Carla called his name, her voice breaking.
"It’s all right," Luke said tightly. "I won’t hurt you, sunshine. You’re so wild that I forgot you’re not used to this."
She forced herself to breathe. "C-can you get used to this?"
"Being naked?"
She shook her head. He saw the helpless shivering of her body and waited, but she said nothing more.
"What?" he urged softly.
Carla made an odd sound and dug her nails into Luke’s chest in an unconscious gesture of sheer frustration.
"Wanting," she said, her voice aching. "And not having. Wanting and wanting and wanting."
Before she had finished speaking, Luke turned away and began stripping off his own clothes, throwing them aside. When he turned back to Carla and lay on his side again, she was sitting up, looking at him. All of him. He froze, motionless, regretting his haste and the fact that she had never seen a naked, aroused man before; and he had never been more aroused. He saw the change in her expression, the heedless passion suddenly checked, as though the blunt reality of his hunger had shocked her.
"Still want me?" Luke asked, his voice rough with restraint.
Carla’s only answer was the glide of her fingernails over Luke’s chest, down the center line of his body, below his navel to the thatch of dark hair. There she hesitated for a moment before she touched the evidence of his desire with curious fingertips. When he jerked reflexively, she looked up into his blazing golden eyes.
"I don’t know which is more exciting," he said thickly, "seeing your sweet curiosity or feeling it."
"You don’t…mind?"
Slowly Luke shook his head, then caught his breath as Carla’s soft fingertips found each irregularity in his hot flesh and lovingly traced it He had never known such a fragile, tender, consuming exploration. He had never guessed that he could be so aroused without losing control, but he refused to consider letting go, because even in sexual release he had never known such wild pleasure as he was discovering right now.
"Will you mind?" Luke asked, running his hand caressingly along Carla’s calf, her knee, her inner thigh.
"What?"
"When I touch you the way you’re touching me."
Before Carla could answer, his fingers had discovered the soft, swollen, sultry flesh at the apex of her thighs. She made a startled sound and reflexively closed her legs around his hand.
"Is that yes or no?" Luke asked, rubbing gently, finding and stroking the nub hidden within her soft folds.
Carla’s breath broke as pleasure showered through her, a wild, unexpected cascade of sensation that made her shudder. He felt the sudden, small melting, saw mist bloom beneath the firelight on her skin and wanted to lower himself over her, sink into her, filling her, bathing his aching flesh in her passionate response. Eyes closed, back arched, moving helplessly against his touch, she shivered again, melted again, searing him with her heat.
"Sunshine?" Luke whispered, caressing Carla with tiny motions, tearing a moan from her lips. "Look at me."
Carla’s eyes opened, dazed by passion. His hand moved again, sliding over her, gilding her with the sultry rain of her own response. He wanted more, much more of her, but he didn’t want to take it. He wanted her to give herself to him while she looked at him, knowing every bit of what was happening.
"Don’t hide, baby," he said softly. "Open for me."
For a moment Carla looked at Luke; then his fingertips moved gently and pleasure shimmered and burst inside her. With a small moan she shifted her legs, allowing him greater intimacy, wanting it as much as he did.
"That’s it," he said, his low voice both praising and encouraging her. * "Brace yourself on your hands and relax those beautiful legs for me."
As Carla leaned back, Luke’s fingers moved coaxingly, skimming her flushed skin, teasing her, asking silently for what she had given no other man.
"L-Luke?"
"It’s all right," he said, his voice deep. "Just a little more. Open just a little more. Let me – " His voice broke as Carla obeyed, allowing him into her softness. "Oh, baby, you’re like honey."
He shuddered even as she did, pleasure rushing wildly between them at the slow glide of his caress, penetration and retreat, a silken measuring of her ability to receive the gift of his body. Slowly he rose over her, kneeling between her legs, redoubling and deepening his presence within her softness. When his thumb found and teased the velvet focus of her passion, she sank back onto the sleeping bag with a hoarse cry.
Luke froze, afraid that he had hurt Carla despite all his care.
"Don’t stop," she pleaded brokenly, looking at him, moving helplessly against his hand, caught up in an urgency that stripped away everything but her incandescent need. "Oh, Luke, if you stop I’ll die."
"Sunshine," he said, "baby, are you sure?"
Carla’s body answered for her, bathing Luke in sweet fire, burning away all his questions. Slowly he lowered himself over her. The teasing of his fingertips was replaced by the hard flesh she had so recently explored. The satin caress sent ripples of pleasure through her, expanding rings of sensation that burst sweetly, melting her in rhythmic waves. Gently Luke rode the waves of her passion, letting them ease his way, merging with her gradually, lovingly.
The slow consummation wrung a low moan from Carla. She had never felt anything so exquisite as the merging of flesh with flesh, the elemental fire of her lover’s body blending with her own equally elemental rain. A lightning stroke of pain flashed through her, but it swirled away and was lost in the glittering, gathering storm that was consuming her – Luke’s mouth on her neck, her throat, her eyelids, and his fiery words licking over her. She arched upward again and again in the primal rhythm of the union. His body enfolded her, surged deeply within her, a part of her. She tried to tell him that she could take no more, the pleasure was too great, she was dying; but the only word she could say was his name. A glittering darkness swept over her, followed by a wild shimmering of her body that shook her to her soul, hurling her into ecstasy.
Luke heard his own name called again and again, a passionate litany that echoed the rhythmic tightening of Carla’s body beneath him, around him, demanding all that he had withheld, all that he was, all that he had. Her name was a hoarse cry torn from his throat as passion exploded into a release that was unlike any he had ever known, violent and tender at once, ecstasy convulsing him savagely, softly, endlessly, as he gave himself to the woman he had sworn never to take.
14
Carla stirred and reached out for the muscular warmth she had become accustomed to during the night. When her hands found nothing but cool air and emptiness rather than Luke’s big body, her eyes opened. An instant later she saw him. Wearing only jeans, he was standing at the edge of the overhang, sipping coffee, watching a land swept clean by rain. As though he sensed that she had awakened, he turned around. The hot cascade of sunlight pouring in behind him made it impossible for her to see the expression on his face.
Without a word Luke came and sat on his heels next to Carla’s sleeping bag. Light illuminated half his face, leaving the other half in darkness. For long moments he watched Carla with tawny, enigmatic eyes. Cradled between his hands, the metal camp cup sent fragrant steam into the air.
"Are you all right?" he asked finally.
She nodded and slid her hand from the sleeping bag’s warmth to touch the smoothness of Luke’s freshly shaved cheek.