singing in her ears, she took hold of his hand and moved it upwards to the region of her left breast, hearing his sudden sharp intake of breath as his fingers came into contact with the firm young curve.
‘For God’s sake, Caryn!’ he said gruffly against her hair. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing!’
‘Yes, I do,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you like touching me this way?’
‘Like it?’ The words came out on a groan. ‘Of course I like it! I…’ He broke off abruptly, moving the hand sharply away. ‘I think I’d better put you down.’
He brought the horse to a halt and dismounted, reaching up to seize her about the waist, face grimly set. ‘Come on.’
Caryn allowed herself to slide down into his arms, putting her own about his neck and burying her face in his shirt-front as she found her feet. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged. ‘I love you, Logan!’
His whole body was rigid. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ he reiterated. ‘You don’t even know what love is.’
‘Yes, I do. It’s the way you make me feel.’ She was desperate to convince him. She lifted her face to his, searching the grey eyes and seeing the look she had seen before slowly ousting the grimness. Instinctively she pressed herself closer to him, feeling the hardness of his chest against her breasts, the tingling in her nipples. Her lips were slightly parted, youthfully full and moist, trembling a little in their eagerness for his touch.
He kissed her roughly, as if in a deliberated attempt to frighten her off, but she refused to be intimidated by it, kissing him back with a fervency that took him by surprise and elicited an involuntary response. It was so different from Michael’s kisses, stirring emotions only vaguely sensed up to now, turning her limbs to jelly and starting a burning heat in her lower body.
A low groan broke from Logan’s lips as she moved instinctively against him, and he tried to put her from him. But she wouldn’t be put, clinging to him with all her strength, wanting this to continue. For a brief moment he resisted, then he groaned again and went on kissing her, pressuring her lips apart and sending quivers of excitement racing through her. He was Antony, she was Cleopatra, and they were in love. Wonderfully, intoxicatingly in love!
When he lifted her in his arms and carried her into the sand dunes it was all part of that same scenario. When he laid her on the sand and lowered himself to her she knew nothing but delight in his masculine assertion.
Her blouse was a flimsy, sleeveless affair buttoned down the front, her brassiere a wisp of lace that gave easily to the seeking hand. The touch of his fingers on her bare skin made her shiver. Such a delicate touch, tracing a spiral about her breast until it finally reached her aching nipple.
Caryn stifled a cry as he lowered his head to take the proud little nub of flesh between his lips, unable to bear the exquisite sensation yet desperate for it to continue. Her hands slid of their own accord into the crisp, clean thickness of his hair, fingers digging into his scalp, her body arched towards the marauding mouth. She had read so many literary—and not so literary—descriptions of lovemaking, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined it to be as wonderful as this! She was on fire all the way through.
Elasticated at the waist, her skirt slid easily down over her hips. Logan followed its passage with his lips, fluttering the skin of her abdomen and causing her thigh muscles to go into sudden spasm. She caught at him frantically as he brushed the lacy edging of her briefs, hardly knowing what she wanted at that moment. He didn’t resist, but lifted his head first to find her breast and then her lips again kissing her back into a state where she cared about nothing else but having this go on.
He removed her remaining undergarment with dexterity, sliding his hand back along the length of her leg to seek her innermost secrets. Eyes closed, she was lost in a world of pure sensation, pliant to his every demand. There was a brief moment when she thought he was leaving her, but then he came right over her and there was a wholly new sensation, a burgeoning pressure that parted her thighs and brought a bubbling cry to her lips.
Her eyes flew open in surprise as the pressure increased, her muscles tensing involuntarily against the intrusion. It was so much more than she had anticipated— if she had thought this far at all—stretching her, filling her, forging a passage to the very centre of her being.
The pressure became suddenly unbearable, flaring into sharp pain that was gone as quickly as it came, to be replaced by a wonderful glowing warmth. The movement came to her easily, instinctively, lifting her hips in a rhythm as old as time. She heard the rasp of Logan’s breath in her ears but was unaware that the moaning sound accompanying was coming from her own lips. There was a moment of pure ecstasy when she thought she must have died and gone straight to heaven, then everything dissolved into nothingness.
How long the two of them lay, Caryn had no clear idea. She came back to earth to find herself gazing into an evening-misted sky, aware of the weight and warmth holding her down, and of her spreadeagled lower limbs.
They were still joined as one, she realised, although the pressure had decreased to a point where the unity was more sensed than actually felt. She had done that to him, she thought exultantly. Like Cleopatra, she had given her man the ultimate pleasure of climactic fulfilment. She felt neither shame nor regret. At least not then. The wonder of it was all too devastatingly new for any opposing emotion to find purchase.
‘We belong together now,’ she whispered into the dark hair lying so close to her lips. ‘For always!’
For a brief moment there was no response—no movement at all from the man lying with head buried in her shoulder. When he did move it was abruptly, levering himself upright without looking at her directly, face taut and alien.
Too stunned to react, Caryn felt her skirt tossed over her legs as if to hide her nudity, and then he was gone from her line of vision altogether.
When she did finally raise herself up on her elbows, Logan was sitting with his back to her a few feet away, arms resting on bent knees, head lowered. He looked, Caryn thought, like a man with a great weight on his shoulders.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked hesitantly, still not wholly understanding the sudden change in him.
‘Get dressed,’ he said without lifting his head. His voice was rough.
She did so with hands gone suddenly nerveless, fastening the tiny buttons of her blouse with difficulty. Only when she stopped moving did Logan stir himself to turn and look at her. His expression was under strict control.
‘That should never have happened,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m not making any excuses, because there aren’t any. You’re just a child, Caryn. I had no right to take that away from you.’
‘I’m not a child!’ She was eager to convince him of it, face lit by her turbulent inner emotions. ‘I love you, Logan. You only did what I wanted you to do—what all men and women in love do!’
‘You’re not a woman, and you’re not in love with me.’ The statement was bald, the tone curt. ‘Infatuated, perhaps, but that will pass. What happened just now…’ He paused, biting his lip. ‘I can only hope to God that there are no repercussions.’
‘It isn’t infatuation,’ Caryn protested, not fully registering the latter remark. ‘Do you think I don’t know the difference? I love you, Logan! I want us to be together always!’
‘It isn’t possible.’ He said it between gritted teeth, body taut as a bowstring. ‘You’re still at school, for one thing.’
‘I can leave. I hate it, anyway!’
‘No, you don’t,’ he returned. ‘You’re going to stay on and take your A levels, maybe go to university. You’ll probably fall in love more than once before you find the man you really want to spend the rest of your life with.’
‘I already found him,’ she insisted, refusing to be turned from what she knew to be the truth. ‘There’ll never be anyone