Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,61

pen, put it on a table in the hall and drew Bernie into the room with him. He closed the door behind him and, as an afterthought, locked it.

“Just so you know,” he said as he pulled her gently into his arms, “we’re big on innocence. Some people might call us reactionary, but we respect our women and we don’t dishonor them. You get what I mean?”

He was telling her that he wouldn’t let it go too far. She smiled. “I guess you know all about me.”

His mouth brushed hers. “I know that you’re an innocent, Bernie,” he whispered. “It excites me and maddens me, all at once.”

“Maddens you?”

“Obstacles are frustrating,” he mused. He kissed her with slow, hungry brushes of his mouth, feeling hers follow it helplessly. “But we’ll muddle through. When things get too hot, and they might, all you have to do is remind me that I promised not to let things go too far.”

She laughed. “Okay.”

He smiled as he kissed her again. “You make me hungry for things I never wanted before,” he murmured as he maneuvered her onto the cushy sofa and came down beside her. “A home, a family, roots,” he whispered. He had her blouse off and her bra unsnapped in seconds. “Belonging,” he murmured as his mouth opened over her taut nipple and suddenly suckled her, hard.

She came right off the sofa, a tiny, shocked cry pulsing out of her throat, a sound she’d never heard from it before.

“Shh,” he whispered gruffly. “They’ll hear.”

She bit her lower lip and pulled his head closer, her fingers spearing through his thick, wavy black hair as his mouth made magic on her body.

“Glory!” she moaned. “Mikey, do it harder,” she whispered frantically. “Harder!”

“I’ll hurt you,” he groaned.

“No. You won’t. Please...!”

He took all of her firm breast into his mouth and his tongue worked on the nipple until she was writhing wildly under the sudden heavy press of his body.

One big hand was under her hip, grinding her against the growing hardness of him, letting her feel his need. It was desperate.

She felt guilty. She was inciting him, and they couldn’t be intimate. She remembered suddenly what he’d told her about heavy petting, that he could have the clothes out of the way and be inside her in less time than it would take to react.

She thought about feeling him inside her, and she shivered with the sudden need.

Her nails bit into the back of his head as she held it closer, arching so that he could feed more easily on her breast. She shivered rhythmically as he suckled her, harder and harder. All at once she arched and sobbed and felt a shaft of pleasure pierce her that was beyond anything she’d ever dreamed. She convulsed, shuddered, flew up into the clouds and exploded.

Then she cried, embarrassed. He cuddled her close, denying his starved body the release it begged for. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “It’s natural, baby. It’s all right.”

“It really is? Natural, I mean?” she whispered brokenly.

He laughed softly. “That only happens to one woman in a hundred,” he said. “Maybe one in a thousand. I’ve never seen it happen to a woman I was with.” His mouth brushed over hers. “God, what a thrill it was! You’ve never felt it, have you?”

“Not...until now,” she managed.

He drew in a rough breath. “I’m better than I thought I was,” he teased.

She laughed. “You’re better than I thought you were, and that’s saying something.”

He lifted his head and looked down at her bare breasts. “You know that you belong to me, don’t you?” he asked, and met her eyes with his. They were solemn. “You’re mine, Bernie.”

She melted into the sofa under the hard, sweet pressure of his body. “Yes. I know it.”

He moved over her, his body pressing her down. He fought his shirt out of the way so that his muscular hair-roughened chest was rubbing against her bare breasts. He shivered.

She did, too. “If you want to,” she said unsteadily, “I will.”

“Right here?” he asked huskily.

“Right here.”

“You don’t know how much I want to,” he bit off.

She moved her hips just a tiny bit. “Oh, yes, I do,” she said, feeling him swell even more.

“Baby,” he whispered. He moved between her legs and pushed up, so that he was intimately pressed against the heart of her.

She sobbed, because it was beyond anything she’d felt before. Her legs moved apart, inviting him.

“It would have to be quick,” he said gruffly. “Very quick. And it