Wild Orchids (31 page)

And in that instant she knew that he was as vulnerable as she.

"You're shaking." There was wonder and excitement in her whisper. He smiled slightly, crookedly, as he leaned over her, his chest not quite touching hers as he supported himself with one hand braced on the ground near the shoulder farthest from him.                           .

"I want you." His voice was a whisper too, husky and dark and unbearably sexy.

"I know."

"Well?"

Lora looked up at that hard face, at the bristly jaw and villainous mustache and glittering black eyes, and thought about what she was doing. She, who had never had so much as a parking ticket in her life, was on the verge of giving herself to a man who was involved with all kinds of nefarious characters, a man on the run from the law, a criminal…

"What's taking you so long?" she murmured with a broken little laugh, and suddenly he grinned too, swiftly, and his face lightened into tenderness in that instant before he took her mouth again.

Chapter XVIII

His kiss was hard and hot and slow, with a lazy quality to it that had not been there before. There was passion, much passion, but it was as if he had put the brakes down hard on his libido for some reason Lora couldn't quite fathom. Not that she was up to fathoming much. Even with the brakes on, his kiss was enough to make her blood pound in her ears.

When he lifted his head at last, she had to grit her teeth to keep from hauling him back down to her. Her arms dropped from his neck to the ground beside her, and her hands clutched handfuls of lavender petals to keep from clutching at him. If he could control himself, she could, too. She was not an animal…

Or so she kept telling herself as he pushed her t-shirt and bra up until her breasts were bared.

"You are so goddamn beautiful," he murmured as he stared down at the naked, pink-tipped breasts his hands had uncovered.

Following his eyes, Lora looked down at herself. The contrast between her own soft, milky white skin and the dark brown skin of his hand as it rested on her rib cage just under her right breast was unbelievably erotic. Her breasts, already full and swollen with passion though he had not yet so much as touched them, swelled even more, their brown-pink nipples tautening until they were almost painful. Never, never had she ever imagined that she could be so hungry for a man. The sight of his body in the wet white t-shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and sculptured chest and allowed tantalizing glimpses of the curling black hair beneath was so erotic that she had to fight an urge to rip the shirt from his back. The wet jeans encasing his narrow hips had an unmistakable bulge in the front that was so erotic that just the sight of it made her toes curl in her wet shoes. The sight of her own naked breasts was erotic. Even the soaking t-shirt and bra that he had pushed up out of his way and that now stretched in a twisted line from armpit to armpit struck her as erotic. The cold wetness of the jeans covering the place that she had never so much as been able to call by name did nothing to quench the heat that was raging between her legs. She wanted him to put his hand there… oh, how she wanted him to put his hand there!

He was still staring down at her breasts, his expression unreadable as he slowly lifted a hand to touch a nipple with a gentle forefinger. The sensation that shot through her at that slight touch was unbelievable. Lora had to grit her teeth to stifle a moan. When his finger moved to her other nipple, still just barely touching, she could not stifle it. The sound reverberated from her throat, soft and shocking in its animalism. But Lora was too far gone to be shocked at anything. She wanted him to touch her, wanted him to kiss her, wanted him to make love to her more than she had ever dreamed it was possible for her to want anything in her life. Her body arched up off its bed of orchids in silent demand; her hands clenched into fists at her sides as she fought to control the impulse to lock her arms around his neck and drag his head down to her throbbing breasts, to catch his hand and place it on the pulsating ache between her legs.

His hand was covering her breast now, testing it, weighing its softness against his hard palm. The feel of his calloused palm against her skin made her want to writhe. She wanted to feel it everywhere on her body—wanted to feel him everywhere on her body. She wanted him to love her until she begged him to stop. She remembered what he had done to her before, remembered how expertly he had given her ecstasy with only his fingers, and had to clench her thighs together hard. She wanted him to do it again…

But he didn't. He caressed her breasts, his hand gentle, the other one propping up his head as he stared down at her, a fanny kind of half smile quirking his mouth. How could he be so damned dispassionate when she was going out of her mind and a minute ago he had been too.

"What's taking you so long?" The question, which she had meant to be a joking echo of the one she had uttered earlier, did not sound as if she was joking at all. Her gritted teeth might have something to do with that, she thought. But she couldn't help it. Her self-control was stretched dangerously thin as it was. What
was
taking him so long? From the ragged sound of his breathing, he was just as turned on as she…

"I told you before: I like my women hungry." This reference to their last abortive lovemaking session should have made her go crimson with embarrassment. It didn't. She looked up into those glittering black eyes, at that masculine,whiskered face, at that passionate mouth beneath its silky mustache, and abruptly all her inhibitions went into hiding.

"I
am
hungry," she whispered shakily. Something flared briefly in his eyes before being sternly brought under control.

"Prove it." The husky whisper was almost casual, except for the rasp of his breathing and the faint tremor of his lingers on her breast.

"How?" She was whispering too. Her voice shook. Her eyes locked with his, and she felt the heat between her legs flare hotter. His eyes glittered with passion…

"For starters, you can take off your clothes." That deceptively casual voice would have fooled her if she hadn't been able to see into his eyes.

"All right." She sat up, willing to do whatever he said. Her hands found the edge of the twisted t-shirt.

"Uh-uh." He stopped her. She looked at him inquiringly.

"Stand up."

Lora stood up. Her knees were shaking so much that she wasn't sure they would hold her, and he didn't help any by looking at her as if he might jump on her bones at any moment. But somehow she managed to pull the t-shirt over her head, to find the hook in the twisted bra and unfasten it, letting the bra drop to the ground. She kicked off her shoes, then felt a little shy as she unsnapped and unzipped her jeans. As she pushed them down her legs and stepped out of them she felt even shyer. She could have taken off her panties, the same white panties that he had stripped off her in that never-to-be-forgotten night in the farmhouse loft, but some lingering instinct of modesty made her leave them on. Or maybe some newly burgeoning erotic instinct was urging her to spin out the striptease…

"Those panties turn me on."

She looked at him, sitting cross-legged on the ground not three feet away, his eyes burning as they inched over every millimeter of her skin. The huskiness of his voice sent her senses quaking. Her hands shook as she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of the panties.

"Leave them on. And come here." The words were almost a growl. His black eyes almost scorched her as she met them.

Lora swallowed, and took the single step toward him that was needed to put her within reach. Before she could drop down beside him, his arms came around her and he pulled her close, burying his face in the vee between her legs as his hands crushed the roundness of her bottom, his fingers finding and sensuously exploring the crevasse through the thin nylon…

Lora caught her breath, her heart pounding so hard that she was aware of no other sound as he opened his mouth against the silky cloth covering the apex of her legs. She could feel the heat of it in burning contrast to the cool dampness of the material elsewhere. He opened his mouth more, pressing harder against her, and she could feel the soft slither of his tongue as he sought and found the secret point that quivered and throbbed in aching need. Her hands came up to clutch at the rough blackness of his hair, holding his head in place with two tight fists as his tongue caressed her. He hadn't even parted her legs… Lora's eyes shut tight, and she moaned at the feel of his tongue and mouth gently but insistently urging her highter… The very fact that her panties formed a thin barrier between his mouth and her flesh made what he was doing to her all the more exciting. Even in her wildest fantasies she had never imagined a man doing anything like this… or herself feeling anything like this…

She couldn't stand it anymore. Another second and she would surely die. Her knees buckled, and she slithered down in his hold, collapsing in a heap in his lap. Her barely clad bottom planted on a jeans-clad leg; her naked breasts came into surprisingly arousing contact with a hard chest wall covered with a cold, damp t-shirt. The shock was just enough to bring her back from the edge. Her eyes opened to find him looking down into her face. That maddening half smile was still there, but she didn't care. She only cared about the black eyes that smoldered and smoked, and about the ache that radiated out from between her legs to make her body throb from head to toe…

Eyes blind with passion, her arms came up to circle his shoulders and her mouth found his, her lips soft and shaking and seeking. Her tongue found its way between his lips and kissed him with an intensity that she would have thought, before, to be utterly foreign to her nature. His arms tightened around her body, holding her close as he returned her kiss with lips and teeth and tongue, and yet she sensed that he was not giving all of himself—yet.

"Damn you, what do you want?" she whispered, goaded, pulling her mouth away from his and almost glaring into those too-controlled black eyes. She wanted him in the same state as herself, on fire with passion, driven mad with passion.

"I told you, I want you hungry."

The words were soft, factual, but they drove Lora into a frenzy. She snarled at him, baring her teeth, her fists beating down on his shoulders until he caught her wrists in his hands and deftly twisted her until she was no longer sitting on his lap but lying flat on her back on the broken stalks of ruined flowers. With a deft movement he released her hands and stripped the panties from her, leaving her lying naked as he straightened and looked down at her, his eyes suddenly flaming. It took him just seconds to pull the t-shirt over his head, to slide out of the shoes and jeans and shorts, to lay the pistol that he always carried tucked into the waistband of his jeans on the ground nearby, but to Lora it felt like an eternity. It was all she could do to keep from moaning and writhing where she lay. She had to clench her thighs together to fight the impulse…

Then he was coming down beside her. She gasped as he moved over her, and her eyes closed tight with passion. The crush of his lower body on her legs and belly and thighs was just what she craved. Her legs parted instantly to allow him access. She arched her back in anticipation, feeling the quaking between her legs intensify to a fevered pitch. Now he would take her…