STOLEN MOMENTS

by Michelle Martin

  He knew with a sense of exultation that he could take her here, now, in this entryway, with Tom on the other side of the soundproof door, and she would revel in it … but his condoms were miles away in a box in the bedroom and this was Harley in his arms. Intoxicating, glorious, blessed Harley. She deserved every possible protection, and he wanted uninterrupted hours of feasting on her. A tiled entryway was not the best place to start.

  "You realize, don't you," he said in a low voice in her ear, "that restraint is not my forté?"

  "Thank God!" she fervently replied.

  He smiled, his fingers slowly swirling through honeyed flesh. "But Colangco's background check on you suggests this could be your first time. You could be having second thoughts. You could be nervous."

  "Do I feel nervous?" she demanded, one leg wrapping around his to give his fingers easier access.

  "You feel … incredible," Duncan groaned, lifting her up. She kicked off her red cowboy boots, and then wrapped her legs around his waist, their strength a heady aphrodisiac as he carried her in to the apartment.

  Her mouth suckled and laved his ear with restraint-shredding intensity as he carried her through the bedroom doorway. Only the greatest self-control kept him from throwing her to the floor and taking her then and there. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet until he bumped into the bed. Then he lunged forward, following her down and down to the satin-covered comforter.

  Harley lying naked against silver satin, turquoise blue eyes burning up at him, was the most erotic thing he'd even seen in his life.

  Shaking badly, he claimed her mouth with a desperate hunger, sucking at her, holding her prisoner with the sheer force of this need that was thrilling and terrifying and would not be denied. Her body undulated beneath him, tumultuous and wanton, as if he was already in her.

  Never before had he been consumed by this almost violent need to give every pleasure a woman's body could withstand. Harley's gasps and cries and moans as he gorged himself on her outweighed any mere physical pleasure he might claim. This was Harley writhing beneath him—because of him—nothing could match this.

  Her breasts were soft creamy flesh his mouth tried again and again to drink in, her fingers locked in his hair, her head restless against the comforter.

  He licked and suckled and nibbled his way down her rib cage, relishing all the variations she created from the single word "Oh!" Her hip bones, he found, were as sensitive as his ears. For one quivering moment, he thought she might even come as he sucked at them, hard and then soft, before closing over the lovely curve of bone and skin.

  Her stark cry almost made him come.

  He slid farther down the bed, pressing kisses to her soft inner thighs as his fingers separated tender folds of hot flesh. He felt drunk on her scent and her heat and her saturated sex. Groaning, he sank his tongue against the focus of her hunger and shuddered as her primitive cry enveloped him.

  She was swearing. She was pleading. She was gasping on half words and animal cries that were almost words.

  He loved that he could make her incoherent.

  He loved that he could feel the heat of her rising passion shimmer into his blood as his tongue probed and stroked. He loved the vibrant bond pulsing between them that helped him understand her every choked word and strained gasp, telling him when to push her farther and when to pull back into gentle, soothing caresses until neither of them could stand it any longer and he drew that hard, exuberant bud into his eager mouth.

  He lost himself in her luscious flesh, in her frantic struggle toward a fulfillment she had never known, and there was a glory in that he had never known. That he could give her what she craved was more satisfying to him and more exhilarating than any other moment in his life.

  "Oh, my darling," he moaned against her succulent flesh. He slid two fingers into honeyed heat and she came with a strangled wail. He shuddered against her, rocked to his soul as she began climbing to another climax.

  "I can't…" she whimpered. "Oh, please … Duncan!" she screamed as he sucked hard. She seemed to shatter, the million tiny shards of her coming showering over the room.

  And over him. Shaking badly, he slowly made his way up Harley's taut body, understanding that tension and her urgent fingers as they slid over him, welcoming him, pleading with him. Dragging himself away from her in a fumbling search for his box of condoms was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life.

  He was on his knees, his back to her as his trembling hands rolled on the slick latex. Then he felt her soft body mold itself to his back and taut thighs, her arms wrapping around him, her fingers slowly stroking across his chest and his own hard nipples.

  "It's about time," she murmured in his ear.

  Laughing, he turned, only to be engulfed in her stormy gaze. "I got carried away," he said, dragging her sweet mouth to his and sucking her into him as she had drawn him into her.

  "Oh," she said, her voice shaking, "is that what that was?" She slid back down onto the bed and pulled him down on her. Provocative blue eyes boldly met his. "Any variations on the theme?"

  He stared down at her, mouth lush from his kisses, hair a silky tangle, her expressive face revealing a depth of passion no woman had ever given him.

  Thank God, he thought. Thank God Boyd Monroe and Barbara Miller and the Princess of Pop had failed in their brutal attempts to murder this passion that blazed up at him, because now it was hers to give. Because now he could lose himself in it and in her.

  "I know dozens of variations," he ground out, burying his mouth against her creamy throat. "We're not leaving this bed until we've tried all of them."

  Her sharp cry as his teeth sank into her was a mixture of laughter and relief and unexpected pleasure.

  How in hell had he managed to keep himself from her for so long?

  "Dammit, Duncan," she said, heart pulsing against him, "do something about this ache that just keeps growing every time you touch me."

  Hands cupping her face, he watched her eyes as he slowly slid into the other half of his soul. He knew the most piercing joy as blue eyes stared back, shocked as pain and passion moved as one through her.

  "Ohhh!" she said on a long sigh, her body shifting subtly to accept all of him—skin, bones, breath—into her. "Do that again."

  Mesmerized by blue eyes that took him all the way through into her heart without question or reserve, he began to move slowly, reveling in the woman who welcomed him with growing eagerness, awed by every changing expression on her face as she learned this new pleasure and then doubled it by finding how to match her own movements to his.

  He had never been with a woman who gave all of herself in her lovemaking as Harley did. It was both blissful and haunting, lyrical and ravaging. He had never wanted to give all of himself to anyone as he wanted to give himself to Harley now, to thank her somehow for this gift he could not name.

  An alchemy had occurred, turning every physical pleasure he had enjoyed many times before into something deeper and truer, something terrifying and perfect at the same time.

  "Yes," he whispered both to Harley and to this agonizing alchemy. "Oh, my darling!" he cried out as she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him into the very center of her being.

  She arched her body into him, gasping as he thrust into her, hard now, fighting past fear and newness and a life that had never prepared him for this moment to claim something he couldn't even name or visualize but had to have. Had to have now, and now, and now.

  She was sobbing his name, her fingers digging into his back with a delicious pain. Their bodies were fusing together and their hearts, and their souls. He had never known such rapture. It was sorcery. It was Harley. It was holy.

  "Yes," he said to all of it and to her. "Harley," he said and her legs tightened around him, wringing a low cry from his throat. "Harley," he groaned, "look at me. Look at me!"

  Her head shifted, her eyes slowly opened, and he just simply lost it.

  He drove into her hard, fast, feeling her climax
, and roaring through it, taking her with him, stoking the inferno that blazed against him and in him and through him. He felt the coming frenzy building higher and higher within her as she cupped his head in her surprisingly strong hands, blue eyes staring deep into him, down all the way through to the truth, her face taut, hands urgent as they clasped him, as she moved with him, feeling the final thin barrier shred between them.

  "Give me more," she said, wrapping herself around him, drawing everything he was out of him and into her warm soft body as it erupted into his.

  It was several minutes before consciousness, let alone sanity, returned to Duncan. It came in small, delicious waves, Harley's scent on every breath, Harley's heat in every awakening centimeter of his body. He slid his tongue slowly over his lips, savoring the taste of her.

  It was hard to open his eyes, but glorious to see her curled against him, still asleep. Without moving, he let his gaze slowly trail down her enchanting body and then back up to her face, quiet and lovely before him.

  Clarity came suddenly and without warning. He stared at her in wonder. She had just taught him the difference between sex and lovemaking.

  He had enjoyed too many hours of sexual play and pleasure and occasionally dissatisfaction not to recognize now that this stunning moment in time bore no relation to those women or those other moments in time.

  He had never made love before, because he had never loved before. But he loved now. He loved Harley. He loved her and it was a shock because he had convinced himself long ago that he was incapable of deep emotion, let alone loving a woman with a depth and an exhilaration he could scarcely fathom now.

  He loved her.

  He loved a woman just tasting the first delirious joys of freedom and independence. He loved a woman who had lost years of her life to an artificial cloister.

  He loved a woman who had just entered into her first affair and was too passionate not to want more.

  He loved a woman he could not hold.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TEN

  « ^ »

  Harley woke to the delirious sensation of Duncan Lang feasting on her hip. Her hands slid down to find him hard and hot enough to almost burn her fingers through the new condom.

  He'd planned ahead. How considerate.

  She raised her head to nibble at his oh-so-sensitive ear, her tongue slipping in to caress and lick. "Come here," she whispered, her breath making him shudder. He moaned her name as she guided him to the ache that was doubling with every heartbeat.

  "Is this what you want?" he asked, sliding into her only an inch.

  "Yes," she said, her breath catching.

  "And this?" he murmured, sliding in a little deeper.

  "Yes."

  "And this?" He thrust hard and deep.

  "Oh, yes!" she cried, bucking, taking him fully, shocked again at how perfect this was, this union of his hot flesh with hers.

  She had wanted to discover during her holiday how she liked to feel, and now she knew. She liked to feel like this. She loved the heat of Duncan's skin. She loved his low groan as she wrapped her legs around his strong hips. She loved that she couldn't catch her breath.

  She loved meeting his unspoken demand to go farther, risk everything, bungee-jump with him off Mount Everest into a firestorm that burned away all of the world, his cry raw and triumphant as it merged with her own stunning climax. She loved that they ended safe in each other's arms, murmuring each other's names, like talismans.

  The world slowly settled back into place around them and with it the knowledge that Duncan had lost himself in that firestorm. In her.

  She hadn't known life held such satisfaction.

  She hadn't known how good it felt to be held in strong arms against warm male flesh—both hard and soft at the same time.

  She hadn't known that sex had a scent, that it was slippery and sweaty and tangled and utterly consuming. She hadn't known that you could laugh during sex and weep and curse. She hadn't known she could feel so much and live.

  Duncan stirred against her, turning slightly as he removed the condom.

  "Next," she murmured against his naked chest.

  His low, rumbling chuckle tickled her lips. "If you turn out to be sex crazed…" he began.

  "Yes?"

  "I'll die a happy man."

  Now it was Harley who chuckled as she rolled on top of him and grinned down into his beautiful shining black eyes. "I'm so ashamed of myself."

  "Why's that?" he asked as his hands slid through her hair.

  "Because I'm not at all shocked at myself."

  "Should you be?"

  "A virgin? A delicate flower of Oklahoma throwing herself at a man and practically forcing him at gunpoint to ravish her? Someone should be shocked," Harley pronounced.

  Duncan laughed as he wrapped his strong arms around her. "Just out of idle curiosity—and let me assure you I'm more than grateful—but why exactly was it that you threw yourself at me an hour early?"

  She grinned down at him. "It's entirely your fault."

  "Tell me what I did so I can do it again real soon."

  Harley burst out laughing. "You kissed me—and you're a great kisser, by the way—you held me and you feel great—and then you said you wanted a lover and my mind and my libido went into overdrive imagining what that would be like until I found myself writing the most erotic songs in my hotel room, trying to combat major lust for the first time in my life, and failing miserably. By the time five-thirty rolled around, I had enough sexual energy burning through me to power Las Vegas into the twenty-second millennium. I had to direct it somewhere."

  "And you chose me. How thoughtful. I'm grateful. Truly I am."

  "I'm just glad you were home and not averse to a woman making the first move."

  Duncan laughed, his hands reaching up to trace her cheekbones, her jaw, her throat. "Oh sweet darling, that wasn't a move, that was a full frontal assault!"

  "Did you mind?" Harley asked, sinking toward him.

  "Do I look like I mind?" he demanded.

  "You look … delicious," she murmured, lowering her mouth to his.

  There it was again, that stunning fusion of energy as his lips met hers and he sucked hungrily at her, binding her to him like a tractor beam. She couldn't break away. She never wanted to break away.

  It was a moment before Harley realized her body was thrusting against his, and that he was hardening again, his heart pounding against hers with the same rising fury. "We are not normal," she declared.

  "Normalcy's no fun," he retorted. "Trust me." He stared up into her eyes with a hunger that was mesmerizing. "Take me."

  Heat flooded through her. Variations on the theme. And she wanted him now.

  "Soon," she said as she slowly slid down his body, loving his moan of pleasure.

  His hips, she found, were as sensitive as her own. But something else quickly claimed all her fascination. One article she had read in one of the more forthright women's magazines recommended treating it like a lollipop. Another had recommended the popsicle technique. She decided to try both.

  His tormented cries assured her she had made the right decision.

  It was several hours before they finally slid under the covers, and several hours after that before they finally agreed that, since neither of them could move so much as a toe, they really ought to get a few hours' sleep.

  Harley had never shared a bed before, had never slept with anyone before. It surprised her how easy it was, how perfectly they fit together, how natural and right it was to lie in Duncan's arms. It had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with a man who had once suggested they were kindred spirits and now seemed to be proved right. She wished she was butter so she could just melt into Duncan's warm skin. She settled for sliding a leg between his thighs, snuggling even closer, her head resting on his smooth chest, his arms wrapped around her as if he would never let her go.

  She hadn't known there were so many different kinds of perfection.

 
She woke up a few hours later because sunlight was beaming against her eyes. The curtains had claimed the least of their attention the night before. She turned her head from the double glass doors and the terrace beyond to find that she and Duncan had moved scarcely at all while they had slept. She smiled against his warm skin.

  Even her life-changing set at the Surrealistic Pillow hadn't generated this vast happiness that filled her and engulfed her, surrounding her like some wonderful golden cloud.

  It had never occurred to her that taking a holiday would bring her to this delicious moment. It would have surpassed even her wildest fantasies. But then, she hadn't met Duncan when she had made her escape plans. She'd never met any man who had inspired the overpowering desire to throw him against a wall and have her way with him.

  Harley shivered. Thank God Duncan hadn't laughed at her, or looked at her like he thought she was crazy, or asked her very politely what the hell she thought she was doing.

  Thank God, somehow, for reasons she could not fathom, the Playboy of the Western World had wanted her as badly as she had wanted him. As she still wanted him.

  That was a shock, to find, after a night of lovemaking in all its variations, that the hunger and the desire still burned as brightly in her as ever. She had thought that, once satiated, they would fade away. She had thought that, once giving herself all that she wanted, that need would disappear.

  It seemed she was wrong. Very wrong.

  She woke Duncan up and told him so and found—to her astonishment—that he felt exactly the same way.

  Two hours later he left the king-size bed, despite her protests. He returned a few minutes later and surprised her by lifting her up into his arms and carrying her into the bathroom, which turned out to be a mini-spa complete with a sunken whirlpool tub which he had filled. Carefully, he carried her into the hot water, smiling at her gasp before setting her on the curved marble bench. The water reached her chin.

  "Trust me," he said, settling beside her, "you need this."

  She had already figured that out herself. In the last fourteen hours, she had used—energetically—muscles she hadn't known existed. The hot bubbling water slowly soothed away a myriad of aches and the stiffness that had threatened to take over several key parts of her body.