by Linda Conrad
Heaven help him. He would never in a million years forget it again. The sight of her trembling and naked on the veranda in the moonlight would remain with him forever—right on the edge of his sanity.
He still didn’t know who she really was—but for now he didn’t care. For now he would take—and give—as much bodily pleasure as he could manage.
But he did know that the heat and the need were just wisps of shadowy fog, obscuring reality. And he would not soon forget about that, either.
He stepped out of his jeans and tossed them aside with his shirt. Looming over Kate as she lay on her back and gazed up at him, Chase tried to recapture a little control. If he did what his body demanded, he would have her now and take what he desired without a thought to her needs.
Like hell. He owed her nothing, but every fiber in his body screamed for him to go slow. Tease her, bring her to the brink again and again the way she had tried to do to him.
And in the meantime, he would be satisfying himself as well. He would test the taste of her to see if she lived up to his memories. He would touch every tender spot that he remembered, perhaps finding new ones as he went along.
Groaning, he bent over her and, taking her chin in his hand, forced her to look him in the eyes. “It’s my turn to see how far we can push each other, chère. You are under my spell now. I will decide when it’s time for you to go over, and when it is time for you suffer as you balance on the edge of oblivion.
“You’ve asked for everything you will receive…and more,” he finished in a harsh whisper.
Chase had meant to shake her up, stop her from being so complacent in the knowledge that she could drive him insane just by watching. He needed to make her anticipate the sensual waves to come.
But instead of caution, all he saw in those demon black eyes were smiles of womanly desire. She lowered her lashes and ran her tongue over her bottom lip—and he swore silently to himself.
Damn her. With a swift movement that surprised even him, Chase grabbed both of her wrists and imprisoned them above her head with one hand. In a sudden frenzy, his lips descended on hers, demanding a fiery response.
And he got it. Her whole body jerked, arched upward while she rubbed herself against his naked chest. She nipped and licked at his lips as she writhed with pleasure.
Damn her. He refused to give up this much control.
Trying to stand his ground and drive her even crazier, Chase covered one breast with his free hand and deviled the beaded tip with his fingers. Then tearing his lips from hers, he bent nearly double and sucked the other nipple into his mouth.
“Chase,” she cried. “Take me.” Her feet kicked out as she wrapped her legs around his hips and pressed herself to his hardened length.
Damn her. He was losing it. The sound of her violent passion shoved him right to the edge. But he held on, determined to be in control. What had happened to his promises to drive her insane?
He’d wanted a slow torture. He’d wanted to take the time to linger. To taste and excite. To savor the flavors of Kate. Now all of that would have to come another time.
Damn her. It was beyond his power to push her away and slow things down. Something drove him on with thoughtless abandon. He slid his hand between them and found her hot and wet, as ready for their joining as he was.
Letting go of her wrists, he eased back to look at her. She blinked and smiled up at him. God, she was a picture. Her whole body was inflamed, the breasts full and the nipples bright rose and peaked. Her eyes were deep, dark pools. Her skin glistened with musky sweat.
He craved a taste. Chase put a fingertip to the tiny bud at the entrance to her core, dipped inside and pulled the finger back, sucking it into his mouth.
Kate squeaked and scrambled out from under him before he could stop her. “Wait…wait,” she sobbed. “Hold on.”
In a flurry of motion, she jerked open the drawer of a side table and pulled out a foil packet. Shaking violently, she ripped at the packet with her teeth. In the next instant, Kate tried to touch him, tried to cover him.
But as close as he was to oblivion, he couldn’t let her try. He took care of it himself as she lay back on the bed and opened her legs.
“Please hurry, Chase,” she moaned, her voice hushed and breathless.
Damn her. Those had been his thoughts exactly. That is, if you could call what was going on in his mind thinking.
He slid his hand under her bottom and lifted her to meet him. Then in one gloriously long stoke, he thrust inside. Both of them shuddered, crazed by the pure pleasure in their joining.
Tight, warm and welcoming, Kate was everything he’d ever wanted. He stilled for one second just to let himself enjoy. With another little squeak, she tilted her hips higher and he slid in deeper. It was the end of thinking.
Frantic stroke after frantic stroke drove the two of them to new heights. He was drenched in sweat, but he’d stopped feeling anything save for the furious need building to unbearable heights. His muscles flexed and bunched as he pumped, met her hips, drew back and dove in with more force.
Kate was sobbing, begging for release and moaning with pleasure. Kate, was the only thing he could hear repeating in his mind. His Kate—home at last.
When her internal muscles began to clutch at him in the same way her fingers were digging into his arms, Chase let himself go. With an exquisite and continuous surge of rippling completion, Chase topped the cliff just as he heard her groaning his name aloud.
In his mind the refrain repeated over and over.
Kate. Kate. Why has it been so long?
Damn her. And damn himself for so easily ignoring everything else.
Seven
Chase rolled to his side and sat upright on the edge of the bed with his back to her. He scrubbed a hand across his mouth.
Et là, he swore silently. Stunned by what had taken place between them, he fought for breath and focus. He’d been gob-smacked. Someone had apparently scrambled his brains with a two-by-four.
The Kate he remembered from his boyhood had been sensual and responsive. The grown-up Kate was all that and so much more. He’d wanted her tonight in a way that he had never before wanted anything or anyone. With a blindness that bordered on compulsion.
He’d called her an obsession. Ha! Little did he know what a mild word that would be for the forces sizzling between them.
“Hell, Kate,” he managed without looking at her. “That wasn’t the way tonight was supposed to go.”
“No?” He heard the sated and purely feminine lilt in her voice. “I thought it went extremely well.”
He stood, slipped into the bathroom and pitched the condom, all in a desperate effort to keep his distance from her. Raking the fingers of one hand through his hair as he returned to the bed, Chase grumbled, “Smug, aren’t you?”
Irritated at his own stupidity in being swept away by a woman he shouldn’t trust, Chase gritted his teeth and tried to think of a good way to make her back off. He wasn’t sure he could be strong enough to walk away from her tonight, even though that should be his only choice. So he had to find a way to make Kate go first.
“What’s the town’s ice princess doing with a stash of condoms in her nightstand, chère?” It wasn’t a gentlemanly thing to ask, but it had been bugging him…almost as much as the building rage to be inside her once more.
He could’ve sworn he’d caught a flash of pain in her dark eyes before she smiled shyly and said, “I found an old box of them stuffed in the back of a bathroom drawer. It kinda gives me the creeps thinking they must’ve once been my father’s, but the box had never been opened so I refuse to consider the possibilities.”
“Still running from the truth, Kate?” He shot her his best sneer.
But he nearly choked on his own tongue when her face contorted with anguish. Dammit. He’d pushed too hard.
Blindsided and stung as if Chase had hit her, Kate moved off the bed and headed toward the bathroom. She could’ve sworn there had been magic betw
een them a few minutes ago. Now all she wanted to do was get away from him and hide.
Damn him.
But she hadn’t even made it three feet before she felt his firm grip on her arm, slowing her steps and turning her around to face him.
“Kate,” he said on a breath. “Forgive me. I was feeling cornered, like I’d lost my free will. Like someone was pulling invisible strings to make me do things I had no intention of doing. Maybe we rushed into sex too fast.”
Cornered? By her? That was such a backward idea it was almost laughable. But she didn’t feel much like laughing. She still craved him, her body hadn’t stopped throbbing for him. And damned if she was just going to let him shove her away when they clearly had something so incredible together.
She steadied herself, stepped closer and felt the heat radiating from his body. “Chase,” she said on a sigh. “Our past will forever come between us and make a future impossible, I know that. I wasn’t trying to corner you tonight. There has never been anyone in my bed except you, I swear. So I’m not on the Pill or anything.
“I just wanted us to take pleasure in each other for the moment,” she continued. “It wasn’t a deliberate plan. It was simply our needs that made us both lose control.”
He looked uncertain and his hesitancy ripped at her gut, clutched at her soul.
“Admit there’s enough tension between us to light up the entire state,” she insisted. Her tone of voice was getting higher with frustration. “I’m not looking for forever…I know that’s not a possibility. But couldn’t we just forget the past long enough to enjoy what we have while we can?”
“You don’t care what kind of scandal that might cause in this town?” he asked with a frown. “The former ice princess being the mistress of the poor kid who hit it rich and came back to own it all?”
The word scandal should’ve stopped her, slowed her down to think of the consequences of what she was asking. But it didn’t. Not in the least. She didn’t give a roaring rip about what the town thought of her anymore.
If she’d taken time to consider her newly discovered freedom from guilt for very long, the irony of it might’ve given her pause. But as badly as she wanted to touch Chase again, there was nothing that could stand in her way.
She took another step closer and raised her hand to lightly caress his chest. Dying to stroke his skin, run her hands through his hair and force him back into her bed, Kate still felt startled as his muscles jumped under her fingers.
He captured her hand with his own and held it to his thumping heart. “It’s obviously no secret that you turn me on. What we just did… How you make me feel…”
He left the thought hanging, and she saw the conflict in his eyes. “It was incredible,” he finally whispered. “Beyond anything. No woman has ever…”
Shaking his head, Chase seemed to be in a huge battle within himself. “There are many things left that I still dream of doing…to you…with you.”
She moaned and reached out to touch his jutting manhood with her free hand. But he grabbed her wrist with a steel-edged grip and kept her still.
“Be sure in your mind that this arrangement will be only temporary, chère,” he growled. “Who is going to say when it’s over?”
The stab of regret she’d felt when he mentioned the end was thankfully fleeting. Kate wanted him badly enough to do anything. Say anything.
“You will,” she answered forcefully. “You don’t even have to tell me when to go. When you no longer want me, I’ll know. And I’ll leave on my own.”
For several frozen moments, Chase’s gaze drifted to her mouth, lingered and grew impossibly hot. But then all of sudden, he issued a sound that seemed more animal than human, grabbed her up and launched them both back on to the mattress.
Chase rolled her on her back and covered her body with his own. Seeking her mouth, he kissed her hard. As he ground his hips into hers, everything became mind-blanking passion and lust-filled energy.
She squirmed and arched under him, seeking an elusive quenching for this terrible thirst. Instead of giving her what she craved, though, Chase broke the kiss, stilled and leaned up on his elbows to gaze down at her face.
“No, chère,” he murmured as his pewter eyes searched hers. “There will be no rushing for us.”
When she began to whimper in protest, he gave her a devilishly cocky smile and touched a finger to her lips. “Shh, Kate. We have all night.” He captured her gaze and held her mesmerized in his spell.
He slid the pad of his thumb lightly over her bottom lip. She felt the tension growing in her gut and—much lower. Her legs automatically opened beneath him, the movement seeming to make his shaft grow harder against her belly where their bodies came together.
“I love your mouth, chère,” he told her seductively. He slanted his head, nipped at her bottom lip and sucked it into his.
She heard herself moan. He lifted his head just enough to grin down at her. “Slow and steady is the way. Everything will be more vivid, more enjoyable. You feeling it yet, Kate?”
She couldn’t answer. And could only groan and clutch at his shoulders.
He inched backward down her body, kissing a path along her neck and across her chest as he went. “Easy, chère. Let the sensations take you. Take us both.”
Chase rubbed one of her beaded and distended nipples between his fingers. The jolt zinged along her nerve endings.
“Chase. Please,” she gasped.
“Hmm. Yeah.” He hummed low and deep within his chest. Staring longingly down at her, once again he sat back and watched as both her peaks jutted forward and begged for attention.
It was crystal clear to her now why he always watched her from the shadows. The hunger in his eyes gave him away.
“We will please each other later. But for now…”
Swift and sure enough to drive her to madness, Chase ran his tongue across one throbbing nub. Pulling back, he lightly blew over her skin until she moaned again. The shock of his heated breath, mixing with the cold air, made Kate positive she would soon explode.
“For now…I please myself.” He bent his head and placed a gentle kiss on her other neglected but puckered nipple.
Laving, nipping lightly and then kissing each tip, Chase’s movements were driving erotic electricity down her spine. Tiny red ants must’ve slipped into her arteries because the fire inflamed her from the inside out.
It was too difficult to be teased like this without completion, she thought distractedly. Kate liked her sex with Chase to be quick and fast. Hot and wild.
But she nearly changed her mind when the delight of his clever tongue, drawing lazy circles over her sensitive skin, sent a shudder humming through her body. Still, Kate’s conscious mind fought the slow tempo.
Taking pleasure in this long, drawn-out and tantalizing manner meant she would also have plenty of time to think. To wonder if they would be doing these same sorts of things next week. Next month.
Kate wasn’t sure she could hold herself together well enough to keep him until tomorrow, let alone to next month. Every minute they were intimate brought her closer to dreaming of a future that would never be. A few more weeks of this, and she might be lost for good.
Things between them had already advanced past simple remembered passion and into something much more complicated. She didn’t dare let herself get too wrapped up in him again. When he left this time it might be the end of her entirely.
As if he knew of her simmering anguish, he murmured against her skin, “Stop thinking and give in, chère. Lie back and go with the flow. Let yourself feel. Let me take you to the next place.”
She shivered as if in the throes of a raging fever. Hot then cold. Logical then incoherent. Wanting to drive him up this same ledge along with her, Kate swept her hands along his back then fisted them in his hair. The silken feel of him made her ache unbearably.
Chase eased off the bed and stood looming above her, watching. She writhed and moaned, holding out her arms to bring him cl
oser. But he pushed her arms aside as he began to trace his fingertip down an invisible line, starting between her breasts and moving lower.
When he reached a spot right below her belly button, Chase hesitated, ignoring the pulsing hidden place that longed for his attention. Instead of continuing downward, he tenderly laid both his hands flat against her abdomen and took a deep breath. The look in his eyes was full of promise, and the tension coiled ever tighter inside her.
At last he let his hands glide erotically down her hips and lower, until his touch warmed and shocked her sensitive inner thighs. Her hips jerked and she grew wetter, wilder.
Suddenly the sensations were too intense, too carnal. It made her realize that she’d merely been existing for the last ten years of her life. There could never be anyone else she would want to touch her in this way. Only Chase. Only him.
The throbbing between her legs and the hunger in her belly was beyond imagining. She moaned, flailed her arms and legs and cried out. “Chase!”
Smiling at her desperation, he knelt beside her on the bed, bent over and replaced his palms with his lips. It was torture as he kissed her thighs, licking his way ever higher. It made her whole body shudder…tremble with anticipation. She lost all sense of reason.
Groaning and sobbing his name, she reached out to touch him in an intimate way. She ran her fingers lightly up and down his shaft, testing and marveling at the moisture on the tip. Then she gently palmed the tender skin beneath his erection.
His warm, wet responses to her touch made her hotter, as he grew ever thicker under her ministrations. She closed her hand around him, reveling in the hardness covered over by such tender silk. So male.
When he moved his body slightly so he could be in a better position to put his mouth against the nub at her core, Kate scooted under his knee, lining herself up directly under him. He opened the tender lips between her legs with gentle fingers and kissed her in the most intimate place.
