Lone Star Knight

by Cindy Gerard

  He drew back reluctantly. Pressing his cheek against her curls, he kneaded her hips with magic hands. “Too much?” His voice was dark and low, his breath hot and intimate.

  She couldn’t respond. Her breath slipped out on a thready rasp.

  “Or maybe too soon,” he concluded, kissing her hip point before slowly rising to his feet.

  She didn’t know if she felt relieved or bereft, wasn’t altogether sure how much longer she could stand.

  He smiled again, reading her confusion and desire for what it was. “It’s all right,” he soothed gently. “We’re not done with that.” His eyes on hers, he cupped her there, where his mouth had been, then slipped a finger slowly inside. “We’re not nearly done with that.”

  His promise was a ragged whisper as he caught her against him then laid her back on his bed.

  “If you knew how often I’ve fantasized about seeing you like this….” He swallowed hard, shook his head as if coming to his senses. “You’re sure?” he demanded, his expression suddenly serious.

  If she hadn’t already been falling in love with him, that question, in that moment, would have turned the tide. He wasn’t merely the most fascinating, attractive man she’d ever met, he was also the kindest, the most considerate. And the most heroic.

  “I’m sure,” she whispered, knowing that’s all he needed to hear, accepting that if he couldn’t return her love, he did at least care about her. And he did, absolutely, lust for her. For that alone, she would offer him anything. Anything.

  Bending over her, one knee digging into the mattress at her hip, he leaned down and kissed her. It went on forever, that kiss. Soft lips, sleek tongue, gentle suction. And still, it wasn’t nearly long enough when, with a gentle nip at the corner of her mouth, he pushed up and away, lifting her camisole over her head and tossing it to the floor. “I’ll be right back.”

  Deliciously aroused and surprisingly unselfconscious sprawled naked in his bed, she watched him cross to the bathroom, stunned anew by his beauty—from the expanse of his broad shoulders, to his long powerful legs, the narrow cut of his hips.

  When he returned and tossed a handful of foil packets on the bedside table, a jolt of dizzying heat—part thrill, part shock—raced through her body. She looked from the condoms to him, lifted an inquisitive brow.

  His smile was slow and utterly male as he undid the top button on his shirt. “So sue me. I’m a Texan. I think big.”

  “Well,” a flush of heat crept to her breasts where his glittering green eyes had settled, “who am I to question that kind of optimism?”

  With a grin that was much more wicked than it was nice, he stripped for her. Nothing blatant. Nothing even remotely suggestive—not by design, at any rate. At least, she didn’t think it was. Just a slow shrug of his shirt from his broad shoulders, the flip of a snap, the silent glide of a zipper going down—and all the while his eyes burned into hers, promising passion, demanding desire, emptying her mind of everything but him.

  The look of him. The heat of him. The taste of him and of herself on his tongue when he lay down beside her and meshed his mouth to hers.

  His body was long and hard, wonderfully hot against the length of hers. His hands were gentle, inventive plunderers, his mouth an instrument of sensation that slowly and skillfully destroyed her with pleasure. Pleasure she’d never dreamed existed. Pleasure so consuming, she forgot she was not what she wanted to be and became what he made her. Wanton. Craving. Carnal.

  “Here?” he murmured as his big hand and nimble fingers finessed her nipple to aching sensitivity.

  She shivered and arched into his palm.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  The smile in his voice was as seductive as the fire in his eyes. She sighed his name when his lips replaced his hand and he drew her deep into his mouth.

  “Come inside me. Please,” she murmured, near desperation as he braced the heel of his hand over her mound and caressed her boldly. “Matthew, please.”

  He moved over her then, parted her knees with a slow stroke of his hand and settled between her thighs. He was heavy and strong braced above her. He was steel and velvet and huge as he entered her in a long, steady glide.

  Her breath eddied out on a low moan. She rose to meet him as her body stretched, surrendered, surrounded.

  “Too much?” he murmured through gritted teeth and lay very still, buried deep. A sheen of perspiration had misted across his back where her hand reveled in the strength of steely muscles and satin-smooth skin.

  She hooked an ankle over his hips, clenched her inner muscles, and made a soft, desperate little gasping sound.

  His response was more growl than groan. “I’ll take that as a no.”

  She smiled. And then because he was so wonderful, she laughed and he was the one gasping.

  On a pained breath, he braced up on his elbows, cupped her face in his hands. “Don’t do that. Don’t laugh or it’ll be all over.”

  She met green eyes that glistened with a hunger so fierce and so true, it brought tears to her eyes. Oh, this man, this beautiful, incredible man. She’d never felt so desired or so devastatingly sexual.

  She touched a hand to his face. He turned his mouth to her palm, bit lightly. Eyes locked with his, she threaded her fingers through his hair and brought his head down to hers. With the tip of her tongue, she skimmed the seam of his lips, slipped her tongue inside the wet heat of his mouth and slowly moved her hips. Her breath caught as he withdrew then plunged deep.

  “You’re so tight.”

  “It feels good?”

  He muttered something unintelligible against her throat.

  It was her turn to smile. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Just so you take me,” he groaned and started moving inside her. “All of me.”

  She stopped smiling then. She may have even stopped breathing. All of her focus, all of her awareness was centered on the penetrating stroke of his body into hers. He filled her so wholly, moved her so deeply, she lost track of time, lost track of space, and simply indulged in the sharp, searing pleasure that drove her to the edge of oblivion.

  She inhaled on a choked sob as his big hands worked beneath her hips and he tilted her higher, increasing the contact, intensifying the sensation until it built to a pressure that screamed for release.

  The orgasm ripped through her, as explosive as a lightning strike. Sharp, brilliant, brutally fierce. She cried his name as the force of it coiled, unwound, then slashed again like the velvet bite of a wildly curling whip.

  His breath was harsh and labored as he swore her name and thrust deeply one final time. Tensed above her, he groaned from deep in his chest and followed her with a hoarse exhalation to his own turbulent release.

  For several long, stunned moments, they lay still, his face buried in the hollow of her throat, her left hand flung above her head, her right clutched loosely in his hair.

  “You okay?” he finally managed, the rush of his breath at her throat cooling her heated skin.

  She tried for a deep breath, gave it up. “Umm.”

  His mouth curved into a smile against her neck. “I’ll take that as a definite maybe.”

  When an exhausted laugh escaped her, he hugged her hard, as if he couldn’t get enough of her, as if he’d never get enough of her. The warmth his spontaneous display of affection fostered filled her chest like a burst of summer sun.

  He started to roll away.

  “No.” She clung and told herself it wasn’t out of desperation. “Don’t go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. “But I’m dead weight for you. There,” he said after flicking off the light and settling against her right side, one arm hugging her waist, the other pillowing her head. “Better?”

  It didn’t get any better, she thought, as he nudged his thigh between her legs and nuzzled his face in the hair at her temple. Blissfully sated, she twined her leg over his and covered his arm with her hand. And there, bound in the loose kn
ot of each other’s limbs, she tried to remember when she’d felt this cherished and safe.

  Overhead, a ceiling fan spun in slow, lazy circles. The moon washed in through the tall, shutterless windows, bathing the bed and the man in a misty glow.

  She took it all in then, each singular detail, every time-suspended element that had cruised by unnoticed in their desperate rush to ease the ache, quench the fire. The luxurious sheets beneath her, now damp from their perspiration. The musky scent of wonderful sex and sated man. The pale line of his hip, the deep tan of his chest where the sun had bronzed his skin. The hair-roughened length of his muscled thigh.

  The heat of the hand that had slowly stolen to her breast to cup and caress.

  “I thought you were sleeping,” she murmured, loving the lazy way he stroked her, pleasantly surprised by the thickening length of his erection growing long and hard again against her hip.

  “I should be. You should be,” he whispered, both apology and arousal thick in his voice.

  She turned her face to his, searched his ocean-dark eyes in the moonlit room. “What I should be, what I am, is so very fortunate to have a lover as generous and…oh…” her breath caught on a moan as his hand forayed lower and caressed her still-swollen flesh.

  “Optimistic?” he suggested, just before his mouth descended.

  His kiss was deep and hungry. His tongue matched the rhythm of his fingers.

  “Helena,” he uttered her name with a sudden reverence that stalled her heart. “I’m going to try my damnedest to get enough of you.”

  She didn’t know if he’d just made a pledge to her or to himself and when his mouth trailed a path of liquid fire to her breast, she didn’t care. She only hoped that she survived long enough to experience all the promises his mouth was making.

  She was a beautiful little mess, Matt decided, as he returned to his bedroom with a tray of food and a bottle of wine. Then he tried not to feel so damn smug about the fact that he was the one who had messed her up.

  It was a little after 2:00 a.m. He’d awakened hungry and decided he’d better raid the kitchen instead of taking another bite out of her. So he’d shrugged into a navy blue robe, made his way downstairs and rounded up anything and everything he’d thought she might like.

  What he liked was the look of her sprawled naked across his bed. The dwindling stack of condoms said less about his self-control than about his optimism and he couldn’t stop another smile.

  He set the tray filled with an assortment of cheese and crackers, grapes and melon slices on a table by the window, then settled onto one of the two chairs flanking it to simply watch her sleep. She looked so peaceful and so sensual he felt his sex stir again.

  Damn. He’d meant what he’d said. He intended to do his damnedest to get enough of her. He hadn’t planned on accomplishing that in one night, though he’d certainly given it his all.

  So had she, he thought with another little grin. He plucked a grape from the plate and popped it into his mouth. It was sweet and tart and juicy—just like she was—and so far, his bright idea of sating himself on something other than her wasn’t working out quite the way he’d planned it.

  But then, what had? He hadn’t planned on taking her to bed. He hadn’t planned on the tumult of feelings she’d elicited with both her tears and her responses to his touch. And he hadn’t planned on such an uninhibited, responsive lover.

  For all of her worldly sophistication, his fair lady had reacted to his lovemaking with an arresting innocence that had both excited and humbled him. Each time he’d touched her, she’d made him feel like it had been the first time for her. Each tremulous sigh, each gasping moan had sent him to a flash point, driven him to extremes, compelled him to take her higher, love her longer, fill her deeper.

  He was more fascinated with her now that he’d finally tasted her essence and felt the warm silk of her body beneath him than he’d been when he’d been able to do little more than fantasize about her. And instead of feeling sated, he felt as if he’d just taken a small nibble out of the exquisite feast that was Helena Reichard.

  The soft rustle of sheets told him she was stirring. The sudden rumble of his heart told him he didn’t want her waking up alone.

  Rising, he crossed to the bed and sat down beside her. She was on her tummy, her blond hair tumbling across her cheek like a tangled silk curtain. He brushed it away from her face. Slowly, she twisted at her waist and rolled to her back, a soft smile tilting lips swollen from his kisses, a pale hip still planted deep in the covers. Moonlight played across her naked breasts, and without thinking about it, his hand moved to play there, too.

  “Mmm,” she murmured and arched into his touch, raising her arms above her head in pure, primitive abandon.

  “Hello,” he said softly, loving the way her lips curved up in a slow, sleepy awakening.

  “Hi,” she whispered back and covered his hand with hers.

  “Are you always like this?” Unable to stop himself, he gathered her into his arms and tugged her onto his lap. She curled into him like a kitten, all warm, giving curves and purring contentment.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” He pressed his mouth to her hair, let out a deep breath. “Trusting,” he finally settled on and refused to wonder at the sense of contentment the thought of her trusting him so completely promoted.

  When she just sighed and yawned and snuggled closer, he closed his eyes against feelings he didn’t want to acknowledge, let alone deal with. It was just the sex, he told himself. It was just great, mind-altering sex.

  When her stomach made a hungry, growling sound, it gave him an excuse to table that line of thought that could lead him nowhere but into trouble. It also reminded him of his mission and the reason he’d left her in his bed. He set her carefully off his lap, then shrugged out of his robe and draped it over her shoulders.

  “I thought you might be hungry.” After returning from his closet, wearing a robe that was a twin to the other one, he urged her to her feet. “Come on. I brought food.”

  With a delicate little yawn, she stood at his urging, then watched like a sleepwalker as he maneuvered her arms into the sleeves of the robe and belted it at her waist. She should have looked ridiculous, lost in the folds of heavy blue velour. Instead, she looked like what she was—thoroughly loved and as sexy as French silk. The thought of those pale plump breasts and all that warm, naked flesh beneath his robe gave him second thoughts about taking her anywhere but back to bed.

  Knowing she needed nourishment, he half led, half coaxed her over to the table, sat her down and rolled up her sleeves for her. With the soft light of a bedside lamp lighting the room, he sat down across from her.

  “Do I need to force-feed you?” he asked to the head she’d lowered to the table.

  When she didn’t respond, he poured them each a glass of wine. “I’m starting to feel guilty here, Helena. Maybe I was a little too hard on you?”

  She raised her head then, a self-satisfied and endearingly shy little grin lifting one corner of her mouth. She dragged her hair out of her eyes and away from her face. “Darling,” her blue eyes, hazy with sleep, still shimmered with latent arousal, “you will never hear me complain about that.”

  He laughed, shook his head. “Eat,” he commanded, “before that smart mouth of yours gets you into trouble. Again.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want that, now would we?” she returned with another one of those sultry looks, and nibbled on a piece of melon.

  No, he told himself, watching her. We wouldn’t want that. He met her eyes, knowing his desire for her was obvious. But even more than the desire, more even than the trust she showed him in bed, he wanted her to trust him enough to talk to him. To open up to him the way she might have opened up if her tears hadn’t done him in and he’d felt the need to kiss them away.

  Evidently, she could read his face better than he could read hers.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  He tilted his
head, tested the water. “Oh, no. Thank you.”

  She actually blushed. He thought it was adorable.

  “I didn’t mean that. Although…that—” she added with a wave in the general direction of the bed, “—was definitely wonderful.”

  She looked at her wine, then at him. “I meant, thank you for what you tried to do.”

  “I don’t want your thanks,” he said, suddenly sober. “I want you to open up to me.”

  She toyed with the stem of her wineglass. “I know. It’s…it’s just a little frightening to say some things out loud. It…it seems to give them more import, somehow.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. All right, yes. I think maybe it is.”

  “Why don’t you try it out—let me help you decide.”

  She tugged her lower lip between her teeth, an oddly endearing and openly telling indication of how vulnerable she felt.

  He watched her nibble delicately on a slice of cheese. This had to be her choice. This had to be her decision to extend the next overture of trust.

  He drew in a deep breath. Let it out. He was a fine one to talk about trust. He didn’t trust anything he was feeling. Not now. Now as he watched her. Now that he’d made love to her. Now that he’d gotten himself wrapped a little tighter, in a little deeper than he had ever intended—with Helena or any other woman.

  It was time to get himself grounded back into some absolutes. He could be her lover and not be in love with her. He could be what she needed tonight and let her go when the time came. And it would come. She had her life to get back to. He had his to maintain. Distance and circumstance and about a thousand years of aristocracy dictated that there would be no middle ground for the two of them. Except perhaps in his bed.

  Like most great passions, he knew this one, too, would burn itself out. When it did, and when it was safe for her to leave, he wanted her leaving as his friend. And as her friend, he waited for her to make the next move.

  Eight

  Helena watched the face of the man who, other than her parents, had given her more than anyone had ever given her. Could he possibly understand what that meant to her? Could he possibly comprehend that in a few short days, in a few short hours, he’d made a major impact on her life? That in his bed, she’d offered him a trust she’d rarely given another man—had never thought she could give to a man again? And the bigger question, would he want the responsibility of knowing that?