She refused to consider her actions, refused to think of the future. The terror of the day, the desperation of believing their daughter lost, the twists of the past, all proved how uncertain their lives were. No matter how she longed to bury the knowledge, Colter was a soldier at war. He was the only man she had ever loved, would ever love. Acknowledging that simple, unadulterated fact forced her conscience into hiding.
And she flowered under the tender stroke of his hand, which chased knots of tension from her back and replaced them with slender, heated satin threads of passion that spun her into a web of ecstasy.
Colter’s eyes were dark with an uncompromising hunger, but he was solicitous of her bruises as he eased himself down to lie full length against the carpet and urged her to rest on him. The pads of his fingers graced her hips briefly before he raised his hands to hold her head and bring her mouth to his.
“I want to take and take from you, love, all your sweetness, all your passion, all that is mine,” he declared in a hard, masculine voice. “But if you will once more deny me and yourself, say it now.”
With her hands splayed out against his chest, Elizabeth tossed back her head to remove the curtain of her hair so she could see him.
“I cannot deny you, Colter. To deny my love is to deny life and hope, and I will not do that again.” Her body trembled, but her voice was firm with conviction. With her mouth in offering, she leaned down to kiss him.
He took the kiss, using his lips and tongue to evoke memories of the night she had surrendered all that she was to him. He was reminded anew of how soft her mouth was, how sweet she tasted to his tongue, how her own desire grew hungry and her lips parted to get more of him until her body melted against his like warm honey. There was a lush taking and giving to their kisses, as if time had stopped to allow passion to spread through them. And Colter praised his generous lover as his kisses relearned each delicate feature, each velvet shadow that heated to the play of his mouth.
Elizabeth dragged her lips down the corded length of his neck, unwilling to lift her mouth from his skin. Her tongue dipped into the hollow of his collarbone, placing teasing swirls that ended with her own moan of pleasure as Colter returned the caress. She was barely conscious of the slide of cloth over her shoulders, for Colter’s mouth followed, the heat and pliant touch of his tongue soothing and enticing her flesh.
She rubbed her palms over the hard nubs of his nipples, feeling an answering ache in her own, wanting his hands to assuage the swollen peaks.
Her restless move alerted Colter. “What’s wrong, love?” he queried in a passion-taut voice, deftly untying her wrapper and lifting her away so that it fell open. She rose above him, cheeks flushed, lips glistening with moisture, intriguing shadows from the lush fullness of her breasts teasing him through the thin lawn night rail.
He wanted it gone. He wanted nothing but his lips, his skin, to touch her. “Tell me what you want, little fox. Don’t be shy with me. I’ll give you all I can.” He turned his cheek and brushed it against the taut peak of her breast. Her breath shuddered out and her body tremored against him.
“I want you, Colter. I want you now.”
“I know,” he whispered in return, seeing her desire in the dark, dreamy eyes that locked with his, feeling how ready she was by the taste of her mouth, by the sliding caress of her body as he lifted and fitted her over his.
His hands curved over her hips and she arched instinctively into his hands. He pressed her into the cradle of his thighs, proving that he wanted her just as strongly.
Elizabeth lowered her head until her cheek rested on his chest. She rubbed back and forth, loving the feel of his skin, the soft abrading hair that curled on his chest and entangled itself in her own long curls. She murmured her pleasure to him, loving the strength of his broad shoulders and the heat of his skin, and she smiled against his chest to hear the ragged edge of his breathing as his body tightened beneath hers.
She swept her hair aside and trailed her hand down to his narrow hip, pleased she could make him tremble from the light touch she feathered down his thigh.
“When I first saw you, Colter, I was afraid of your power. But you were always so gentle with me.”
“Is that what you crave from me, Elizabeth? Do you need me to be gentle?” he asked, but doubted he could give her gentleness when need clawed his body.
She kissed him just as her fingertips brushed his erect flesh, eliciting a groan of dark need that came from deep, deep inside him.
Lifting her lips a bare fraction from his, she whispered, “No, I don’t want you to be gentle. I want the power of your love and I need the wildness that you once showed me.”
He reacted with a violent shudder as the words exploded through him, almost snapping his control, the last sane corner of his mind reminding him that she was bruised.
But she pressed against the throbbing flesh as if she knew he fought a battle with himself and intended, by scattering sweetly heated strokes of her tongue across his chest, to overcome his will.
“Colter,” she groaned softly, “I need you to love me.” With delicate restraint, she raked her teeth over his nipple, soothing it with her tongue. “I need to love you,” she whispered, her look and voice offering both promise and challenge.
As he eased her arms from the wrapper, the lift and twists of her body as he sought to pull it free fanned a fire, already smouldering, to consume him. He tossed the unwanted cloth aside, stroking the bared length of her thigh until she called his name with impatient sighs. The edge of the night rail was caught between the press of their bodies, hindering him from baring her flesh to lips that hungered to taste her. He caught the length of her hair with one hand, angling her head to the side, his mouth taking hers with a possessive kiss that was primitive in its demand. His arm cushioned her back as he lowered her to the carpet, sweeping the thin lawn cloth up over her hips until the folds rested beneath the lush curves of her breasts.
His tongue laid claim to the secrets of her mouth and now he sought sweeter flesh to worship. Yet, for all his compelling need, he was careful to take time to remove the night rail without hurting her. To his eyes, her body, bathed in the fire’s glow, was exquisite perfection.
“A glorious angel who offers me heaven,” he murmured, lowering his head to graze his mouth over one nipple.
“A fallen angel, if any, my love,” she returned before closing her eyes and letting bliss bathe her senses. When his mouth closed over her breast, suckling on the swollen peak, she cried out softly to feel the tightening in her womb. She pulled his head closer and opened herself to the full force of his passion.
Elizabeth unleashed the wildness that he had held back with every restless move of her body, twisting with slow caresses of her legs against his, and increased his ardor with the tremulous cries from her lips.
Colter pulled back, his breathing ragged, using almost jerky moves to strip his breeches off. His hand shook as he caressed the graceful curve of her calf up to her raised knee. His lips were moist as he kissed her thigh, drinking the tremor from her skin and feeling it deep inside himself. The crease of her leg held a velvet shadow that lured his mouth, and his cheek brushed the soft nest of curls that hid sweeter, hotter shadows.
Elizabeth felt the build of silken tremors that coursed over her body without end. She touched his back, wanting to pull him over her, needing to know again the swift rise to glory that loving Colter would bring, but even her fevered plea would not deter him from the lavish exploration his mouth tendered to her heated flesh.
His tongue dipped with the delicacy of a butterfly’s wing to her navel. She moaned his name. His mouth learned the curve of her stomach and she felt her insides draw tight. In a lover’s coaxing voice, she asked for and received the first touch of his fingers on the soft feminine core that she willingly yielded. She heard with satisfaction the changed tempo of his breathing, and her own rendered shallow drafts of air that brought their mingled aroused scent to her. But when he stroked more d
eeply inside her, her breath was suspended; she struggled to draw air as knots inside her seemed to coil and coil, tight, and then tighter still.
Colter spoke to her with words that roused and sparked conflagration, with kisses and touches that drove her to exquisite peaks over and over until she lay spent and trembling, cradled in his arms.
Using savage control over his body, Colter brushed aside the damp tendrils of her hair, his lips sealing hers with tenderness that deepened with the potency of his need.
Her flesh gleamed with a passion mist that fed his senses as he positioned himself over her. “Look at me, love,” he urged softly, “watch me make you mine, again.”
Her eyes opened even as she shifted her legs to welcome him. “Now,” she whispered, drawing his mouth to hers. Elizabeth felt him hold back. His muscles etched rigid in the firelight and the sharp features of his face were bronzed and shadowed. Tension caused his body to tremble. “Come to me, love. Make me whole again. Make me yours.”
And in welcome she lifted her hips, taking his mouth in a kiss that reveled in the wanton rapture she felt as their bodies merged into one.
But even as the power of his need called to him, Colter stilled, giving her time to adjust to the hard intrusion of his body. Tiny ripples of her pleasure coursed around his throbbing flesh as she melted against him. His control shredded as she used her body to signal how ready she was for him.
Emotions rioted with passion and Elizabeth let herself be swept away by both. Colter set a powerful rhythm for their lovemaking and she responded with every fiber of her being. Suddenly there were no thoughts as her own hunger reached out for fulfillment.
Colter yielded to her feminine entreaty, slipping his hands beneath her hips and fusing her body to his. He had claimed he wanted to take all that she was, all that she could give, and he reenforced that claim with the hard, driving thrusts of his body that took all she offered to him and dared to demand more.
Her body tightened. Elizabeth knew Colter experienced the same savage need. His mouth joined with hers and the pleasure that coursed through her became almost unbearable. Cries erupted from her throat and he answered.
She wanted…and wanted…and Colter was there, bringing to her an explosive ecstasy that ripped through her a moment before he joined her with racking shudders as he poured himself into her.
Elizabeth drifted in a sweetly sated world. Colter’s half-coherent whispers, lavishing praise, inciting hunger, grew more tender with each kiss he bestowed. She nestled at his side, smiling to feel the possessive move of his leg over hers to anchor her to his body.
Colter braced himself up on one arm, looking down at his lover. Her eyes were closed, and he paid homage to them with gentle kisses. Her hair was spread on the carpet, its spiced warm colors gleaming under the dying light of the fire. His smile was frankly sensual. There was a hint of the erotic in her finely etched profile that drew his gaze. The lush fullness of her lips beckoned and tempted him to taste.
And her whispered “Yes” made him obey.
Elizabeth offered her mouth, and his taking of her lower lip into the heat of his, suckling so tenderly while his tongue stroked with seductive skill, sparked fire inside. She ran her fingers through his hair and trembled to feel his sweat-sheened skin cover hers with a sliding caress of their naked bodies. Desire was not sated, she realized. Passion’s turmoil churned between them once again.
As Colter reluctantly eased his mouth from hers and lifted his head, he was captivated anew by the satin texture of her skin and the seductive glow in her eyes when she opened them to gaze at him. He stroked her slender waist, watching her respond with a natural candor he had never known from another woman. He wanted to drown in her. The full, lush swell of her breast fitted perfectly to his hand, and he gently tugged the sensitive tip until her skin flushed and she shook with the same need that tremored his body.
Colter gathered her body against his. “Love, I want you again.”
“Yes,” she whispered, needing him as badly.
He rose and carried her into her bedroom where he set her down on the bed. “You know there’s no going back for either of us, Elizabeth,” he warned, covering her body with his.
Desire blazed in his eyes, and she gazed at them while her hands framed his face. “I don’t want to go back, Colter. There’s no life, no love waiting for me there.” She kissed him with all the pent-up emotions that were inside her. “Only with you,” she murmured against his lips, “can both love and life be mine.”
“Show me,” he urged with a lover’s silken coaxing, melding his flesh with hers. “Show me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Morning. Elizabeth wished it never had arrived. The sunlight filtered through the lace curtains, playing a blurred pattern on Colter’s back. The hard stamp that usually marked his masculine features was gone, replaced by a softening peace that made him appear younger than his twenty-eight years.
Tears misted her eyes. She loved him so. And when his own cry, telling her how much he loved her, had broken from his lips, she felt her soul was healed from doubts that had wounded her.
No going back. Colter’s words. Her promise to both herself and him. The joy of being loved and returning that love filled her. And while her body was still so as not to wake him, her thoughts seemed to reach out and curl their warmth around Colter’s mind, for he opened his eyes.
He eased from the tangle of covers, kissing Elizabeth again and again, smiling to hear her sleepy goodmorning as she reached for him. Emotions and feelings he couldn’t sort, couldn’t name, churned through him. He knew they were powerful, explosive, like the desire that was eased but never fully sated as they loved each other through the night. She gave him pleasure that was sweetly piercing and hotter each time.
“I’ve never heard a little fox purr, love,” he whispered, taking her hand and placing a kiss against her palm. “And I never knew that making love with you could bring me not only a peaceful heaven, but a joyous celebration of life.”
“Oh, Colter, I love you so.”
He nuzzled her lips, but she pulled him close, teasing the corners of his lips with her tongue. The kiss deepened and before it was done, passion’s demand claimed them.
He smoothed the silken flesh of her thigh, cupped her hip and, with a light brush of his fingertips, skimmed the bruise on her rib cage before he took in the soft weight of her breast. “Can morning make you taste sweeter, love?” he murmured thoughtfully, his voice husky.
“You’ve never loved me in the morning, Colter.” And there was invitation in the dark glow of her eyes that told him of the blood already beginning to beat heavily through her body.
“But I will,” he promised, teasing her nipple into a taut peak of desire. “Like velvet, but hard,” he whispered, leisurely rubbing the tight crown with his thumb. “But how could you taste sweeter than when you make me a part of you and cry my name?”
He took her mouth with a lover’s ease, sliding his tongue between her teeth, drinking in the small catches of her breath, her soft moan.
Elizabeth held him, feeling the increased beats of their hearts, loving him so much she ached.
When he parted their lips, Colter lifted his head. “I love you, Elizabeth.” Delicately he finessed the taut peak he had teased, raking his teeth over the bud until she trembled for him. He paid equal homage to its twin and gazed at the woman who set him on fire with a look and with the precious gift of her love. His hand brushed across her breasts, and he smiled as she arched her back. “Soft to hard, sweet to velvet. But there’s one place you remain so incredibly soft, love,” he whispered with exquisite restraint. His fingertips grazed her tremoring skin down to her thighs.
He sought and found her most sensitive flesh, groaning as he felt her change for him, but his tender touch revealed a satin heat that was swollen. “Love, you’d tell me if I hurt you?”
Elizabeth smiled. “You can’t hurt me, Colter.” Her lashes fluttered and she moved her hips against his car
essing hand. “How can pleasure hurt? You touched me so…” Her voice trailed off; tension raked her and she drew him close. “Just knowing what awaits when you become part of me…” Once again she lost her voice, melting with a soft, shimmering shiver. She slid her hands down his body and caressed his hard length. Her smile promised the same pleasure as her eyes when she looked at him.
“Come be a part of me, Colter,” she murmured. “Come to me, love.” Her knee flexed and moved with restless need.
And Colter stored in his memory her sensuality, her joy and her beauty.
Elizabeth nipped his shoulder and gently tugged his aroused flesh. She could feel the blood throb and pool, and was challenged to break his control. Gracefully she shifted her body, kissing his hard nipples. “Soft to hard, sweet to velvet,” she whispered, repeating his own words. And she smiled, rubbing her cheek against the curled hair, feeling the wild beat of his heart, the heat of his skin and the shudder that he couldn’t control.
“Unlike me, Colter,” she teased in a sultry voice, glorying in his acceptance of her power to arouse him, “you’re never incredibly soft.” The wild heat of passion drove her to let him know the loving intimacy of her mouth.
Colter was seized by desire that flamed so hot he could hardly draw breath. Need forced a groan from his throat. He reached for her, feeling the silky caress of her hair across his sensitive flesh, but even as he urged her back up his body, she gracefully eluded his hands, intent on giving him pleasure. Hunger smoldered in his blood. His hands clenched at his sides, for she had taken herself out of reach of his touch.
And he found himself calling for her, torn by the seething violence of his need.
The hoarse, trembling urgency of his voice brought her flowing up over his body, and he lifted her over him. A wildness cascaded through her to see his dark eyes almost black, his cheeks flushed and lips taut, his body hard and tight. She shivered, overcome with fevered need as he slid deeply into her softness with a smooth thrust of his hips.
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