The Lady and the Lion (10 page)

"Keith..." It was barely more than a whisper, a breath of aching sound.

Just his name, but he shuddered when he heard the husky sound of it and almost groaned aloud. As frantic as his own need was, the compulsive hunger for her was far more than an urgent desire to find release in the welcoming heat of her body. It was torture to hold back, to delay a completion his every screaming nerve demanded, but it was the sweetest torment he'd ever known. She was so responsive, and the varied textures of her slender body enticed all his senses to the point of madness. Her skin, heated with desire, was unbelievably soft and smooth, the firm muscles beneath supple and graceful. Her round breasts, flushed and swollen, filled his hands perfectly, and her tight coral-colored nipples almost pulsed in his mouth.

He wanted it to last forever, but his entire body was so tense that it ached intolerably, all his muscles rigid with strain, and he knew if he delayed much longer he'd go out of his mind. Still, the need to go on touching her had to be satisfied, and he lifted his head to gaze down at her as his hand slid over her quivering stomach.

"Look at me," he whispered harshly, anything approaching a normal voice beyond him.

Her eyes opened, darkened to emerald and dazed in her softly flushed face. Her hands moved to his neck and locked there, trying to pull him back down to her breast, and she murmured wordlessly. He resisted, wanting to see her face when he touched her, when his seeking fingers found the silky hair at the base of her belly. Her eyes widened, locked with his, and a gasp escaped her parted lips when he touched her. She was tense for a moment, but then her thighs relaxed and her eyes went sleepy, and a faint little sound purred in her throat.

That sound... that throbbing little sound made him crazy. It seemed to flicker over his senses like a brush of fire and caused his heart to lurch. He bit back a groan, clamping his teeth together so hard his jaw ached, his fingers slowly probing her damp, swollen flesh, stroking the most exquisitely sensitive nerves in her body.

Erin cried out softly, her body shuddering, and there was a look almost of panic in her eyes. "Don't," she whispered raggedly. "I can't—"

"Shh." He kissed her, over and over, his touch driving her relentlessly toward an unfamiliar brink until she was almost sobbing. When he finally widened her legs gently and rose above her to slip between them, she could only cradle his hard body helplessly.

She was so frantic by then that nothing could have shattered the spell of desire, but when she felt the sudden alien pressure, blunt and insistent, there was a split second of fear, as much of vulnerability as anything else. But she wanted this, wanted him, and nothing else was important. The fear vanished, pushed aside by her need for him, and all the starkly intimate sensations overwhelmed her.

Staring up at his intense, almost savage expression, lost in his burning eyes, Erin felt her body stretching slowly, opening for him. His throbbing flesh was a primitive male demand, and her own feverish need compelled her to surrender to it.
To him.
A twinge of pain caught at her breath as his entry was barred, and she saw the sudden darkening of his eyes the instant he realized the truth.

"Erin..." His voice was a hoarse rasp and his body shuddered violently as he fought for control.

Surely he couldn't stop
now?
Erin had a panicky notion that he could, convinced that his relentless will was equal to anything. And she wasn't about to give him time to think about it. She wreathed her arms around his neck and pulled herself up enough to kiss him, her legs lifting to wrap around his hips. All she knew of passion was what he had taught her, but that was enough, more than enough, for her to brand him now with her own fiery demand. If this was all he was willing to give her, she'd damned well take every bit of it she could get.

She felt as well as heard a growl from him that was probably an oath, wordless and fierce, and his instant's hesitation was no more than that. One of his hands slipped down between their bodies, touching her insistently, and she felt the burning pressure increase even as his caress guided her relentlessly to the edge of some peak that seemed just beyond her reach.

She couldn't believe what he was making her feel. It was maddening, a hot, breathless tension so sharp-edged it was as if a living thing
were
trying to escape from the core of her. Then she felt a sudden sharp pain as something gave way, and for a shocked instant she was conscious of nothing except the incredible sensation of his flesh throbbing deep inside her.

He was kissing her almost wildly, and when the moment of shock passed she realized her body was still quivering on the edge of something. Her hands were compulsively stroking his back and shoulders, and she instinctively lifted her hips a little to take more of him when his body settled fully into the cradle of hers. The small movement yanked a groan from Keith, and he immediately began moving slowly inside her.

She realized he was being careful, even though the strain on his face and in the rigid muscles of his arms and back made it clear how difficult it was for him to rein himself. Erin wanted to tell him not to do so, not to hold back for her sake because there was no pain now, but then his hand was on her again and the spiraling tension edged into a new kind of pain. It was winding tighter and tighter around her, wringing a moan from her throat, making her writhe because it was too much and she couldn't bear it anymore.

If she'd had the breath to say anything at all, she would have begged him to stop. But then, just when she knew that another second of the exquisite tension would kill her, something snapped violently and everything inside her seemed to melt until she was nothing but a hot, pulsing, liquid pool of pleasure. She heard primitive sounds and sobs escaping her throat, and she heard the hoarse cry of Keith's pleasure as his powerful body shuddered in her arms.

Erin wasn't thinking very much about questions. She had never in her life felt so utterly limp and boneless, almost floating even beneath his considerable weight. He was heavy, but she wasn't the least bit uncomfortable; in fact, she felt wonderful. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her legs coiled with his, and she didn't want either of them to move. His forearms were underneath her shoulders, his fingers moving in her hair, and once her own breath steadied she could feel the warmth of his against her neck. She wanted to go to sleep just like this.

Keith, however, was obviously thinking of questions. He lifted his head to gaze down at her, his vivid eyes still darkened to purple. He kissed her, almost as if he couldn't help himself, but his voice was strangely flat when he spoke.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask," Erin murmured.

A frown drew his flying brows together. "Dammit, Erin, it never occurred to me! You can't tell me you haven't had men chasing you since you hit puberty."

She had to smile a little, curiously undisturbed by both his anger and the conversation. "As a matter of fact, I can tell you that. Men don't chase me, Keith."

"Maybe you have another name for it," he said, obviously disbelieving her statement.

Erin shook her head slightly. "They don't. Never have. Oh, sure, they ask me out.
Talk to me.
Dance with me. But most of them don't make passes. I don't know, maybe I didn't want them to, and they sensed it. Or maybe..."

He was watching her intently, and when her voice trailed off, he prompted, "Maybe what?"

She hesitated,
then
said slowly, "I've always felt like an ornament. Something pretty a man likes to wear on his arm. I guess men don't think about taking an ornament to bed."

"Is that how you think I see you?" Keith demanded.
"As an ornament?"

"No." Her reply was instant and certain. "I'm not sure how you see me, but I know it isn't that way."

After a moment, and clearly choosing to ignore the implied question, Keith said roughly, "You should have told me, Erin. Do you think I would have let things go so far if I'd known you were a virgin?"

"No, I think you would have put me on the plane." She met his gaze steadily. "But it was my choice, Keith. You made it mine when you offered your terms—and I accepted them."

"How can you know what you've accepted if you've never been in a man's bed before?"

She managed a little laugh. "Physically innocent is one thing, but I doubt it's possible to be completely innocent. Not in today's world, or at my age. I know what I'm doing. I understood your terms."

"Then why did you accept them?" His voice was still flat, hard, but there was anger underneath the control.

Erin wasn't surprised by it. Anger was, at least at this point in his life, so much a part of him that it helped fuel almost every other emotion. She thought he was angry at himself more than her, but in any case she wasn't disturbed by it. In fact, she had an idea that the force of his emotions, often contained but seldom hidden, was one of the reasons she was in his bed now. His emotions had freed hers.

The men of her father's world were always... civilized. They moved in houses of government and diplomatic enclaves with their elegant manners and quiet voices and subtle words, and no matter what it was they were saying they always meant something else. Each of those men was habitually elusive and evasive and so calculating that the real man seemed a pale ghost overlaid with deception.

But not Keith.
He was secretive, yes, but not subtle. What he said was forthright and blunt, and his emotions were so intense she could literally feel them. She thought she could trust her instincts where he was concerned, believed that no matter how contradictory he might seem
,
she would always know at least a part of what he was feeling. She believed Keith didn't play games. The certainty of it was almost as reassuring as words of commitment would have been.

"Erin?"

She blinked, realized he was waiting for an answer to his question. She couldn't tell him the truth. He didn't want her love, and she wouldn't offer what wasn't wanted. Finally, she said steadily, "You didn't see an ornament. I like being treated like a woman, Keith. That's reason enough."

He looked at her broodingly, one hand lifting to brush a strand of fiery hair away from her face, his fingers lingering to trace her cheekbone. "Is it?"

She smiled at him, determined to keep his terms firmly in mind no matter what it cost her. "I think so. It's a wonderful feeling, being desired. I've never felt this way before. And I never knew— this—was so exciting. You're a wonderful lover, Keith." Then her smile wavered slightly. "Do you mind if I call you that?
A lover?"

His facial muscles tightened. "No."

"I couldn't think of a better word," she confessed. "I know it's euphemistic, but—"

Keith bent his head and kissed her, a bit roughly. She had the vague impression that he'd done it primarily to stop her from saying any more, but she didn't think very much about his reasons. That kiss, hard and curiously possessive, felt like a brand, and sharp excitement quivered in her when she became aware of his renewing desire.
Her own
body had been faintly, languorously throbbing during their entire conversation, and now the pulsation grew stronger, faster.

He muttered something against her mouth and then lifted his head, looking down at her with what was almost a glare. "Dammit," he said thickly, "I want to keep at you until neither of us can walk without help."

Erin drew a shaky breath. "That—sounds fine to me," she murmured.

"It isn't fine," he said in the same tone, kissing one comer of her mouth. "You'll be sore. I shouldn't—"

"I don't care." Her fingers probed the tensing muscles of his back and shoulders. "I don't feel sore. All I feel is you."

The bold invitation in her voice wasn't something he could ignore, especially when her body clasped his with tight heat and she moved under him with an innate sensuality that stole his breath and what little control he could claim. Her innocence had shocked him at some deep level, jolting his emotions as well as his senses. Disquiet was still very much with him even though he couldn't define it. But desire swept even that aside. He wanted her again, even more wildly than before, and the power of his desire sent his disturbing tangle of emotions flying.

She was astonishingly uninhibited, her passion so sweet and giving it drove his higher, her response so total that she went to his head like some fine, rare wine. Everything about her, from the texture of her skin and the misty depths of her eyes to the kittenlike sounds she made in passion, aroused him to heights he'd never known before. It was like a compulsion, loving her, a desperate, greedy, savage hunger that had to be satisfied no matter what it cost him.

During those intense moments, nothing else mattered. If he realized the primitive emotions could never have sprung only from lust, and that his profound need for her, Erin, was an instinctive hunger for joining as well as a sexual one, he didn't think about it. He didn't think about anything except the hot, sweet torment of their passion.

Erin woke to the realization that she was alone.

She heard water running in the bathroom, and managed to pry her eyes open enough to see the clock on the nightstand. Two A.M. Well, she thought sleepily, he
was
accustomed to working nights. But she wasn't. A long, tense day had culminated in a very active evening, and she was so blissfully weary she didn't want to move.

She was in the middle of the bed, the covers drawn up over her limp, naked body. Partially awake now, she was conscious of that wonderful pulsing sensation deep inside her, and she wanted to purr with contentment.

After the emotional upheaval of the day, she couldn't help but be a little amused at herself, because she should have been at least slightly worried—and she wasn't. Maybe that would come, but it hadn't yet. Any sensible woman, she decided drowsily, would be worried. But then, any sensible woman wouldn't have become the mistress of an angry man by midnight of the day she'd first seen him.