Her eyes ran over him, then back up to meet his quiet gaze. “I didn’t know that a man could be beautiful, until now,” she said in a hushed whisper.
His chest rose and fell heavily as he stared at her. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but never that.”
She sat up, her fingers hesitantly, nervously, touching his shoulder, his chest where the dark hair made a wedge against the powerful muscles.
“Do you mind?” she asked breathlessly.
He shook his head, watching her closely. “Did you go this far with him?”
“With Ralley?” she asked. She shook her head with a wan little smile. “Leda came along before he really wanted to that badly. And honestly, I never wanted to at all. I was never curious about him like this. I never ached to touch him...” She paused, realizing just how much she was confessing as her eyes levered back up to his.
“I’ll let you touch me any way you want to,” he said in a deep, husky whisper. His eyes darkened. “But I’m not superhuman, and I do want you like hell. If things get out of hand...”
She leaned forward, touching her mouth very gently to his as her hands eased down his massive body and she felt the tremor that rippled under her hands.
“Nikki...” he ground out, catching her wandering hands to press them roughly, possessively, against his body and she gasped at the urgency in the motion.
Her eyes opened, looking straight into his, reading the tearing hunger that shadowed them.
“I want to,” she whispered shakily. “I want to please you. I want to lie in your arms and feel your body against every inch of me.”
“You sweet little fool, you don’t even know how to take precautions, do you?” he growled unsteadily, even as he lowered himself onto his back, bringing her down with him. “I hope to God I can keep my head long enough... Come here, Nikki. If you want me, show me how much.”
She let her body melt down against his, her soft breasts crushing onto his hard, hair-matted chest, gasping at the sweetness of the contact as she ran her hands through the cool, dark hair at his temples.
“Don’t let me hurt you,” he murmured as his hands traveled gently down her back to her hips and eased them fully over his.
“Cal...!” she gasped, stiffening.
His smile was fully male, predatory, his eyes narrowed with calculating amusement. “And this is only the beginning.” He laughed softly. “Kiss me, Nikki.”
With a soft moan she burrowed her mouth into his, trembling at the feel of his warm, hard fingers brushing gentle patterns on her tender back, her legs, the inside of her thighs, as he deepened the kiss sensually and made of it something erotic beyond words.
He eased her onto her side so that his mouth could smooth the skin of her throat, could take full, aching possession of her taut breasts in the thick silence of the room—a silence broken sporadically by the rasp of skin against skin, by the sharp, shocked little cries that tore out of her throat.
Time seemed to throb into oblivion as he roused her to a point beyond bearing, whispering urgently, coaxing, guiding her until she could feel the tremors racking her body echoed back by his.
“Now,” he whispered roughly, lifting her over him with hands that were at once gentle and urgent. “This is what...making love...is,” he ground out, and as his mouth took hers, she heard a strange, sweet cry echo in her mind while the world spun golden floss as it whirled away into the throbbing darkness...
Dawn was filtering in through the blinds when she opened her eyes and realized where she was. Her head was pillowed on a man’s warm shoulder, and she could see the wall across a broad, bronzed chest covered with curling black hair.
Her fingers tangled idly in that carpet above a deep, regular heartbeat, and she smiled, shifting her pleasantly aching body with a feline grace.
Her eyes traced the broad masculine face so close to hers, lingering on the imposing nose, the chiseled mouth, the faint shadow of beard on his square jaw. He was good to look at, to lie with. Her cheek gently nuzzled against his shoulder as she drank in the masculine scent of his body that mingled with the remnants of his expensive cologne.
I love you, she thought, looking at him. I love you more than life, and if this is all I can