“We can be married in three days. Then we’ll argue about the car.” The blouse was pulled from her skirt and slipped forward to the floor. He pulled her back against his bare chest, and his lips brushed her hair as his arms went around her. “You have to stop, a little bit, being quite so bull-headed.”
“You have to stop, a little bit, being quite so bull-headed,” she echoed back and turned in his arms, smiling up at him. “It’s that red hair of yours,” she said ruefully.
“Our children are doomed to it.” His fingers groped for the opening to her skirt, finally finding the button in back as his lips nuzzled the soft hollow of her neck. “The boys will end up five-one and the girls six-three. You know that, don’t you?” The short zipper came down; the skirt slid easily over her hips. “Do you want children, Loren?”
She found his belt and weaved it slowly through its loops, looking up at him. “No more than five-hundred.”
“See? We agree on everything that matters.” He stopped undressing her for a kiss, his palms gliding sensually, evocatively, over the mauve lace teddy that clung to her figure. She kissed his shoulders, then his chest, and her arms wound around his neck. Buck teased her ear as if it were the most beautiful part of her body; Loren made a graph of kisses on his chest. They could only tease so long…
When their lips found each other again, they stayed molded together, an urgent hunger in both of them that increased the more they touched. Buck’s hands grew more fervent, sweeping up and down the thin silky barrier that separated them, and then again. More slowly, his palms cupped her breasts, lingered at the valley between, then traced down her sides where his palms lingered again. Seductively, his fingers traced a sensual path to her throat, up to her chin, which was suddenly chucked up firmly. Grave dark eyes met hers, and his voice was low. “Loren. How the hell do I get this thing off you?”
She started chuckling. “It’s a very common undergarment…” Like a feather, she was tossed on the soft quilted comforter and watched while he took off the rest of his clothes. The moonlight caressed his shoulders and hips, the strange patterns of hair on his chest. He was aroused. The man was built like iron, with a sculpted beauty he would have denied—but then he never saw his body as she did. His steel yielded to her softness; she had forgotten that in the trauma of the day before. Finally, she believed he needed her as much as she needed him. Just as she believed that in time the last of her ghosts would vanish, that she could yield to his strength and be enriched, not diminished, by it. It was a strange feeling, to give up her old images, to understand that she could be stronger than she was before in trusting Buck, in trusting his love, in opening up emotions that were locked in fear before. Her eyes blurred with sudden, sweet tears.
The next moment he was beside her, his lips against hers, their bodies straining together. The wisp of lace between them created an erotic tension, fanning flames that needed no fanning. Loren cleaved closer to him, needing him just as desperately as he needed her. This night was a marriage, a sealing of commitments and of a bond forged to bridge whatever problems they would have. They would fight through those, live through those, love through those.
He had no difficulty finding the intimate opening to the teddy when it counted. Flesh to flesh felt like a release, like a sudden freedom, like a celebration. He took her then. Temperatures soared; skin took on a fevered flush; the spring night air rushed over silk-dampened bodies. “Buck,” Loren cried, and held him deep inside of her. Ecstasy came in a rush with freedom.
So long afterward, the dawn came. They were both exhausted, lying on their sides staring at each other across the same pillow. Buck was still stroking her; she would not sleep, did not want to give in to rest. The joy was too great, the future too full to waste even a second of it. Irrationally, she decided she would never again sleep at all.
“Don’t ever,” he murmured teasingly, “wear that complicated thing again.”
“The teddy?”
He nodded. “Whatever you call it.”
“I won’t, Buck.” Tomorrow she was going to buy an even dozen.
About the Author
Jennifer sold her first book in 1980, and since then she has sold more than eighty books in the contemporary romance genre. Her first professional writing award came from RWA—a Silver Medallion in l984—followed by more than twenty nominations and awards, including being honored in RWA’s Hall of Fame and presented with the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Jennifer has been on numerous bestseller lists, has written for Harlequin Books, Avon, Berkley and Dell, and has sold over the world in more than twenty languages. She has written under a number of pseudonyms, most recognizably Jennifer Greene, but also Jeanne Grant and Jessica Massey.
She was born in Michigan, started writing in high school, and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English and psychology. The university honored her with their “Lantern Night Award,” a tradition developed to honor fifty outstanding women graduates each year. Exploring issues and concerns for women today is what first motivated her to write, and she has long been an enthusiastic and active supporter of women’s fiction, which she believes is an “unbeatable way to reach out and support other women.” Jennifer lives in the country around Benton Harbor, Michigan, with her husband, Lar.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9138-0
First published by Berkley Publishing Group in 1984
Copyright © 1984 by Alison Hart
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Kisses From Heaven Page 19
