His chest was solid and firm against her aching back. She wasn’t used to heels that high, or bare feet slamming against cracked pavement, or the energy expended in pretending to be European money. It certainly had been an exciting, though exhausting, day. And it was turning even more exciting by the second.
Relax and enjoy.
Her mind raced. Should she? She shut it down.
Marc was anything but relaxed. She snickered naughtily, feeling the extent of his excitement pressing against her.
He mumbled into her ear as his hands slid around to cup her breasts, “One thing about guys, they can’t keep a secret.”
“That would be a pretty big secret to try and keep.”
He chuckled into the side of her face, the heat from his breath raising tiny goosebumps which cascaded down her neck and skittered down her arms.
The pressure of his hands against the firmness of her breasts was urgent and filled with repressed longing. He knew their shape and texture, he had explored their landscape with his mouth and his hands and his stubbled cheeks. Now he rediscovered them, taking gentle but firm measure, probing their softness and bulk with the pressure of his fingers, receiving their weight into the enveloping cup of his hands.
Amanda’s chest swelled with the luxury of his touch. She pressed into his embrace. He was such a strong, gentle lover. Her heart burst with pride at having found him.
Even for a short while.
He seemed lost in filling his palms with the imprint of her breasts, as if to etch their carriage and weight into the memory of his life lines.
Amanda longed to feel his hands on her bare skin. Her shallow breath came quickly, urging him on. The delicacy with which he peeled the layers of clothing from her body seemed to float her off the floor, lightening her, rising her into the air as each piece fell from her.
He unbuttoned the fitted jacket, slipped the fabric belt from its moorings, and eased the garment from her shoulders. His hands moved down her bare arms, raising another legion of goose flesh. She could feel the delicate hairs all over her body rise to trembling attention.
She leaned back against his powerful body, molding herself to its jutting outlines. Marc unbuttoned the myriad buttons on the pale silk blouse, almost the color of her tawny skin, deliciously building her expectation with each released clouded mother-of-pearl oval, until her chest rose and fell in heavy anticipation at its ultimate uncovering.
He explored the barely confining lace of her bra, fingers outlining the delicate tracery, slipping seductively under a wired edge, an elastic band, to probe the confined interior. He tantalized her with his wanderings, his claimings, circling the outline of her breasts over and over again until, when he abandoned them momentarily to trace the circling elastic straps and release the hooks, Amanda was beside herself with anticipation.
She plucked the delicate confining cups from her body and stretched luxuriously back against his clothed frame, opening herself to receive his touch. When he spread his fingers and captured her naked skin in his grasp, the breath caught in her throat.
And so it was with the rest of her body. It seemed to be time immemorial that he took in discovering her anew, baring her to sun and sea and sky. His touch was like ice, like fire. When he pressed his lips to her bare buttocks she flushed with an inner release that froze her to the spot.
Somehow Marc became naked, too. The charcoal gray suit pooled roughly at his feet to mingle with her discarded silk, delicate nylon, and the laddered hose. His white cotton briefs came off, his executive length black hose; his berry-brown sculpted muscularity bloomed powerful and rampant, prepared to encompass her own.
Amanda did her own exploring, dropping to shape his jutting calves with her lips, ironing the hard-packed elongated thighs with her cheeks, sculpting the powerful bulges and lean indentations of his rib cage and heaving chest with her pressing, discovering hands.
She couldn’t believe she had made love to this man before; he was an entirely new, blazing being. Confined, contained, frozen to the spot, animalistic, territorial, throbbing as she with barely repressed expectation as if afraid the act of tearing themselves from the circle they had established would destroy the moment.
He produced the ring of protective plastic and she unrolled it on him, fascinated by the rich-colored, throbbing veins, the muscular, engorged flesh that it muted inside its whisper-thin sheath.
Marc plunged into her, lifting her from the floor. She clung to his neck, tenaciously, the steady throbbing of the straining cords beneath her clutching arms. Her breasts flattened and danced over the slabs of his chest, her nipples brushing his as their bodies engaged and released and re-engaged seeking more and more complete union.
She clung, her arms bolted to his lurching frame, her head interlocked with his, her gasping breaths a counterpart to his urgent deep-throated exertion. He had lifted her, her buttocks molded in his powerful grip. Her legs wrapped his lower body, binding them together. Inside, she stroked and clung and urged him deeper and deeper into her very center.
She exploded multiple times. She overflowed and refilled and emptied and plumed until she felt she had cocooned their clutching, upright forms with her blossoming, binding aura.
New. Brand new. Each stroke. Each breath. Each impaling thrust. Each butterfly brush of his lips. They seemed welded. Two melted into one from the heat of their passion. The flames mounting higher and higher.
He erupted in joyous, breathless gasps and staggering lurches of his spasming muscles, rocketing deep into her center, filling her to overflowing with his passion and complete possession.
Sighs of completion rumbled up from deep inside Amanda, low sounds of completion that bubbled over in satisfied, rippling chuckles. She nipped his nose, tugged on his ear lobes, blew on his clenched eyelids as her fingers dug into his hair and her legs tightened around his trunk. He swayed slightly and the power that rippled through his body as he adjusted his stance sent another thrilling cascade through Amanda.
He pried his eyes open, the dark and shadowed pools into which she indulgently plunged, diving and stroking, swimming luxuriously through the liquid of his heavy-lidded gaze.
“Was it good for you, too?” he smirked.
She pounded his buttocks with her heels and they tumbled laughing onto the floor.
How could she ever let this man go?
Chapter 15
MARC GAVE up berating himself for not keeping his mind on business. Amanda Catherine Emerson had infected his soul. He would carry her with him always. While it lasted, it had been…
He looked over at her sleeping form, naked under the sheet in the cool spring morning, a smile of pleasure curving between her satiated, glowing cheeks. His chest swelled. He grinned into the breaking dawn. He had put that smile there.They had put that smile there. He was feeling pretty damn smiley himself.
He raised the sheet, careful not to cause a draft over her warm body, and let his eyes caress her. Her silken impression still remained in his inflamed skin. His gaze glided over the luscious hills and verdant valleys and his body responded as if ignited.
Damn, buddy. This is going to be a tough one to leave.
His brows knitted together. Stretching his arms behind his head, he thrust back into his threaded fingers.
Not to worry. It’s not that big a deal with Ace.
She had made love to him like lightning. As if they were going to be together forever. There was no hesitancy. Not the slightest indication that she was even considering the fact they couldn’t last.
Well, that was good. He gave a small snort of resignation. He had a business to run, and it wasn’t in New York. She had a life to get on with and it was in New York. Marc was glad it didn’t seem to be something that needed much talking about. Their leaving. Each other.