by Anne Mather
Joanna nodded, watching helplessly as he swung open the fridge door, and took two cans of Coke from the shelf. Illuminated by the light inside, his face was disturbingly sensual, and she wondered at her own ability to handle the situation. But when the door closed, and the light went out, her mother’s training asserted itself again. ‘The—er—the glasses are in here,’ she murmured, opening one of the wall cupboards.
But Cole only gave her a lazy glance. ‘Tastes better out of a can,’ he assured her. Handing her one of the ice-cold containers, he tore the tab off his and raised the can to his lips. The brown column of his throat rippled as he swallowed the liquid, and Joanna couldn’t help watching him, her eyes as wide and startled as those of a mesmerised rabbit.
Then, gathering her scattered senses, she dragged her gaze away. For heaven’s sake, she chided herself, he was only a man! But it was hard to concentrate on anything and her attention slipped again, so that the tab came off unevenly, and snagged the pad of her thumb.
Cole had started to walk into the living-room, with the can still raised to his lips, when he heard her muffled exclamation. Glancing round, he saw at once what had happened, and, slamming down his drink, he came to take her hand.
‘How the hell did you do that?’ he exclaimed, but his tone was indulgent. Taking the injured finger into his mouth, he licked the blood away. ‘What a pity it wasn’t your lip. Then I’d have had an excuse to do this.’ And, lowering his head, he brushed her mouth with his tongue.
Joanna’s legs wobbled. He was fast, she thought, trying to keep a hold on her senses. He hadn’t been in the apartment fifteen minutes, and already he had kissed her. Or was that really kissing? It hadn’t happened to her before, so she didn’t really know.
‘You OK?’ he asked, and she realised he was watching her fairly closely. Close enough to glimpse the uncertainty in her eyes, she thought. Close enough to realise she was getting out of her depth.
‘I’m—fine,’ she got out hurriedly, her tone tense and clipped. ‘I think I’d better get a plaster. I don’t want to get blood everywhere.’
‘A plaster?’ Cole looked puzzled for a moment, and then his face cleared. ‘Oh, you mean a Band-aid.’ He nodded. ‘Right.’
‘Right.’ Joanna drew her hand firmly away, breathing a sigh of relief, when he let her. ‘Why—er—why don’t you go and finish your drink? I won’t be a minute.’
Cole didn’t move. ‘Is something wrong?’ he queried, and Joanna, who had started rummaging about in a drawer for the packet of Elastoplast she knew was there somewhere, gave him a guilty look.
‘Something wrong?’ she echoed, trying to sound surprised. ‘No. No. Why would there be?’
‘You tell me.’
Joanna shook her head, feeling more and more awkward. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She found the box of plasters, and her fingers fastened weakly about it. ‘Really—I won’t be long.’
Cole regarded her intently for what seemed an inordinate amount of time, and then, moving forward, he took the box from her. ‘Let me do it,’ he said, and although Joanna wanted to argue it was easier to give in.
Besides, she had to admit later, he had made a neat job of wrapping the plaster round her thumb. It was certainly neater than she could have managed. But, when she opened her mouth to thank him, he forestalled her.
‘Tell me something,’ he said, holding on to her fingers when she would have withdrawn them again. ‘Did I get the wrong signal here?’
Joanna swallowed. ‘The wrong signal?’
‘Yeah.’ Cole smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand. ‘Do you want me to go?’
Joanna’s jaw sagged, and she moved her shoulders in a helpless gesture. Her skin was prickling with awareness and, somewhere down in her stomach, she could feel a dull pain. ‘I—why, no,’ she said at last. ‘Why should you think that?’
Cole shrugged. ‘The way you acted when I touched you,’ he replied.
Joanna tried to act casually. ‘You’re touching me now,’ she pointed out lightly, but Cole didn’t smile.
‘You know what I mean,’ he said flatly. ‘Is this a turn-off?’
Such words he used! Joanna shook her head. She didn’t know how to answer him. She had never met anybody who asked such personal questions before. Her dealings with his sex had been fairly simple up till now. The men she had dated had been the kind of men who let her dictate the pace of their relationships. And, because she had never been emotionally involved before, their encounters had never been in any danger of getting out of hand. But Cole was different. She had known that as soon as she met him. What she hadn’t recognised was how different. And, in her eagerness to know him better, she had walked into a situation she simply didn’t know how to deal with.
‘I don’t think—we should rush things,’ she got out at last, wondering how the abrasive brush of his thumb could cause such havoc inside her. ‘We—we hardly know one another.’
‘Don’t we?’ With a little jerk, he brought her unwary body towards him. Then, before she had a chance to protest, he released her fingers and put both his hands on her hips. The weight of those hard hands burned through the thin material of her dungarees, and because, underneath, her hips were bare, they were disturbingly intimate, too. ‘So,’ he crooned softly, ‘let’s get to know one another better.’
‘Oh, really!’ Joanna’s hands spread against his shirt-front. It was a puny defence and she knew it, but events were moving far too swiftly. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do this.’
‘Do what?’ asked Cole huskily, looking down into the open V of her shirt, and causing a wave of heat to envelop her. ‘Say, are you wearing anything under this coverall?’
‘You know I am.’ Joanna’s response wasn’t hesitant this time, and Cole’s eyes glimmered with undisguised amusement. But, conversely, his humour upset her almost as much as his advances had done, and in a tight, angry tone she added, ‘I suppose you think this is very funny!’
Cole’s eyes softened. ‘Don’t be so touchy.’ He lifted one hand and stroked it down her cheek. ‘Is all your skin as soft as this?’
Joanna’s breathing felt constricted. ‘Cole——’
‘Hmm.’ His hand had left her cheek, and had now coiled around her neck. His thumb was rubbing the skin on the underside of her jaw, as if he was testing for an answer to the question he had asked earlier, and his fingers beneath her hair were hard against her nape. It was strange, she thought bemusedly, how his hands were so hard, while hers were so soft. Everything about him was hard and masculine, and she had the craziest urge to lean into him and feel his hardness right down her body …
‘Cole, I think—I think we should go into the other room,’ she stammered, as the realisation of what was happening to her brought her briefly to her senses. ‘I—I could make us something to eat——’
‘I’ve got something to eat,’ retorted Cole huskily, bending his head to stroke his tongue from a point just below her ear to the curve of shoulder he was exposing. He tipped off the strap of her dungarees, and slipped his hand into the neckline of her shirt. ‘God, you taste good,’ he muttered, taking a tender circle of flesh between his teeth and tugging it into his mouth. ‘So good …’
Joanna trembled. All the juices in her body seemed to be melting and expanding, rising to the surface of her skin and dissolving her resistance. She knew she was going to have a bruise on her neck later, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her senses were blinding her to everything but the needs he was building inside her, and her eyes closed instinctively, shutting out the world.
He pulled her against him, his hand finding the swollen fullness of her breast. The engorged aureole surged against his palm, and he rubbed its sensitive tip urgently. Then he lowered his head and dragged the aching nipple into his mouth.
Joanna’s legs sagged. Like a drowning woman now, she wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her face against his chest. His shirt was half open, and the hair that clustered in the V was rough against
her cheek. But the scent of his skin was heavenly, and she opened her mouth wide to taste his fragrance.
Cole moved into her then, imprisoning her against the wall behind her, and jerking her mouth up to his. His hungry tongue surged into her mouth, fierce and possessive, and his jeans-clad thigh was insistent as it eased its way between her legs. His assault was demanding, but sweetly sensual. And nothing had prepared Joanna for her own need to respond.
This couldn’t be happening, she told herself in one lucid moment, when the coolness of the air around her thighs warned her that her dungarees were in a heap around her ankles. Cole had flipped the other strap from her shoulder, and the loose-fitting overalls had slipped cleanly down her body. Now his hands were cupping her rounded bottom as he tugged her even closer, and not even the tight-fitting denim could hide his huge arousal.
But what troubled her most was her own willingness to give in to him. The firm pressure of his mouth and the sensuous invasion of his tongue were becoming as important to her as breathing. Innocent she might be, ignorant even, of the many forms of sexuality. But her instincts were all rebellious, and her blood felt as if it was on fire. The touch of his hands against her bare flesh; the musky scent of his body. She could think of nothing more desirable than to feel his naked flesh against hers. And, acting without thinking, she tentatively touched the bulge of his erection.
‘Oh, God!’
Cole’s reaction was—not entirely unexpectedly—violent. When her slim artist’s fingers strayed along the straining teeth of his zip, he visibly shuddered. With a burning impatience, he sloughed off his belt and tore open his jeans. Then, he took her down on to the floor in the same instant that his hard manhood surged into her hands.
‘God, you’re beautiful!’ he muttered, cradling her head on one arm, and using the other to peel away her shirt. And, although common sense was telling her she must not let this go any further, the admiration in his eyes was an overpowering temptation.
Besides, her curiosity about him was just as compelling. Probably more so, she admitted, looking down at his magnificent body. It was the first time she had seen a man naked and aroused, and even though he had only bared his sex its rampant power was mesmerising.
Cole’s head blocked her view, as he bent to lay a trail of kisses from the tip of one breast to the hollow of her navel. His forefinger hooked into the band of her bikini briefs, tugging them out of his way, and then his mouth concluded its journey in the moist curls that hid her womanhood.
She jerked then, her inexperienced limbs responding to the fever he was creating. Her legs splayed, and then she clamped them tight together. Dear God, she thought disbelievingly, did she want him to think she was cheap? But, in spite of all her misgivings, Cole eased her legs apart again. While his tongue searched the helpless cavern of her mouth, his finger slid inside her, finding the dew-drenched honeycomb, and the sensitive bud of her sex.
Her eyes, which had drifted shut, now opened in alarm, but Cole’s expression was sensuous, revealing he was just as involved as she was. And she relaxed as she looked at him, revelling in the knowledge that he found her beautiful. He was beautiful, too; beautiful and sexy. She wanted him to go on touching her, and she shuddered at the needs he was arousing.
‘Do it,’ he said huskily, and she realised he could read her thoughts as well. ‘Here.’ He took one of her trembling hands and laid it on him. ‘Yes, that’s right. You’re a natural. Oh, God, Jo, I want you. And I don’t think I can wait any longer.’
CHAPTER NINE
’GOD, Jo, you should have told me!’
Cole lay beside her on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor, one arm raised across his eyes, and the other lying by his side. It was funny, Joanna thought, but she could never have imagined she would lose her virginity in such unlikely surroundings. When she had occasionally daydreamed about how it would happen, a bed had always been involved. A bed; and champagne; and a rather fetching négligé.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said now, wondering if he regretted it already. For herself, she hardly knew what she was feeling. It had been so much less—and yet so much more—than she had anticipated that she felt almost numb. She was shocked by what had happened, yes; but she was also anxious that it might never happen again.
And she wanted it to happen again, she knew that. Whatever kind of a disappointment it had been for Cole, she had experienced feelings she had not even dreamed were possible. He had invaded the limits of her sexuality, and time and place meant nothing, compared to the sensations that had gripped her.
Even now, she remembered every moment of his possession. The surging heat of his manhood, pressing its way inside her. The momentary withdrawal, when he had felt her inexperience. He had wanted to draw back then, she knew it. But her hands clutching his buttocks, and the undoubted invitation of her expanding muscles, had compelled him to go on. Besides, there was a limit to his endurance, she had guessed that for herself. He had wanted her. He had said so. And the aching fullness of his loins had demanded its own release.
But he had drawn back before his shuddering spasms informed her of his climax. And the mindless race inside her had come abruptly to its end. But, even though the little knowledge she possessed told her that there had to be more, she was inordinately grateful that it had been Cole who had taken her virginity. No other man had ever aroused the feelings inside her that he aroused, and, although she knew she ought to feel some measure of regret for what had happened, she didn’t.
And, when he rolled on to his elbow to look down at her with rueful eyes, she felt no embarrassment for her nudity. On the contrary, if nothing else, Cole had taught her that she was beautiful, in his eyes at least, and she moved instinctively, unconsciously inviting his approval.
‘It matters,’ he said at last, but there was a sensual twist to his mouth as he bent to touch her lips with his. ‘God, Jo, I’ve never done anything like this before.’
‘Have you wanted to?’ she asked, unknowingly provocative, and he shook his head, the sweat-streaked blond hair brushing her sensitised skin.
‘No,’ he admitted gruffly, but when her arm curved around his neck he couldn’t prevent the kiss from deepening.
This time, Joanna’s tongue was the invader, teasing his lips and his tongue, until Cole lost control and drove down deep into her mouth. Joanna was overwhelmed with the need to get closer to him. Half experimentally, she coiled one leg about him, revelling in the way it brought the lower half of his body nearer to hers. Suddenly, she could feel the rigid thrust of his hips, and the hairy tautness of his thigh riding against hers. But it was the muscles between his legs that strained against her. He was already hard again, she discovered. Hard and hot, and as satin-smooth as velvet against her stomach.
‘We shouldn’t do this,’ he muttered, when her hand stroked possessively over his buttocks, and Joanna found the courage to look up at him.
‘Why not?’ she breathed. ‘Don’t you want to?’ But her question became unimportant when he crushed her beneath him again. For Cole wasn’t immune to the needs of his own body, and the readiness of hers was an irresistible temptation. She was wet with longings he had created, and her tight, resistant muscles closed eagerly about him.
Fever gripped Joanna’s body. She was still aroused from their previous coupling, and the emotions she had felt before sprang into fervent life. Like an athlete who had faltered before the final hurdle, her body was eager to redress the balance, and when Cole’s rhythm quickened she matched him pace for pace.
And, in so doing, she found her own senses slipping away. A mindless pleasure was encompassing her limbs, melting her bones, drowning her inhibitions. She wasn’t aware of making any sound at all, yet she could hear gasps, and moans, and anguished pleas escaping her lips.
‘Say it’s good,’ Cole breathed against her temple, and the voice that answered him sounded nothing like her own. It was soft, and husky, and incredibly sensual, and Cole’s satisfaction took him even deeper inside her.
/>
‘Yes, yes,’ she cried, her nails digging into his shoulders, and the wild excitement that had been building and expanding inside her became unbearably sweet. And then it happened. A pulsing wave of pure pleasure enveloped her, sweeping her up and up, until she was half afraid she was going to lose consciousness, and she didn’t want that. She didn’t want to lose a moment of such incredible beauty, and when Cole would have drawn back she wrapped her legs around him. The flooding heat as he spilled himself inside her just added to her enjoyment, and this time when his body shook she held him close to her breast.
Of course, afterwards, after Cole had gone, and she was alone, Joanna was appalled at the wanton way she had acted. That she, who had always regarded herself as being totally self-possessed, should have lost control so completely was bad enough. But that she should have done so with a man she had known less than twenty-four hours seemed almost indecent. He would think she had been desperate to lose her virginity, she thought, and for days after that she refused to answer either the telephone or the doorbell, in case it shouldn’t be him. She had convinced herself he wouldn’t want to contact her again, and she submerged herself in her work to the exclusion of everything else.
Eventually, it was Grace who smoked her out; Grace who informed her that, far from not wanting to see her again, Cole had been practically going out of his head with worry, because he couldn’t reach her. And, because he was sure Joanna must blame him for what had happened, he had confided in his aunt, and asked for her assistance.
Later, Joanna had understood what it must have cost him to approach Grace. When she learned more about him, and about his background, she had realised how galling it must have been for Ryan Macallister’s son to ask a woman for anything, particularly someone his father both disliked and despised.
But, at the time, she had been too overwhelmed by Cole’s interest in her to consider how his family might react to another Englishwoman in their midst. She and Cole had seen one another every day, and their relationship just got better and better. So much so that Cole delayed his return to South Carolina long enough to persuade her to marry him.
