Once Touched, Never Forgotten - By Natasha Tate Page 0,36
her to sway against him for support. Beneath her shaking fingers, his shoulders felt like boulders.
His other hand shoved at the silky hem of her slip, revealing her bare thighs her to his fingers. She heard his fractured breathing change tempo, felt the tremor in his hand as he delved between lace and silk and skin to cup her heat for one dizzying moment. Then he withdrew his hand and reached for her knee, spreading and lifting and positioning her with mind-numbing ease.
A belated sense of modesty compelled her to press against his chest, to close her legs and cross an arm over her exposed breasts as he efficiently lifted her, carried her, and then deposited her on the soft, supple seat of the chair. Panic tinged with excitement arrowed through her—did he plan to seduce her here? Now?
Struggling to sit upright, she adjusted her flimsy slip and clamped her knees together.
Squatting before her, he drew her hands aside with surprising gentleness and then redirected them back to the supple armrests of his chair. “Don’t,” he said. “I want to see you.”
She swallowed, not fighting him as he removed her shoes and then slid the black silk of her slip back up her thighs. Flames of desire suffused every inch of her skin. She could taste her longing and the awful awareness of how much she’d missed him, how much she’d missed this.
Balanced on the balls of his feet, his powerful legs bent at the knee, he stared at her, and she could do little but stare back. Sunlight gilded the tips of his black hair and cool air conditioning filtered over her torso. Subtle sounds layered beneath the quietness of their joint solitude … the persistent drone of Manhattan traffic, the muffled ebb and flow of hotel elevators, the distant blare of horns and emergency sirens. But here, cloaked in nothing but air and sunlight and silk, it felt like the world had constricted to contain just the two of them. Alone.
Light-headed and confused, Colette remained pliant and unresisting as he touched her, his hands sliding up from her knees in a slow, deliberate ascent. A tremor gained ground, making her thighs tremble as he reached the transition from flesh to elastic and damp black satin. His fingers brushed the silky panel between her legs and a small whimper of longing lodged in her throat. And then his hands continued north, until he threaded his fingers beneath the waistband of her underwear, lifted her, and then skillfully peeled the scrap of satin down over the rounded curve of her buttocks.
He sank back onto his heels and watched her face as he continued to remove her panties. Warm fingers skimmed the outside of her thighs, the backs of her knees and her trembling calves, until he’d disrobed her of every stitch of clothing but her bra and her slip. Her toes curled against the plush carpeting and he reached to wrap his fingers around her vulnerable ankle. Slowly, he drew her feet wide, planting them beside his spread thighs. He moved to her knees next, his warm hands pressing them open beneath his intense gaze. His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened with arousal as his attention dipped.
Exposed, open, and flooded with a damp, yearning heat, she swallowed against the searing touch of his gaze upon her shadowed flesh. A sweet, shocked tremor of embarrassment and desire leaked through her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She knotted her hands against the supple leather of his chair, gripping the edge of the armrests while he stared at her. She remembered how he’d looked at her every time they’d made love, as if there were no one in his world but her. She could read his arousal in the huge, hard bulge between his legs, in the darkened crests of his cheeks and glittering eyes. And for the first time in over five years she felt beautiful. Wanted.
The tip of his index finger trailed northward from her knee, creating a path of heat as he moved up her pale, twitching thigh. “You’re so soft,” he told her in a low voice.
“It’s my lotion,” she said inanely.
A small smile tugged at one side of his mouth and the rest of his fingers joined the first. She sucked in a breath as he gently transcribed circles upon her flesh. “You smell good, too.”
She bit her lip as his long, tanned hands moved over her skin, inching higher and higher with every pass. When