His lips pressed gently, insistently, on hers. His tongue stole between her teeth, filling the moist hollow of her mouth, infusing her with his taste, his warmth, his love for her. His hands swept along her back, outside the blanket that covered her, and he could feel her whole body suddenly grow still.
“Ryan-”
“You don’t want this,” he murmured, guessing her words before she said them.
“I just…”
“Want to know something, love?”
He raised himself up on an elbow, releasing the buttons of his shirt as he looked down at her. Greer could barely see him in the shadows, but she had a fleeting feeling that he’d catch her if she tried to run. “What?”
“I want to hold you more than I want to make love to you. Now, that hasn’t happened often since I met you,” he whispered wryly, but there was no smile on his mouth. Just those bright eyes of his burning on hers in the dark. “But we’re going to have to make love, Greer. Not for me, love. In fact, I think we’ll just forget all about what I want or need. This one’s all for you, and you need to understand that ahead of time.”
“Ryan-”
“You are beautiful, Greer. Your feelings are beautiful, too, and it’s time you believed that. Actually, it’s a perfect time, because you’re absolutely sure you’ll feel nothing, aren’t you? You aren’t in the mood; you’ve been frightened to death; and maybe you’d even like to curl up in a corner, honey, but that’s not the way.”
His shirt dropped to the floor in a gentle whoosh. His belt followed. Greer swallowed. “That’s just it,” she said hesitantly. “I really…not now, I-”
He pushed aside the blanket and drew her to him. Blood pulsed in the vein in her throat, in her temples. He was bare from the golden slope of his shoulders to the iron wall of his chest. The room was not so dark now. Her eyes had adjusted, and faint city lights glowed through the windows, illuminating the distinctive shape of a man looming over her.
A very determined man. A few hours earlier, another very determined man had tried to hurt her, but the association was entirely different. This was Ryan. There could never be a comparison. She felt weak inside, unable to stop him or even try, yet suddenly a thousand times more vulnerable than she’d ever felt with Ray or any other man. Ryan’s chest with its mat of hair pressed against her as he leaned closer, his mouth claiming hers, stealing her breath, stealing her will to think.
At first her lips only reluctantly returned the pressure, and then, suddenly, fiercely molded themselves to his, her throat arched back to ensure that the bond wasn’t broken. When he heard the sudden, uneven rhythm of her breathing, he slowly raised his head. His eyes searched hers. Without looking down, he gently undid the buttons of her robe, from her throat down to her thighs. Just as gently, his hands parted the material. She felt air on her breasts, an awareness of her nakedness, a catch somewhere deep inside her.
Finally, his eyes released their hold on hers and skimmed slowly over her dusk-tipped breasts, the hollow between, the satiny flatness of her stomach. When she raised a hand to cover herself, he held that hand and drew it back to her side.
“You’re exquisite,” he whispered.
She flushed.
“And that’s all we’re going to do, honey. Teach you what a beautiful body you have and how beautiful your feelings for me are. No one’s going to use you, Greer. Do you know what I want you to do?”
“Ryan-”
“Do you know what I want you to do?” he demanded.
“What?”
“Lie there. That’s all. You can think about every damn man who’s tried to use you, if you want to. You can repress every sexual feeling you’ve ever had. And it’s still going to happen, love.”
He was so serious-and then not. His sudden smile distracted her. She wasn’t expecting…play. He was most insistent on teaching her that play was part of loving. She couldn’t anticipate where he was going to touch next. One moment his lips were tugging at her breasts, his tongue swirling her nipples into swollen arousal. The next moment he was trailing kisses up and down her thigh, and then he moved up, as if he’d completely forgotten the hollow spot in her neck and was making amends.
He turned her over. He kissed her ankle, the back of her knee, the soft flesh of her thigh. He nipped at her bottom, and his tongue laved a long trail up her vertebrae. When he shifted her to face him after that, he was more than content to discover her body was becoming Silly Putty for him. That she sounded breathless as well was its own reward.
It seemed a good time simply to kiss her senseless. She murmured something against his mouth, but he didn’t pay any attention. Her limbs were trying to wrap themselves around his; that was message enough.
He took a moment to remove the rest of his clothes, and when he lay back down on the bed he didn’t touch her at all but just looked at her, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. Moonlight turned her ripe curves to silver, and her eyes looked as soft as lake water. So vulnerable. “Listen,” she murmured. “I’m not sure. I warned you, I…”
But he’d been listening to Greer for weeks. He wasn’t interested in listening any longer, nor did he want to play. He had other things to show her. Leaning over her, he pinned one of her legs with his, loving the feel of his muscular thigh against her softer one. She had incredibly beautiful breasts, full and plump and satin smooth. With infinite slow care, he circled each with a fingertip, then with his tongue. Her breasts were oh-so-sensitive; he’d discovered that before. The limits of that sensitivity were what he needed to know now.
Her nipples were dark brown pebbles. He rolled each tenderly between thumb and forefinger, then bent to taste the right one, teasing it with his tongue, then very gently applying his teeth.
She convulsed, her spine arching for him. He held her closer, allowing her less movement, pinning her hands to her sides. The other nipple he gave different treatment. He laved it to a swelling erection, blew on it to cool it, took it in his mouth to gently suckle.
Greer’s thighs tightened around his. He could feel her fingertips pressing down on his spine, but he paid no attention. He pressed her breasts together and kissed the cleavage he’d made. He kneaded the flesh, then massaged it, then traced fingertip patterns over and over those soft, swollen orbs. When he got around to it, he raised his eyes to hers again.
“Damn you, McCullough,” she whispered.
He smiled. “I haven’t even started, sweet.”
She wanted him. She wanted him in the most wanton way; she wanted him as she’d never conceived of wanting anyone. It wasn’t…nice. He was clearly determined to drive her out of her mind, and if he’d just let her touch him in return…
Her hand slid down his stomach, finding him. Ryan just that quickly removed her hand. “Not this time,” he murmured. “I’m a little too susceptible to being touched right now, love. Particularly to your touch. And there’s no way I want to be distracted from just…loving you. Not this time.”
She raised her hand again.
He said roughly, “No.”
He looked so fierce. And his fingers drew such delicate patterns over her ribs, down her stomach. A finger traced the soft curl of hair between her thighs; she shivered helplessly. His mouth came up to hers, softening her unwilling cry as his finger probed her flesh. One finger, then two.
It wasn’t what she knew of loving, that fierce almost angry need. It was frighteningly full, consuming. She’d denied it for so long; she was burning with it, moving against his hand, feeling his palm against her softness, his finger relentless inside her.
A flame burst, then another. She buried her face in his shoulder, her lips pressed fiercely into his flesh. “Enough,” she whispered.
He stopped after a time-only, really, to smile at her. “You have miles to go, if you think that’s all there is to pleasure, love,” he murmured. “Honey, I think you have to accept that you aren’t going to get any sleep tonight.”