hand around the side of her face and tilted her chin up, kissing a trail of wild pleasure along her throat. She arched her neck, pressing into his hand, nerves strung with drunken anticipation as he dipped down the valley of her breasts.

“I have no dramatic scars to make this especially interesting for you,” she whispered shakily, aching beneath his touch, running her hands along his arms and back, memorizing the feel of him.

“I assure you, my love,” he murmured, his voice deep. “You are sufficiently fascinating
sans cicatrices
.”

Valerie’s breath seized as though a fist grabbed her lungs and heart and lifted her upward. Steven’s tongue crossed her nipple. She moaned, moving into his kiss. Her heart would never begin beating again. This ecstasy could not be real.

His love
. It must be a dream. But his gaze was so familiar, his strong arms holding her fiercely and with powerful tenderness.

“Make love to me, Steven.” She struggled for breath. “Now. Please make love to me.”

His eyes glimmered as his fingers curved delectably around her breast, tormenting her arousal. He traced the seam of her lips with his tongue as his hand slid down her body, drawing the gossamer fabric of her shift up her legs.

Without warning he touched her need and Valerie gasped. The gasp turned into a groan as he stroked, gentle and firm. For a moment she lay breathless, paralyzed with pleasure. But she could not bear the sweet torture of anticipation. She shifted her hips, pressing into his touch as she gripped his shoulders. Everything in her strained toward him, gathering, stealing her breath, her thoughts, all but her desire.

“I need you,” she uttered against his mouth. “I need you inside me.”

Chapter 35

H
e burned to possess her, to make her his the same way she owned his heart, his body, his very soul. He tasted her lips and teased her inflamed flesh, damp with need. She was radiant, soft and hot in his hands. Choking down on his rising heat, he slid his finger into her slowly and she sighed. Her velvet-tipped breasts rose upon quick breaths as he stroked her, feeling her sweet beauty, forcing himself to wait.

“Valerie,” he whispered over her mouth.

She gripped his arms, arching into his touch. “Do not refuse me,” she uttered, eyes half closed.

“I must know if you are a virgin.”

She reached down and grabbed his wrist, stilling him. Her eyes opened, luminous in the firelight. Her chin rose.

“Will it make a difference to you?”

Through the crush of need, satisfaction skimmed along Steven’s senses. She would not be bested, and she would not be denied. She was more woman than he had ever known.

Weaving his fingers through her satin hair and tilting her head back, he laid his mouth upon hers again, savoring her flawless lips, her alabaster and sable perfection. He drew back slightly.

“Only in the particulars,” he said, unable to stop his mouth from curving up at one edge.

Valerie’s ocean eyes widened, vulnerable, and his grin faded. She nodded.

Steven swallowed hard, without breath. She was an innocent. For all her passionate nature and scandalous past, Valerie had never given herself to a man. But even if Steven’s mind had not been entirely certain, his heart had known it for months already. She had seduced Bebain, risking rape for his life. Unable to offer herself to the priest he pretended to be, she had offered him that gift instead.

Now she was giving herself to him, and this time he would take her. Forever.

Gently, reverently, he shifted between her silken thighs, unfastening his breeches and kissing her tender lips and the perfect curve of her neck. Her hands pushed his shirt over his shoulders, her touch light and sure, exploring, searing. He cupped her face, still wanting to protect her from the hard pallet and from his own urgent desire. But his hand shook maintaining harsh control, and when she parted her lips against his palm, slipping her tongue across his skin, it jolted like fire through him. He pressed into her, her body opening to him.

“Please,” she whimpered, and he claimed her mouth again. Slowly, with steely restraint, he entered her.

She was beautiful, pure woman, her lips parted and her breaths coming hard, her thighs spreading farther, opening fully to him. She shifted beneath him, and he tasted her mouth with his tongue, widening her inside. Tight and hot, she urged him deeper, hardening him beyond endurance. He pushed in, meeting her barrier.

“Don’t stop,” she uttered and thrust her hips up, sinking him in abruptly. He groaned, and a cry tore from her throat. Her eyes flew open and her hands scrabbled against his shoulders.

Embedded in her taut beauty, Steven ached to drive into her. Calling up every ounce of his strength, he went perfectly still. Her eyes darkened, filled with confusion.

“I—” Her voice was strangled.

“Come with me, my heart,” he whispered, touching her cheek, willing his eyes not to reveal the consuming fever he knew now that he was inside her. He kissed her brow, drawing aside her hair and breathing in her scent, the scent of desire and woman and unique, perfect Valerie. “Come now, love. You are safe.” As he was, remarkably, finally safe within the woman he loved. Home for the first time in his life.

She nodded, her eyes trusting. Despite everything, trusting.

He moved in her, tasting her soft lower lip, the arch of her neck as her brow relaxed and her pain subsided. Caressing the sensitive peaks of her perfect breasts, he watched her pleasure mount, her throat working, her sea-colored eyes growing hazy in passion. With burning need he felt her accept him fully, drawing him in eagerly as her lips parted and her breathing grew shallow. She arched her neck and shoulders to welcome his kiss, the artlessly sensuous movement of her hips and legs suiting her body to his rhythm inside her.

Finally, drinking in the flame-lit curves of her face, Steven drew a deep breath, swept his hands down, and pulled her hard to him.

She moaned, grasping his face between her palms and covering his mouth with hungry kisses as he thrust into her—once, then again, and again. She threw back her head, eyes closed, and her hips twisted, engulfing him deeper. She jerked and gasped, a startled sound. Slowing, Steven slipped his hand to her face, urging her eyes open.

Valerie’s lashes fluttered, and her breaths came fast. “How many more times must I tell you not to stop?” She pinned him with a desperate stare, but beneath the outrage her eyes sparkled.

Laughter and desire swept through him.

“Never again,” he promised, stroking steadily into her depths, catching her moan in his mouth.

She shifted, her lips parting beneath his, and she was everywhere in him, around him, whimpering higher, shorter, fusing her hands to his skin and twining her legs around him as he plunged into her so he didn’t know where her flesh ended and his began. He wanted all of her at once, her sweet, tight womanhood, her supple, clinging legs, her perfect breasts, and her seeking mouth. He covered her body with his hands, touching everywhere, unable to get enough, wanting more, her heart, her soul to bind with his as their bodies were bound.

He said her name, pressing his lips to her brow and mouth as he thrust harder into her. He said it again, whispering the call of his heart through the syllables. Then a third time, “Valerie.”

She cried out, a euphoric utterance as her eyes flew open, her gaze embracing him as she convulsed around him. Steven’s body gathered, surged, and came apart.

Valerie rose against him, her cries straining as Steven’s thrusts came faster, the sounds of their entwined bodies moving together luscious and erotic. Wishing it would never end, aching everywhere, she rocked against him and gasped, shudders seizing her anew. His mouth claimed hers and his muscles hardened beneath her hands and against her legs. She clung, holding him, drowning in the pleasure sweeping from his body into hers, in her fierce longing for it to never end.

She shook as he eased against her, pleasure curling through her, deep and solid. She smoothed her hands around his arms and beneath his shirt, needing to touch him. His powerful body quivered as his breaths slowed, and her heartbeat pounded. His gaze met hers, intense and dark, holding her immobile. Then his lips curved into a delectable half smile. He lowered his mouth and kissed her with infinite gentleness, as though for the first time.

Valerie trembled, in her hands and lips and arms and where he remained inside her, binding them together. Delicious aching warmed her. But it felt different from the desire he always aroused. Now in her chest and throat and behind her eyes echoed profound, ecstatic happiness.

He drew away from her lips, holding himself lightly atop her. His fingertips grazed her face and his gaze lingered upon her cheeks.

“Tears.” The word came as soft as his touch as he wiped moisture from her skin. “Dew upon a velvet tulip, or perhaps raindrops upon rose petals?”

Astonishment pushed aside exhaustion as her memory brought back the moment upon the merchantman when she first stood beside him. He had held her hand and, rather than a flower, he called her summer rain. Even then he knew her better than anyone else ever had.

“You remember,” she whispered.

“Every word. Every touch. Every glance.” His face was beautiful, lit with a tender smile as he dipped his mouth to hers again. This time his kiss was solemn and devastatingly earnest, a certain, eloquent acknowledgment of mutual possession. Valerie clung to him, fighting the sobs seeking to escape. She did not know why she should cry. She had never felt so complete, so sated and filled with life. So safe.

Her eyelids drifted shut as he kissed her.

He circled his arms around her and settled her into his embrace. Raw where they parted, she burrowed into his warmth and he held her tight. As though already dreaming, she felt him grasp her hand and bring it to his lips. Breathing his name, she descended into sleep.

She stared up beyond the trees where they meshed into a canopy in the darkening sky. The hawk’s eyes stared back at her, watching, waiting for her to reveal herself. Her heart raced and she was frightened, more frightened than she could ever remember.

Her foot shifted forward in the carpet of leaves and dry needles, crackling into the shadowed silence. The black eyes widened. Panic flooded her and her feet moved again, dragging her ahead to uncertain shelter. Nestled in the underbrush, they were hidden from sight, heedless of the rest of her body, naked to the alert stare of her predator
.

Chapter 36

V
alerie’s eyes snapped open. The fire had burned down to embers and Steven crouched before it.

Her heart tripped, then eased. She drew in a slow, steadying breath as he placed a log upon the coals and prodded it into flame.

Gradually the vision before her erased the images of her dream. Once before she had watched him in flickering firelight, her desire stirring as her gaze traced the shape of his body. This time, though, she would not drift again into sleep, satisfied with a brief glimpse of his beauty. This time he was more than a remote mystery, tantalizing in his aloof appeal. He was warm and real, and her body still thrummed with passion he created.

She swallowed dryly, her head throbbing as she blinked. Steven turned. Reaching forward, he placed a cup beside her.

“Drink this.” He sat back on the bare floor.

Valerie hesitated, her gaze shifting to the cup and then again to his face. Silhouetted by the firelight, he was in shadows now, but his mouth curved up at one side. Transfixed, she did not move.

“It’s water,” he said. “Melted snow.” When she remained motionless, his smile faded. “Believe me.”

Taking another steadying breath, Valerie raised herself to sit and her fingers curled around the cup. The cool liquid slipped down her parched throat.

“I thought we were past misrepresenting the truth,” he said quietly.

Her gaze shot to his, her heart jumping. “Are we?”

“I am.”

Valerie set the cup upon the floor and stared. He sat with his knees up and his arms draped over them, hands clasped loosely together. His shirt, open and tucked into his breeches, hung carelessly upon his broad shoulders. He was wrinkled yet still impossibly elegant. She lifted her gaze.

His eyes were the color of dusk in the flickering shadows, his look enigmatic as it had been aboard ship, when he held her off to keep her safe from Bebain. When he killed a man to save her. When he sent her away from danger, keeping her at a distance, always at a distance, to protect her.