House. Her rooms were large and airy, with a lot of windows; the floors were natural wood, polished to a high gloss. A profusion of plants, happy in the warmth and light, gave the rooms both color and coziness.
He watched as she took two brown earthenware mugs from the cabinet and poured the strong, hot coffee into them. “Cream or sugar?” she asked, and he shook his head, taking the cup from her.
“There’s a fire lit in the den; let’s go in there. I was cold when I got home,” she said by way of explanation, leading the way into the other room.
She curled up in her favorite position, in a corner of the love seat that sat directly before the fire, but he propped himself against the mantel as he drank his coffee. Again he looked at his surroundings, taking in her books, the needlepoint she’d been working on, the television and stereo system perched in place on the built-in shelves. He didn’t say anything, and she wondered if he used silence as a weapon, forcing others to make the first move. But she wasn’t uncomfortable, and she felt safe in her own home. She drank her coffee and watched the fire, content to wait.
He placed the mug on the mantel with a thud, and Susan looked up. “Would you like more coffee?” she offered.
“No.”
The flat refusal, untempered by the added “thank you” that politeness demanded, signaled that he was ready for the silence to end. Susan mentally braced herself, then set her cup aside and said evenly, “I suppose you want to talk about leasing the ridges.”
He uttered an explicit Anglo-Saxon phrase that brought her to her feet, her cheeks flaming, ready to show him the door. He reached out and caught her arm, swinging her around and hauling her up against his body in a single movement that stunned her with its swiftness. He wrapped his left arm around her waist, anchoring her to him, while he cupped her chin in his right hand. He turned her face up, and she saw the male intent in his eyes, making her shiver.
She wasn’t afraid of him, yet the excitement that was racing along her body was very like fear. The false calm she’d been enjoying had shattered at the first move he’d made, and now her heart was shifting into double time, reacting immediately to his touch. He wouldn’t hurt her; she wasn’t afraid of that. It was her own unwilling but powerful attraction to him that made her uneasy, that brought her hands up to press against his chest as he bent closer to her.
“Stop,” she whispered, turning her head aside just in time, making his lips graze her soft cheek. His grip on her chin tightened, and he brought her mouth back around, holding her firmly, but instead of taking her lips he let his mouth wander to her ear, where his teeth nibbled sharply on the lobe. Susan caught her breath, then forgot to let it out as the warm slide of his lips went down the column of her throat and nuzzled her open collar aside, to find and press the soft, tender hollow just below her collarbone. She felt his tongue lick out and taste her flesh, and her breath rushed from her lungs.
“Cord, no,” she protested frantically, alarmed by the tingling warmth that coursed through her body, spreading like wildfire from the touch of his mouth on her. Her pushing hands couldn’t budge him. All she succeeded in doing was making herself deeply aware of the powerful muscles that layered his chest and shoulders, of the wild animal strength of him.
“Susan, honey, don’t tell me no,” he murmured insistently into the fragrant softness of her shoulder, before licking and kissing his way up her throat. Her fingers dug into his shoulder as every tiny flick of his tongue sent her nerves into twitching ecstasy. He finally lifted his head and hovered over her, their lips barely separated, their breaths mingling. “Kiss me,” he demanded, his voice harsh, his eyes narrowed and intent.
Her body was quaking in his arms, her flesh fevered and aching for greater closeness with him, but her alarm equaled her physical need. The look in his pale eyes was somehow both cold and fiery, as if his body were responding to her but his actions were deliberately planned. Horrified, she realized that he knew exactly what his touch did to her, and if she didn’t stop him soon, she would be beyond stopping him. He’d actually done so little, only kissing her shoulder, but she could feel the hardened readiness of his body and the tension that coiled in his muscles. He was a fire waiting to consume her, and she was afraid that she didn’t know how to fight him.
“No, I can’t—” she began, and that was all the chance he needed. His mouth closed on hers, and Susan melted almost instantaneously, her body telegraphing its need for him even though her mind rebelled. Her lips and teeth parted to allow the intrusion of his tongue; her hands slid up to lock around his neck, her fingers clenching in the thickness of his hair. As a first kiss, it was devastating. She was already at such a high level of awareness of him that the growing heat of the kiss was inevitable. She gave in without protest to the increasing pressure of his arms as he gathered her even closer to the heated need of his body.
The warning voice of caution was fragmented into a thousand helpless little pieces, useless against the overwhelming maleness of him. Too many sensations were attacking a body that had been innocent of sensuality for five long years, turning her thoughts into chaos, her body into a dizzying maelstrom of need.
She’d never before been so aware of a man’s kiss as a forerunner to and an imitation of the act of sexual possession, but the slow penetration and withdrawal of his tongue sent shudders of pure desire reverberating through her. Mindlessly she rose on tiptoe, and he reacted to the provocation of her movement, his hands sliding down her back to curve over and cup the roundness of her buttocks, his fingers kneading her soft flesh as he lifted her still more, molding her to him so precisely that they might as well have been naked for all the protection their clothing afforded her from the secrets of his body. A moan, so low that it was almost a vibration rather than a sound, trembled in the air, and after a moment Susan realized with shock that it was coming from her throat.
No.
The denial was, at first, only a forlorn whisper in her own mind, without force, but some portion of her brain heard and understood, accepted that she couldn’t allow herself to sample the lustful delights this man offered her. With the age-old wisdom of women, she knew that she couldn’t offer herself casually, though he would take her casually. It would be nothing to him; a moment of pleasure, good but unimportant and swiftly forgotten. Susan, being the woman she was, would have to offer her heart before she could offer her body, and though she was dangerously attracted to him, she was still heart whole.
No! The word echoed in her mind again, stronger this time, and she tensed in his arms, oblivious now to the seduction of his mouth. The protest still hadn’t been voiced aloud, she realized, and with an effort she pulled her mouth free of his. She was suspended in his arms, her toes dangling above the floor while he cupped her hips to his in a position of intimacy, but her stiffened arms held her head and shoulders slightly away from him. She met his glittering diamond eyes evenly. “No.”
His lips were red and sensuously swollen from their kiss, and she knew that hers must look the same. His dark beard had been so soft that she hadn’t been aware of any prickles, and a rebellious tingle of desire made her want to nuzzle her face against that softness. To deny herself, she said again, “No.”
His mouth quirked, amusement shining like a ray of sunshine across his face. “If people learn through repetition, then I have that word engraved on my brain.”
Under any other circumstances she would have laughed, but her nerves were too raw to permit humor. She increased the pressure of her hands against his heavy shoulders, desperately trying to ignore the heat of his flesh searing her through the thin silk of his shirt. “Put me down. Please.”
He obeyed, slowly, and his obedience was almost as provocative as his sensual attack. He let her slide with excruciating slowness down the hard length of his body, turning her release into an extended caress that touched her from her knees to her shoulders. She almost faltered, almost let her hands leave his shoulders to slide up and clasp around his neck again. Alarmed, determined, she stepped back as soon as her feet touched the floor, and with a wry smile, he let her go.
“You weren’t so wary of me last night,” he teased, but he watched sharply as she carefully placed herself out of his reach.
That