‘Don’t embarrass me by acting as though you are shy,’ Adam derided, long brown fingers enclosing her wrists to uncross her arms again. Such pretence from her hit the rawest of nerves and his annoyance with her was intense.
At that crack, Adam surveyed her with pure predatory appreciation. Where she was concerned that was true. When he looked at her, when he thought about her, her sins were never at the forefront of his mind. His desire ran too hot and strong to be denied. With her turquoise eyes as vivid as polar stars, she glowed with beauty and quicksilver energy. The ache at his groin came close to pain. Never had he felt such powerful need to possess a woman. Suddenly all his patience just vanished.
He recognised the hollow light in her clear eyes and, disturbed by that awareness, he reached for her again, determined to break through her resistance.
He framed her face with his lean hands and took her mouth with ravishing sweetness and spellbinding sensuality. She stopped thinking and let her response take over. He curved her slender, unresisting body to his, drinking in the scent of her creamy white skin and the telling unsteadiness of her breathing. Lifting her onto the bed, he stood back to discard his tie and unbutton his shirt.
Her limbs felt heavy where they lay on the crimson silk spread and there was a liquid heat burning low in her belly. She could not take her eyes off the light golden slice of male torso he had revealed: muscle rippled across the solid wall of his chest as he took off the shirt, and black whorls of hair dusted his pectorals and arrowed down in a silken furrow across the flat slab of his stomach. Her mouth ran dry.
Adam surveyed her with smouldering appreciation and the mattress gave under his weight. Shirley rolled away and he laughed and hauled her back to him with easy strength. ‘You are so beautiful,’ he told her thickly, tasting her luscious mouth again, dipping his tongue between her parted lips with a dark sensuality that left her trembling. ‘You want me, too.’
She shut her eyes for fear that he could read that truth there. The tiny moments when he wasn’t touching her were already a torment. Like a doll, she was incapable of independent action and it was the very strength of her desire for him that kept her trapped. He pressed his hard, sensual mouth against the tiny pulse going crazy below her collar-bone and she gasped and arched her narrow spine. He pulled her back against him to unclasp her bra. A groan of male satisfaction sounded in his throat when her small, high breasts tumbled free. He teased the swollen pink peaks with skilful fingers, before he bent over her and used his mouth to toy with the straining buds. Every bitter-sweet sensation darted straight as an arrow to the hot damp pulse between her thighs and increased the ache there.
‘I want you so much I hurt,’ he breathed not quite steadily, letting the tip of his tongue delve between her readily parted lips.
As he leant closer she felt the hard evidence of his arousal through his clothing and a combination of nerves and excitement gripped her. He detached his sword belt and undid his jacket. She tugged it off him with hands that were clumsy with impatience. She had waited too long for him.
He undid the tight sash at her waist and unzipped the ornate and heavy kaftan, easing the rich fabric down slowly over her hips. Desire sparked low in her pelvis and she pressed her slim thighs together in embarrassment. Tiny little tremors were running through her slender figure. She stretched up and found his wide, sexy mouth again for herself. He held her there entrapped, one lean hand braced to her spine, the ripe swell of her breasts crushed by the powerful wall of his chest. As he captured her lips with shattering urgency her heart thumped an upbeat tempo inside her ribcage and a delicious surge of heat warmed her belly. She kissed him back, bruising her lips with the wild hot urgency that had risen like a crazy fever inside her, her hands delving into his black hair like possessive claws. She wanted him, wanted him, wanted him…His tongue plundered the soft recesses of her mouth, teaching her a wickedly erotic rhythm that made her whimper low in her throat with surprise and pleasure.
Golden eyes smouldering like the heart of a fire, Adam set her back from him and removed the gossamer fine silk slip she wore. ‘So many unnecessary layers,’ he complained thickly.
Still clad in bra and briefs, Shirley reddened, wildly conscious of his appraisal as he shed his uniform. Watching in guilty fascination, she thought how beautiful he was from the smooth golden skin of his wide, sculpted shoulders to the hard, muscular breadth of his chest and his long, lean, hair-roughened thighs. Her admiring scrutiny jolted to a sudden halt just below the low-slung waistband of his boxers, where the explicit outline of his bold maleness was all too obvious to her disconcerted eyes. Hastily she glanced away, a tiny frisson of mingled response and alarm gripping her.
‘Come here,’ he urged.
‘Can we do this really slowly?’ she asked abruptly.
Surprise and amusement made Adam smile. With quiet confidence he let his long brown fingers feather through her pale silky ringlets in a soothing motion. ‘What are you scared of? Surely not of me?’
She went pink, mortified that she had let herself down with that nervous and all-too-revealing question. “I’m not scared of you. Don’t be daft”
Unhooking her bra with deft assurance, he vented a husky sound of satisfaction and lifted his hands to cup the full, firm mounds of creamy flesh that tumbled free. ‘I promise that you will know only pleasure in this bed tonight.’