“Harder,” he rasped and then shuddered uncontrollably when she responded by giving him what he had asked for and more, her hair tumbling freely down his naked torso and her mouth learning the hot, changing textures of hair and skin. “No, that doesn’t hurt,” he said, groaning again. “It just feels too damn good to bear. A little more and I’m going to shock you.”
“You won’t shock me,” Lara said. The words were as soft and hot as her breath trembling against his aroused skin.
Carson laughed roughly. “The hell I won’t. I’ve wanted you for years, dreamed of you until I woke up sweating and tied in knots. But I never dreamed anything this hot, this wild. God, you’re killing me so sweetly that I – “ He groaned and moved even as Lara’s hands did.
“No more,”
he said, wrapping his fingers over her wrists, forcing her to be still.
“But I want to know,” she whispered, smoothing her cheek and her hair over the hard muscles of his abdomen. “I want to know how it is for you when I please you.”
The thought that Lara wanted to know his body that intimately almost cost Carson what control he had left. With a thick sound he covered her hands with his own. He moved once, very slowly, and then forced himself to stop.
Lara looked at Carson completely, from the thickly curling hair of his head to the powerful lines of his torso and down to the different, ultimately masculine flesh that responded so hotly to her touch.
“Oh, Carson, don’t you know how perfect you are?” she whispered, caressing him with her hands, her cheek, her lips.
“Nothing you do could shock me.”
Lara felt the current of response going through him, felt the instant when his whole body tightened, felt the pulsing groan that came all the way from his soul, felt the sweet heat of him filling her hands to overflowing. Watching him with her eyes half closed, smiling, she pleasured him slowly, loving him.
“Come here,” Carson whispered finally, pulling Lara up his body with hands that shook. “I have to kiss you, feel you against me, all of you, or 1*11 go crazy. I want to touch you the way you touched me, tease you until you shiver and cry and melt all over me like honey. Then you’ll know what you’ve done to me. You’ll know how it feels to want it until you could scream and then to have it, all of it, given to you with a loving smile. You’ll know – “
The words ended in a husky sound as Carson’s mouth fitted over Lara’s and his tongue seduced her in the primal rhythms she had just learned. His big hands smoothed over her, shifting her until she fitted against him in a long caress.
She felt him move beneath her, stroking her with his body and his hands as his tongue thrust into her soft, hungry mouth. By the time the kiss ended, she was twisting slowly against him, trying to ease the tension that had tightened her body until she shuddered repeatedly. She wanted his hands to soothe her and to set her on fire, she needed his touch, yet no matter how she twisted, his hands slid away from intimacy.
“Please,” Lara whispered.
“Anything,” Carson said, clenching his hands into fists to avoid breaking his word, taking her before she asked for him. “Just tell me.”
“I want – “ Her voice broke as she looked into the hot gold of his eyes. “Everything. I want things I don’t know how to ask for. Undress me,” she whispered, trembling. “Touch me. Help me, Carson. I –
hurt.”
His hands swept up her body until her breasts were cupped in his palms. The sweet pressure felt so good that Lara couldn’t control a whimper. When he brushed her nipples with his thumbs, she had to bite her lip against a wild cry of pleasure. He teased her gently, hotly, tugging at her breasts until her nipples were hard and radiating bursts of fire that consumed her. When his hands moved away, she twisted helplessly, seeking his touch again, needing it with an intensity that made her groan.
“Easy, love, easy,” Carson said thickly, gently laying Lara on the couch as he slid off and knelt beside her. “Let me undress you. It will feel even better without any clothes.”
He wanted to unbutton her blouse slowly, kissing each new bit of skin until he found the dark pink buds that were hidden beneath cloth and lace. But her wild little whimpers and the thought of all her hot, sweet secrets waiting for him made it impossible to draw out the moment.
“Next time,” Carson promised Lara hoarsely as he stripped away her clothes, tossing them onto the coffee table heaped with photos, scattering bits of the past on the floor. “Next time Til go so slow you’ll think you’re dying, but now – ah, God, you’re beautiful!” he groaned as the last bit of cloth fell away, revealing all of her. Lara felt a flash of unease when the room’s cool air touched her and she realized she was naked. Then she saw Carson’s approval in the blazing gold of his eyes, heard it in his deep voice, felt it in the big hands smoothing reverently down her body. When his tongue touched the tight peak of her breast, she arched in helpless reflex, thrusting her aching nipple more deeply into his mouth. Carson’s long fingers spread beneath her back, pulling her even closer, holding her for the loving, tugging pressure of his mouth.
Pleasure shimmered through Lara’s body. She cried out, and her hips moved in languid, sinuous rhythms. Carson’s teeth raked tenderly, and she cried out again. This time when she moved her hips, there was an answering warmth and pressure as his hand eased between her thighs, tenderly cupping her softness. Unerringly his thumb found the tiny bud that ached to be caressed. He stroked her slowly, gently, drinking in her small cries, and she opened to his touch, withholding none of herself. His deep voice told her of her beauty and of the pleasure she brought to him when she gave herself so sweetly to his caresses. He cherished the soft, feminine secrets that she had given to him, stroking her with his fingertips and tasting her between each husky, loving word.
Inside Lara an expanding wave of pleasure burst, showering her with tingling warmth. She felt another wave gathering and then another and another, each one more intense, each one both releasing and paradoxically increasing the tension that grew deep within her. She trembled suddenly, almost frightened by the unfamiliar sensations claiming her.
Her eyes opened and she saw Carson watching her as he loved her with his hands and his words. She felt the velvet brush of his tongue in her navel and then the unexpected, exciting touch of his teeth on her soft inner thigh. As she saw the vivid darkness of his hair against her pale skin, she knew that she should feel shy or fearful, but the passion that had flushed her body had burned away everything except her need for the hot, intimate caresses he was giving her.
When his hand moved between her legs again, testing her softness, the tension that had been gathering in her tightened with sudden violence: She moaned brokenly, balanced on the brink of a pleasure so great it was nearly pain.
“Carson!”
“Let it happen,” he said huskily. “Give yourself to it, to me. It’s all right. I’ll keep you safe.”
Carson’s head bent down and he caressed Lara so tenderly, so intimately, that her fear splintered and fell away, leaving nothing to inhibit her pleasure. She abandoned herself to him as wave after wave of sensation swept through her, shaking her, melting her, setting her afire. Sensual triumph glittered darkly in Carson’s voice as he encouraged her, in his eyes as he watched her and in the hot, knowing movements of his hands and his mouth over her softness. He felt the wildness gathering deep inside her, a wildness that he had called from her innocence, a wildness that he had focused within her and would finally release.
With a smooth, powerful movement Carson settled between Lara’s legs, teasing her with his own violently aroused body. Her eyes opened, heavy lidded and black with desire.
“Carson?” Like her eyes, Lara’s voice was dark, heavy.
“Yes, little fox,” he said deeply. “You’re finally going to be mine. Is that what you want?”
Lara’s answer was a broken sound of pleasure coupled with a motion of her hips that bro
ught Carson closer. She felt him gently pushing against her, easing into her, becoming a part of her. She had expected pain or discomfort or shyness, anything but the exquisite pleasure that radiated through her with each slow, rocking motion of his hips. Her skin was hot, slick with passion, and so was his, making every movement of his body over hers a shivering, sliding caress.
“Does it hurt?” Carson asked, the words rough with the effort of controlling himself.
Lara tried to answer, but the sight of him rising over her, shaking with passion and restraint, swept away her ability to speak. She breathed in suddenly – and that simple movement tightened her around him, sending the first currents of ecstasy racing through her. Her back arched, and she drew up her legs in an instinctive effort to hold him more deeply, to make the ecstatic instant last and last. If there was any pain when Carson took Lara completely, it was lost in the pleasure bursting within her, melting her around him. When he felt her hot and sweet, tightly sheathing him, he pressed even deeper, rocking slowly against the bud hidden within her softness. He heard his name become a broken cry on her lips as she abandoned herself utterly to him, moving with him until they both were overtaken by the unleashed ecstasy they had called from one another. And then they clung to each other, shaking with the wild pleasure that was sleeting through them, so deeply joined that neither knew whose skin was caressed, whose name was called, whose body had shattered and been reborn in the endless moment when they had been not two but one.
Chapter Ten
The first lambent radiance of dawn slid silently from win-dowsill to floor, then crept softly across the pillows, waking Carson. Slowly he eased from the warm, scented tangle of limbs and sheets, kissing Lara gently again and again. Then he stretched fully, smiling to himself. He could barely believe the changes that the past six weeks had brought. Before it had been as though he was stranded in the past, caught as Lara had been caught, an insect paralyzed within the unforgiving amber of time, helpless to go either forward or back. Then Lara had allowed him to make love to her, healing both of them and filling him with a radiance that even the sun could not equal.
The gold band on Lara’s left hand gleamed in the same warm color as Carson’s eyes. He bent and took her hand reverently, kissing the wedding ring before he turned over her hand and smoothed another kiss into her soft palm. She was so beautiful lying there asleep, smiling just a little as though she were feeling his loving caresses even within her dreams.
“Good morning, Mrs. Carson Blackridge, my beautiful little fox,”
he murmured, rubbing his cheek against her palm. His eyes closed and his fingers tightened almost imperceptibly, as though something were trying to take her away. Emotions burst through him powerfully, more emotions than he could name or understand. It was all he could do to breathe. He lay quietly, watching her, sorting out the explosion of feelings, separating the familiar from the unfamiliar. One familiar feeling was desire. There was no doubt of it. Making love with Lara was an incandescent pleasure that grew hotter and better with each sweet repetition. It was the same for her. She came to him without inhibitions, eagerly, making him feel so much a man and then celebrating his manhood with him in the most elemental way. With her he drank the wild, consuming wine of sensuality and found ecstasy glittering in the bottom of the shared cup. There was also the familiar, cold presence of fear. Carson had no doubt of that, either. He would never feel secure in his shared life with Lara nor even in her love, for it could be torn away from him at any instant by a past that might refuse to stay buried. Knowing he could lose her was an agony that sometimes brought him upright in bed in the middle of the night, his body clammy with the residue of a dream too black to remember.
That, too, was familiar to Carson. He had spent a lifetime knowing what it was to want and to want and never to have. He had learned that wishing and wanting and hard work didn’t necessarily make dreams come true.
What was unfamiliar to Carson as he lay and watched Lara was the aching tenderness he felt toward her; he wanted to give her the sun and the moon, the earth beneath her feet and the very air she breathed. He wanted to infuse her with the sweet warmth she gave to him simply by being alive. He wanted to make her smile, to drink her laughter, to see her eyes light when he called her name. He wanted things for which he had no words, simply unfamiliar yearnings sweeping through him until he could only murmur her name as he bent down to her, breathing air that was still warm from her body.
Lara stirred sleepily beneath the covers, reaching for Carson before she was even half-awake. The gesture sent a lightning stroke of tenderness and desire through the man who watched her with eyes that were as gentle as the dawn itself. Lara’s sensuality was a continuous revelation to Carson, but it was her generosity of spirit that was unspeakably beautiful to him. She never measured or withheld her caresses, waiting for him to say or do something that might pleasure or repay her. She simply smiled and touched him, pleasing him, because his pleasure was also hers. It was the same for him. Seeing her face light up when he appeared, hearing her breath catch when his kiss changed from welcoming to consuming, feeling the boneless melting of her body against him – those things transformed his lonely inner silences as surely as sunlight transformed night.
Although Carson knew that Lara ached to hear I love you from his lips, she never pleaded or pouted until he gave in. She didn’t even apply the unsubtle pressure of saying I love you and then waiting for him to speak in return. She rarely said the words herself except when the ecstasy he brought to her consumed all barriers and the words poured out, setting fire to him in turn. Her breathless, broken declarations of love satisfied him in a way that he could neither explain nor understand; he only knew that he lived for the words and the shared smiles as well as for the blazing, shattering pleasure he found deep within her body.
Carson lowered his head and nuzzled Lara’s lips gently. He felt them shift into a smile as her arms snaked around his neck and a warm, impudent tongue teased the corners of his mouth. Desire arced through him. He pulled her into his arms and gave her a long, deep kiss. Before it ended, she was clinging to him hungrily.
“Last chance,” he said, ending the kiss with a reluctance that told of the blood beating heavily through his veins.
“For what?” Lara asked. Her fingers slid down the long, powerful muscles of his back to his hips, caressing the resilient flesh, savoring his hard strength.
“Don’t ask me, honey,” Carson said, laughter curling beneath the words. “You’re the one who told me to get you up at dawn.”
“I did?” Lara blinked and frowned sleepily. “Oh, yes. Now I remember. I wanted to make the final selection on those pictures so I could take them into town to be duplicated before Mr. Donovan goes to court.”
“Donovan?” Carson felt all the warmth of dawn change to icy midnight. He pushed up on his elbow and looked down at Lara. “What do you need him for?” Carson demanded. “Why do you keep wanting to see him? Is something wrong that you’re not telling me about?”
Lara yawned and shook her head at the same time. “I’ve been trying to set up an interview with Donovan for weeks, but either you needed me for something on the ranch or he had to be in court, or – “
Lara yawned again and turned to rub her cheek against Carson’s warm, furry chest. “Anyway, I figured since half of the Donovan family has owned the neighboring ranch for the last century and the other half of the family has been the Rocking B’s lawyers for the last hundred and twenty years, Donovan would have some good stories for my history. I hear he has an incredible memory. He’s got to be almost eighty, and he’s still practicing law.”
Even as Carson opened his mouth to tell Lara that she couldn’t see Donovan, he realized that he would have no reason to give her when she inevitably asked why. There were other ways, better ways, to put off the potentially dangerous interview. Much more pleasant ways. His hand slipped beneath the sheets. Slowly he smoothed up the taut flesh of Lara’s
thigh, traced the crease where leg joined torso, dipped into the dimple of her navel and continued upward to the soft weight of her breasts.
“I’ve got an incredible memory, too,” Carson said, his tone deepening. “Want to reward me with an interview?” His fingertips teased Lara’s nipple into a taut peak of desire. “I remember how hard and yet velvety you get,” he said, rubbing a tight pink crown with his thumb. “Then I remember how sweet you taste and how warm your mouth is.”
His tongue slid between Lara’s teeth with a lover’s ease, drinking the small catch of her breath as she turned toward him. He kissed her until their heartbeats were hard, rapid, and she was clinging to him.
“Then I remember how incredibly soft you are,” he whispered, easing his hand down to the apex of her thighs. Delicately he sought and found her most tender flesh. He groaned as he felt her changing even while he touched her, becoming softer, hotter, preparing herself to accept the gift of his body. “God, Lara, you don’t know what it does when I feel your willingness to take me. You’re so damned sexy it’s a wonder I ever get out of bed.”
Lara laughed softly and tangled her fingers in the thick, rumpled thatch of hair curling down Carson’s body. “It’s you, not me,” she whispered as she nuzzled his neck. “You touch me so perfectly.” She shivered suddenly, and her hips began to move against his caressing hand. “Just thinking about how it’s going to be makes me want to – “
Carson savored the moan that took away Lara’s words, felt the hot melting of her at his touch. Then her warm, appreciative hands slid down his body, and he forgot to breathe.
“Come inside me, love,” she whispered, caressing his hard length, pleasuring him, promising him even greater pleasures with her smile. Carson swept aside the covers with one motion of his arm. For the space of several ragged breaths, he simply looked at the woman who could turn his body to fire with a look, a touch, a smile. Lara’s skin was gilded by dawn and flushed by passion. She lay nude before him without fear or shyness, her body open, inviting him to become part of her once more. When he looked at her breasts, the nipples tightened as though he had touched them with his tongue. It was the same for her navel, a visible ripple of sensation chasing across her taut skin. When his gaze lingered over the glossy black mound below, her knees flexed and her body moved in helpless need.
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