He drew in a long, tortured breath. ‘Beatrice...Beatrice. My beautiful Beatrice. Don’t you know what you’re doing to me, sweetheart?’
His words came at her in a haze; he might have been speaking another languages for all the sense she made of them.
She could not speak or hear or think. All she could do was clutch onto him for support while he roughly unbuttoned her linen dress so that her aroused breasts were visible, straining madly against the champagne lace of her brassiere.
She was aware of a silence, and a stillness, and she opened her eyes in alarm, wondering why on earth he had stopped now. And she disturbed an odd kind of watchfulness on his face as he stared at her body.
‘Wh-what is it?’ she managed, from between lips which felt swollen to twice their normal size. ‘What’s the matter, Cormack?’
The rapt look of absorption had given way to one of narrow-eyed but unmistakable approval. ‘Nothing,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Then?’
‘Your breasts.’ He dipped his dark head to flick his tongue tantalisingly against the champagne lace which was stretched taut over one nipple. ‘They’ve changed.’
‘Have they?’ she questioned lazily as she allowed him to unclip the bra, so that her breasts sprang free into his waiting hands and he immediately began to caress them.
‘Mmm. They’re lusher, fuller—they look...’
Triss froze as the meaning of his words seeped into her addled brain. Any minute now and he would guess the reason for the change—that she had suckled his baby for the past five months.
But Cormack did not seem to be in the mood for any guessing games—in fact there seemed to be only one thing that he was in the mood for, and he shifted uncomfortably before taking her resolutely by the hand.
‘Where’s the bedroom?’ he demanded, in a voice laden with the heated fragility of sexual tension.
Triss wanted him so much that she could not even summon up the simple co-ordination to lift her hand and point to the far door. ‘Over th-there,’ she whispered falteringly.
Cormack had always been a man to make instant decisions, and there wasn’t a trace of doubt on his face as he led her over to the door and pushed it open with all the force of a barnstorming hero from a stage musical.
He didn’t wait, pause, look at her, question her, quiz her or try to reason with her. He simply pushed her down onto the bed and then followed as if it was his every right to do so. And he kissed her and kissed her until the need in her grew unbearable.
‘Cormack, please—’ Was that really her voice? Triss wondered. That husky, sensual pleading sound—was she making it?
‘Please what?’
‘You know what!’
‘No, I don’t,’ he growled as his teeth made provocative little mock-bites on her earlobe. ‘Not unless you tell me!’
She sensed that if she put into words what she wanted him to do to her, then she might give away how much she feared she still cared for him—despite all her vows and determination to remain immune to the manipulative rogue!
So where did that leave her?
Vulnerable, that was where.
Now he had freed the rest of the buttons of her dress so that it flapped right open, revealing the high-cut champagne lace panties which matched her bra. She brought her knees up instinctively to cover her bare belly, but from the renewed darkening of his eyes she saw that the movement had excited him even more.
‘Beatrice,’ he groaned. ‘You’re so lovely. Come here and let me love you.’
And that was her downfall. ‘Come here and let me love you,’ he had said, and Triss allowed herself the foolish luxury of believing him. She went into his arms like an animal seeking refuge from the elements. There she was warm and safe and cosseted.
And very turned on, too. Especially with the flat of his hand roving over her stomach like that.
‘Is that good?’ he murmured.
If she wasn’t going to fight him, she was going to jolly well enjoy him! ‘You know it’s good,’ she answered, on a protesting sigh of enjoyment.
‘Do I?’ He smiled against her neck.
‘Yes.’ Her voice sounded slurred as she began to unbuckle the belt of his jeans, and she felt him shudder where her fingers grazed the taut muscle of his abdomen.
‘God, that feels like I’ve just died and gone to heaven,’ he sighed.
‘Well, don’t die just yet,’ she teased him.
‘Not if you carry on doing that—’
‘This?’ she whispered provocatively as she began to jerk the protesting zip down.
‘Triss, sweetheart,’ he moaned. ‘Your enthusiasm I love—but if you could find it in your heart to be a little more gentle with me...’
She saw immediately what he meant, and it made her feel strangely shy to be confronted by the very obvious signs of how much he wanted to make love. She found that her fingers had started to falter, and that her cheeks had become stained with a mixture of desire and embarrassment.
She looked down to find that the black leather of his jeans was stretched almost indecently over his arousal, and she suddenly felt an overwhelming need to have him deep inside her.
She felt her body stir into life with the soft, silken rush of desire—instinctively reacting to him in a way she had been half afraid she might have forgotten for ever. But oh, thank heavens, she hadn’t.
She felt tears prick the backs of her eyes and found her body trembling uncontrollably, and Cormack must have felt it too, for he halted the slow caress of his lips around the curved line of her jaw to look down at her questioningly.
‘What is it, sweetheart? Are those tears I can see?’
She turned her head away. ‘No,’ she managed, on a broken little gulp.
He turned her head back very firmly. ‘Yes,’ he contradicted her. ‘And what are they for?’
‘You’ll laugh...’
But he shook his head unhesitatingly. ‘Oh, no, I won’t,’ he told her grimly. ‘Believe me when I tell you that I’ve never felt less like laughing in my life.’
Did that mean he wasn’t enjoying himself? Triss found herself wondering nervously, in spite of her emotional state. Wouldn’t it be terrible if he decided to stop?
‘Tell me, Triss,’ he urged softly. ‘Please.’
‘It sounds so stupid to say it...’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
‘It’s just that this—this feels like the first time all over again,’ she admitted helplessly, and then could have kicked herself for leaving herself so raw and exposed. ‘For me, anyway!’ she finished, with a small sniff of defiance.
‘For me too,’ he told her gently, his gaze very steady.
She shook her head from side to side. ‘You’re just saying that!’ she objected. ‘You’ve had so many women, Cormack, that you probably can’t even remember what the first time was like!’
‘Yes.’ He frowned down at her and his mouth thinned into a critical line. ‘You always did have a rather over-active imagination where my sex life was concerned.’
‘But you’re surely not denying—?’
‘That I’ve had other lovers apart from you, Triss? Oh, no, sweetheart, I’m not denying that. How could I? But the reality is a lot duller than you might think. Or do you imagine that