by Diana Palmer
She moaned, a high-pitched little skirl of sound that brought Kilraven’s blood up, hard. His mouth became insistent, almost violent, on her soft skin. All at once, he lifted her again, only to rivet her hips to the rising hardness of his body, to show her the desire that raged in him from the contact.
His mouth bit at hers. “I had a buddy in Iraq,” he whispered roughly. “He came home on leave and his wife was walking around in a short gown with nothing under it. He dropped his pants, lifted her onto him and walked around the house, bouncing her against him. He said the climax was so violent that they fell down the steps into the sunken living room and had to go to the emergency room after.” His mouth ground into hers. “He said it was worth a broken ankle.”
She shivered. The mental imagery made her even hotter than she already was.
His hands ground her hips into his and he groaned.
Her hands were also busy, pulling at buttons until she reached hard muscle and thick hair. She rubbed her breasts against his chest in a fever of need, moaning again at the sensation it produced.
“I can’t…stop,” he bit off. “It’s been too long!”
“I don’t care,” she whimpered. She wrapped her legs around him, shivering. “Please…”
He didn’t need to be asked twice. He carried her into the first bedroom he came to, put her on the bed and stripped.
Her eyes widened as she saw him without the protection of clothing. He was incredible-looking, all muscle and tanned skin, all man. She was too aroused to feel embarrassed, even when he stripped her as efficiently and tossed her back onto the coverlet.
He covered her with his body, his face taut and grim, rigid with the desire that was consuming him. He moved her legs apart and lowered himself between them.
“Are you really a virgin?” he whispered roughly.
“Sorry. Yes,” she managed as she felt him against her.
He slid a hand under her hips and lifted her. His eyes held hers as he impaled her suddenly.
She cried out, shocked and hurt.
His teeth clenched. He held her still when she tried to move back away from him. “It won’t hurt for long,” he promised gruffly.
But it did. She bit her lower lip until blood dropped, salty and hot, on her tongue. She closed her eyes, aware of his harsh breathing, the violent downward push of his hips as he drove for satisfaction, blind and deaf to everything except the need to overcome the anguish that consumed him. The tension snapped very quickly, in a red rush of sensation that made him cry out with its intensity. He shuddered over her, ramming his hips down against hers as he filled her body with his in one final, insistent surge of passion.
He felt her tears as his face slid against hers, felt her shivering. It had been bad, and he’d lost control. He kissed the tears away. His hand smoothed tenderly over her hair, brushing it away from her wet, pale face.
He looked down into her eyes with quiet apology. “It’s been seven years,” he whispered quietly. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop.”
She couldn’t stop shivering. “Seven years?” she whispered, surprised.
He nodded. He bent and brushed his mouth over her closed eyelids, sipping away the wetness. “I’m a prude, just like my brother,” he whispered. “I think people should be married before they have sex.”
She swallowed, trying to cope with the pain. “So do I.”
He propped himself on an elbow and studied her face quietly. “I’ve never had a virgin,” he confessed.
She frowned. “Your wife…?”
“She was a party girl,” he said heavily. “I thought all women were like you, that they waited for marriage. I had a shock on my wedding night, when she shared the benefit of her sensual education with me.” He managed a brief smile. “I was shocked and mad and couldn’t even express it, because she got me so hot I’d have died to have her. She kept me that way for three years.”
She searched his eyes. Incredible, to be lying together with him in such intimacy and talk to each other like this. “I don’t know anything about men,” she confessed shyly, “except what I’ve read in books and seen in movies.”
“And heard from girlfriends?” he prompted.
“Actually, I’ve only ever had one real girlfriend, my sister-in-law, Keely, and we don’t ever talk about such things,” she told him. “So I guess I’m a prude, too.”
He moved the hair away from her ear and studied it. “You have tiny little ears.”
She smiled. “They match my tiny little feet.”
“Sexy feet,” he said again. “Some men like breasts, others like legs. I like feet.”
“My goodness!”
He lifted his head. “How bad is it, when I do this?” He moved his hips, very slowly.
She caught her breath.
He lifted up and then pushed down again.
She caught her breath again. But this time, her fingernails bit into his muscular arms and pulled.
He smiled. “I thought it was best to get the pain out of the way first,” he whispered. “Because I know a few things that I can teach you.”
“You…do?” She was shivering, but not from pain. Not this time.
“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured. He slid his hand under her hips and lifted her, tenderly, into the slow thrust of his body. “Put your legs together. That’s right.”
She moaned harshly.
“See?” His head bent and he brushed her mouth open with his lips while he moved lazily against her, each movement more arousing, more sensual than the one before.
Her fingernails bit into him again.
“Move your hands down my back and do that,” he whispered.
She slid them over his hips and onto the firm muscles, digging in.
He groaned and arched, increasing his possession of her.
She gasped.
He looked straight into her eyes and shifted. The pleasure bit into him like a sweet knife. He could see the echo of it in her own face. She started to close her eyes, faintly embarrassed at watching something so intimate.
“No, don’t close your eyes, Winnie,” he whispered. “Watch me. Let me watch you.”
She flushed as she met his silver eyes. He shifted again, catching one of her silky thighs in his hand and positioning her again, so that she groaned and shivered.
“Now,” he whispered, “I’m going to show you why the French call a climax the ‘little death.’”
He slid one hand under her nape and clenched it in her hair. His silver eyes glittered as he moved in and his body thrust hard and fast down into hers, each movement deep and quick and passionate. It only took a few seconds for her to go over the edge. She gaped at him and suddenly cried out.
“That’s it,” he whispered huskily when she arched up. “That’s it, baby, come up and get me. Come on, come on, push, push, push!”
She was screaming. The pleasure was like a vice. Her eyes were wide-open and he was watching her, seeing it, laughing as she clawed at his hips and ground hers up into his in a rhythm that was faster than her own heartbeat.
“Get it, baby,” he gritted. “Get it now!”
She shuddered and shuddered, twisting up, arching up, pleading in a voice that she only vaguely recognized as her own, while the pleasure suddenly built to a crescendo and exploded in her body like a rush of molten magma. She gasped almost in shock as it overwhelmed her. She shivered and sobbed, clinging to him while she was buffeted by the most incredible pleasure she’d ever experienced in her life.
His face, above her, clenched and he bit off something explosive as satisfaction shook his powerful body like a feverish chill. He arched his hips down into hers and cried out hoarsely, his head thrown back in pure ecstasy as he shuddered with her in a climax so hot that he almost passed out.
She was aware of her own heartbeat, going like a drum, of her sobbing breaths as she tried to drag in air. She felt Kilraven still shuddering against her, his voice breaking as he felt the tension explode.
Her eyes were inte
nt on him. She’d never seen an expression like that. His face was clenched and flushed. His eyes were closed. His whole body shuddered again and again and when his eyes opened and he saw her watching, he groaned and the shudders seemed to deepen.
“Dear…God!” he cried, and shuddered again.
She was fascinated. All her reading hadn’t prepared her for what she was seeing. He wasn’t pretending, he was really blind with pleasure that she was giving him. Impulsively, she lifted against him and moved sensually. He sobbed and the shuddering increased. She loved pleasing him. It made her own body throb, all over again. She moved feverishly, arching up to him, twisting, watching him cry out as pleasure brought him into un-charted realms of passion.
It took a long time. She shivered again with surprise as another climax tightened her muscles. Watching him, pleasing him, was giving her fulfillment again and again.
He felt her body clench over and over, felt her tighten around him, as he drowned in pleasure. He was letting her see, letting her enjoy him. He was enjoying her. He couldn’t remember a time with Monica when he let himself lose control to this extent. He’d always held something back, vaguely ashamed of the way she could manipulate him with sex. This was different. Winnie loved him. It was all right if she saw him helpless, if she watched him achieve satisfaction in her soft body.
He was shuddering. He made a sound in his throat, and his body ground down into hers as the last silvery rush of pleasure began to fade away.
She felt him relax. She took his full weight, hungry for the contact to continue, so satiated that she could barely get her breath.
“The little death,” she whispered, and shivered one last time.
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes as she felt exhaustion leave her limp and boneless under his hard, damp body. The hair on his chest felt wet against her breasts.
His cheek slid against hers with a long, heavy sigh. “Little blond…chain saw,” he whispered. And, incredibly, he fell asleep.
So did she, in the aftermath of something so explosive and unexpected that she knew nothing would ever be the same again.
14
Winnie came awake slowly, aware of discomfort in an odd place. She moved and winced. Then memory came flooding back and she knew why she was uncomfortable. She was under the covers, but without a stitch of clothing on. Kilraven was nowhere in sight.
In the absence of passion, nudity was embarrassing. So were her poignant memories of what she had said and done with him. Her face flamed as she jumped out of bed, still clutching the sheet, and looked for her clothes.
She had a vague memory of feeling them stripped off and tossed onto the floor, but now they were draped across a chair. On a table, her suitcase was open.
She dragged the sheet with her, pausing every couple of steps to listen, to make sure Kilraven wasn’t coming through the door. She grabbed underwear, jeans and a T-shirt and made a rush for the bathroom, almost tripping over the sheet.
A FEW MINUTES LATER, clean but still uncomfortable, she walked out into the bedroom with damp hair. She’d forgotten to pack a hair dryer and she couldn’t remember where one was to be found in the summer house.
Well, it was thin hair and the heat was enough to dry it without any help, she reasoned. She went back into the kitchen. It was deserted. Kilraven had apparently put away the ham and bread and mayonnaise, and stacked the dishes in the sink. Remarkable, she thought, how neat he was.
She looked out the window and was surprised to see the sun going down in the distance. It had been early afternoon when they’d arrived from the airport. She flushed again, recalling how that time had been spent. Kilraven was nothing if not gifted in bed. If he could make a screaming, clawing passionate woman out of someone as sedate as Winnie, he could certainly lay claim to incredible skills.
She went back into the bedroom and unpacked. She wondered where Kilraven had gone.
HE WAS WALKING ALONG the beach, barefooted, wearing tan Bermuda shorts and nothing else. He felt like the worst sort of betrayer. He’d promised himself, and Winnie, that he’d take care of her and that nothing would happen to make an annulment impossible. The minute he’d touched her, all those resolutions had gone into eclipse and he’d reacted like a sex-starved adolescent.
Still, he recalled with some pride, he hadn’t made a total hash of the thing. He had the marks on his back to prove it, too. He winced a little and then laughed, recalling her nails biting into him as she moaned.
He didn’t want to have to go back and face her. Was she going to think he’d changed his mind about staying with her? He hadn’t. She was sweet to teach and he’d enjoyed her. But sex was a poor foundation for a marriage. And he should know. It was the only thing he and Monica ever had in common.
At least Winnie was on the pill. But he should have had more self-control. He kicked at a shell that had washed up on the sugar-sand beach and cursed. He could have kicked himself.
“What did that poor shell ever do to you?” a female voice inquired amusedly.
He turned his head and looked into the eyes of Senator Will Sanders’s wife.
She was a brunette. She had long hair down to her waist. She was wearing a neat one-piece black bathing suit with oversize sunglasses, carrying a book, a towel and some tanning lotion in a bottle.
He frowned. “Am I trespassing?” he asked curiously.
She laughed. “Afraid so. Although I don’t know if we own the beach just because we own the house it’s in front of.”
He shrugged a broad shoulder. “Why not? We think we own our beach,” he said, and smiled.
She moved forward with self-confidence and a charming smile. “I’m Patricia Sanders,” she said, extending a hand.
He shook it firmly. “Kilraven,” he said.
The smile faltered. “You’re the FBI agent…”
He gave her a horrified look. “Not me!” he exclaimed.
“But someone said,” she began.
“My brother, Jon Blackhawk. He’s the FBI agent,” he said. “I’m a Fed. But with another bureau.”
She was suspicious. “Why are you walking along my beach, federal agent?”
He smiled self-consciously. “Hiding from my wife. Hoping she won’t be waiting with a baseball bat when I go back to the house. It’s that one,” he added, playing the role for all he was worth as he indicated the Sinclair summer house nearby.
“That’s the Sinclair place,” she said more suspiciously.
“Yes, and Winnie Sinclair is my wife.” He sighed.
The suspicion was gone at once. “Winnie?”
He nodded. He sighed again, loudly. “At least she’s my wife right now. I don’t know how long that will last, however. We may have the shortest wedding in Comanche Wells history.”
She began to smile. “Made her mad, did you?”
He winced. “Furious!”
“I would never have thought of her as a woman with a temper.”
“That’s because you’ve never known her since she was married to me,” he said with resignation. “We’ve been married for two days, six hours and,” he looked at his watch, “thirty minutes. As of right now.”
Her dark eyes were twinkling. “I see.”
“How do you know Winnie?” he asked, frowning.
She gave him an exasperated look. “I have a summer home next door to hers,” she said with slow deliberation.
“Oh. Oh!” He shook his head, laughing. “Sorry. I’m a bit slow at the moment.”
“Arguments will do that to people,” she agreed. She looked haunted for a minute.
“I’d better go back and face the music,” he said heavily. “Nice to meet you. We probably won’t see each other again. I’ll be dead.”
She laughed, and it had a delightful sound. “I don’t think she’ll really kill you. You’re on your honeymoon, then?”
He nodded and smiled. “I’m taking a few weeks off. We can’t stay long, though. She works as a 911 operator back home, and they’ll n
eed her. She only gets two weeks.”
“A 911 operator? Winnie Sinclair?” she exclaimed, shocked.
“They all work,” he said. “Rich may be nice, but the Sinclairs all have an exaggerated work ethic. Especially Winnie.” He chuckled. “That’s how I met her. I was working in Jacobsville and she was on dispatch. Almost got me killed one night, but I calmed down when she started crying. She’s quite a woman.”
“I like her,” the senator’s wife said. “She’s very sweet.”
“Yes, well, she’s not mad at you, is she? My stepmother calls her a little blond chain saw.”
Mrs. Sanders burst out laughing. “What a description!”
“Sometimes it’s very accurate.”
She hesitated. Her dark eyes gave him a curious appraisal. “I’m throwing a party for some local friends Wednesday night. If you and the chain saw aren’t otherwise occupied, you might come over.”
“Thanks, but I don’t drink,” he said.
She gaped at him. “You don’t? Now you have to come. I’ve never met a man who didn’t drink. My husband can go through a fifth of whiskey in one sitting!” She laughed.
“Well, if we’re free, we might come over for a few minutes. Thanks,” he said, trying to sound reluctant.
“I’ll make sure you have something nonalcoholic. And I’ve got a world-class chef preparing the buffet. You don’t want to miss that.”
He smiled. “Sounds nice.”
“Never turn down free food,” she told him in a conspiratorial tone. “I grew up very poor in Oklahoma. I got a job as a small-town newspaper reporter because I learned that if you went to cover events where food was served, you got fed for free.”
He chuckled. She looked wicked when she smiled like that. “I see your point.”
She tossed the towel over her shoulder and pulled down her sunglasses. “We’ll start about six,” she said. “But it’s not on the clock. You can show up anytime before midnight.”
“All right. Thanks again.”
