A small movement of Luke’s wrist sent his coffee cup in an arc that ended out in the rain. Slowly his big hands came up and framed Carla’s face with a tenderness that stopped her breath. Only in that instant did she admit to herself that she had been expecting a passionate onslaught from Luke of the kind that had frightened her three years ago.
"I’ve dreamed, too," Luke said, his voice deep, watching Carla with eyes that reflected the warmth and heat of flames. "I’ve filled so many empty hours dreaming of living that night all over again, of having you stand in front of me again, offering yourself, looking at me and trembling with hope and desire. And now you’re standing in front of me again, and you’re trembling… Is it fear, sunshine? Tell me it isn’t fear."
"I don’t know why you make me shake," Carla said, trying to laugh, making only an odd, ragged sound. "But I know it isn’t fear."
Luke’s slow, essentially male smile made Carla’s heart turn over with desire. The leashed hunger in his eyes stopped her breath. Gently he turned her until her back was no longer to the fire. Without moving, hardly even breathing, he looked for a long time at the silken curves of her hair, the elegant arch of her eyebrows and the silent dance of flames reflected in her eyes. And then he began looking at her all over again.
She didn’t understand why he had turned her profile to the fire, why he made no move to touch her now. "L-Luke?"
"I want to see you," he said simply. "I want you to see me."
The warmth of his hands enveloped Carla in a gentle vise. His lips traced the graceful margin between her hair and her face, smoothed her eyebrows, breathed warmth against her eyelids, outlined the hollow of her cheeks, whispered along her chin. She stood enthralled, unable to move even if she had wanted to, unable even to breathe, suspended between Are and rain and the unexpected, exquisite tenderness of Luke’s passion. When his lips finally brushed her mouth, her pent breath came out in a moan.
Luke froze, lifted his head and saw the glitter of tears caught in Carla’s long lashes.
"Does my kiss really mean that much to you?" he asked, his voice strained.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, unable to speak.
"My God," he whispered, shaken.
He bent down to her mouth once more, murmuring the nickname he had given to her the first time he had seen her smile so many years ago. The sound of his voice mixed with the fluid murmur of water sliding over stone in the darkness beyond the fire. He brushed her mouth once, twice, then again and again, touching her with the tip of his tongue each time, taking tiny sips of her until her lips parted helplessly, hungrily, and the tip of her tongue touched his.
"Yes," Luke said huskily, encouraging her. "Do you want that, too? Do you want to taste me the way you did in the dining room?"
Blindly Carla turned her face to follow Luke’s teasing, gentle, maddening mouth, lips that kissed and lifted, kissed and lifted, never giving her what she suddenly, wildly needed. She made a sound of frustration and need that was too ragged to be a word.
"I hope yes is what you’re trying to say, sunshine," he murmured, flexing his hands, pulling her closer to his body. "I hope you liked the taste and feel of me, because remembering that kiss has kept me awake too damned many nights since then."
Carla’s eyes opened in surprise. "You, too? I would lie in bed and remember kissing you."
She didn’t understand what it did to Luke to hear that hunger for him had left her sleepless. She only knew that the powerful hands framing her face trembled for an instant. He breathed a word that could have been prayer or curse or both hotly mingled.
"Show me the kind of kiss you wanted when you lay awake," Luke said against Carla’s lips. "Show me your dreams. Let me make them come true."
Her arms slid up around Luke’s neck as she pulled herself up on tiptoe, balancing against his big body. His palms slid from her face to her shoulders and then around her waist, holding her close, but not so close that she would be frightened by the hard bulge of flesh beneath his jeans. Softly her lips brushed his and her tongue glided along his lower lip. He shuddered but made no move to take her mouth. Her arms tightened more and she trembled.
"Please," Carla whispered against his lips. "Please, Luke. In my dreams I tasted you."
Luke’s lips opened on a low sound of pleasure-pain and suddenly there was no barrier to the kind of kiss Carla had both remembered and dreamed. Her tongue sought and found his for a wild, hungry tasting; and then his arms closed harshly around her, arching her into his body in helpless response to the naked, innocent demands of her kiss. Instantly he tried to pull back, cursing his own loss of control.
But Luke found he couldn’t pull back. An unexpected, fiercely feminine strength held him close, for Carla was placing no leash on her own response, her own dreams. She was kissing him as she had dreamed of being kissed, hunger and trembling, heat and sensual fire; and something more, something she couldn’t name but knew waited for her within this one man’s arms.
Luke bent down, arching Carla’s supple body more deeply, bending her into the curve of his own body, satisfying her instinctive urgency to match a woman’s soft heat with a man’s hard need. His arms tightened even more as he slowly lifted her until she had no support but his strength, no place to rest but against his hard flesh, nothing but his heat and hunger surrounding her. She was spinning languidly, turning, folded in hot darkness, sweetly consumed by fire, and Luke was spinning with her, the taste of him spreading through her, his arms locked around her, a dream coming true, wrapping her in ribbons of fire.
A long time passed before Carla felt herself being lowered slowly to the ground, still held so close as Luke eased her down his body that she could feel each ripple of his muscles, the snaps of his shirt, the blunt metal of his belt buckle and the much blunter ridge of his arousal pressing against her. When her feet touched the ground she stumbled, taken unaware by the weakness of her knees. Instantly his arms tightened, supporting her. She felt the rock hardness of his thighs and then he groaned, locking her hips against his as he moved in the primal rhythms that had once frightened her and now sent an incandescent heat cascading through her, echoing the movement of his hips.
Groaning, Luke tore his mouth away from Carla’s and forced himself to loosen his hold on her. He was breathing roughly, all but out of control. His mouth felt empty, violently hungry for the sultry completion it had so recently known. He closed his eyes, caught between frustration and surprise.
"Luke?" Carla asked shakily. "What is it? Did I do something wrong?"
His eyes opened. Her breath stopped as she looked at the twin pools of molten gold. His smile was like his eyes, hot and restrained, bemused and very hungry.
"It’s all right," Luke said. "I just thought I knew all that mattered about men and women and sex. I was wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"I can’t put it in words, but I know it’s true just the same. Give me your mouth again, sunshine. I’ve never enjoyed just kissing anyone so much in my life."
"But I’m not – not that experienced," Carla said, perplexed and pleased at once, her thoughts vaporizing at the heat of his eyes, her hands clinging to his arms because she was thoroughly off balance.
Luke’s eyelids lowered in reflexive pleasure as he ran his thumb over Carla’s flushed lips. She followed his caresses with the tip of her tongue, caressing him in turn.
"You’re so damned honest," he said huskily. "Your words, your responses. I didn’t know a woman could be that passionately honest. It’s making things harder than I expected. Kiss me, baby."