The Australian

She tingled all over, her breath catching in her throat at the deep, fervent note in his voice. His sophistication made her innocence more obvious than ever.

He sat up and one big hand smoothed across her flat stomach, across the bulge of the clothing at her waist. Lightly, slowly, holding her eyes, he touched the hard peaks of her breasts and watched her shudder.

“Your breasts are like honey,” he said. “You’re like honey. So sweet, you make me drunk.” He bent, with his eyes on her bareness. “I want to take you in my mouth,” he breathed. “Are you going to let me?”

She groaned helplessly, and her body arched again, inviting him.

“Priss,” he whispered, sliding his hands slowly under her back. “Priss, come here.”

He lifted her to his parted lips. She stiffened and cried out with the shock of pleasure as his mouth took her, and the excited little cry aroused him instantly. He took the hardness into his mouth and eased closer, feeling her reactions, glorying in her headlong response. Her hands tangled in his hair, frantic. Those wild little cries were pushing him right over the edge, making him shudder with a kind of desire he’d never experienced.

“Oh, God,” he whispered with reverence, because she was so deliciously innocent, so trusting. She was giving him free license to do what he liked to her smooth young body, and he was going crazy with the freedom.

His mouth moved down her body, to her waist, her hips, the flatness of her stomach, as he eased the dress farther down to bare her body to his greedy lips. She tasted of delicate soap and powder, and he wanted to taste all of her....

“Do you want me now?” he whispered roughly. His mouth ran back up her body, over her creamy breasts to her face, and he cupped her breast as his lips made nonsense of any protest she might have made. “Do you want to lie with me and touch me the way I’m touching you with nothing between us except air?”

“I...ache,” she said through parched lips, clinging, trembling.

“So do I,” he said unsteadily. “You’ve taken my mind from me. Lie still, darling. Let me touch you, let me have you.”

His face moved, touching, brushing. His mouth loved her, cherished her. She was shuddering under its tenderness, and he knew she’d make no further protest if he undressed her completely and took her. But even as he was drowning in the anguished pleasure of the knowledge, he began to think about consequences. She was a virgin. The first time for her was probably not going to be as good as it would be for him. He was more aroused than he’d ever been in his life—too aroused to take his time, to give her patience. And worst of all, she’d be unprotected. He could make her pregnant. It was that thought that brought him suddenly to his senses. She was hardly more than a child herself.

He dragged his mouth from her soft belly and managed to pull his tormented body into a sitting position, breathing roughly, running his hands through his damp hair. She was breathing roughly herself, and her body was trembling wildly.

With a harsh mutter, he brought her up into his arms and rocked her damp body against his. “Hold me hard, darling,” he whispered into her ear, feeling the heat of her breasts through the cotton of his shirt. Her back under his hands was like silk. “Hold me. It will stop. Hold me hard.”

She clung to him, vaguely embarrassed at the intensity of her response, wildly frustrated, wanting something he hadn’t given her but not realizing exactly what.

“Oh, gosh,” she whispered, awed.

“Now you know,” he said gently.

Her nails bit into his shoulders, and she nuzzled her head into his neck, shuddering a little as her heartbeat calmed and her breath steadied. “You...weren’t going to stop...at first. Why...did you?” It was a statement, not a question.

His big hand smoothed her hair slowly. “I could have made you pregnant.”

Thrills of pleasure wafted through her. She might have liked that, being pregnant with his child. It wasn’t at all frightening. But it would be a poor way of getting him, a mean trick. She sighed.

“I’d have let you,” she answered.

He laughed softly. “Yes, I know. Delicious, delightful little virgin.” He bit her shoulder, quite hard, and she shuddered with unexpected pleasure and laughed.

He half threw her back on the pillows and sat looking down at her seminudity with possessive, glittering blue eyes. “I’ve never wanted anyone so much,” he said huskily. “I was on fire for you. I still am.”

It was plain speaking, and a little embarrassing—like her wanton behavior. He seemed to sense those uncertainties, because he smiled tenderly when she sat up and began to tug her dress back in place.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said gently. “Only the two of us will ever know what happened here today.” He touched her mouth with a long finger. “And I won’t tell if you won’t.”

That was the John she loved so much, teasing, mischievous. She couldn’t help smiling at him. He smiled back and bent, kissing her softly, amorously, as his hands drew the bodice down again. “I’ll never see anything else so beautiful as long as I live,” he ground out, staring at her pink skin where his mouth had pressed and pulled and tasted it, with something like reverence on his hard face.

She flushed wildly and blushed even there, and he bent and kissed the shyness from her eyes, her mouth.

His fingers moved the damp hair away from her face, and he looked at her as if she were a sunrise he was committing to memory. “You belong to me now,” he said quietly. “Keep your body for me, and no other man. I’ll wait for you.”

“It belonged to you long before now,” she said in a choked tone, her eyes searching his. “John, I...!”

He put his fingers over her lips. “Don’t say it.” His mouth replaced his fingers, and he kissed her with an expertise that left her moaning, in tears, when he lifted his head. “You’re very young,” he said, as if it bothered him. “There’s plenty of time.”

“Plenty?” she queried. “When I’m leaving today?”

“Darling,” he breathed, staring down at her, “if you weren’t leaving today, you might damned well find yourself in my bed by nightfall.”

He got to his feet, stretching lazily and indulgently watched her efforts to rearrange her dress. There was possession in his eyes, and quiet pride, but she wasn’t looking.

“See what happens when you avoid me?” he asked as she got to her feet, smoothing back her disheveled hair. “Frustration can push a man to the very limits.”

She smiled shakily. “Was that what it was?”

He caught her waist and pulled her to him. “What do you think it was?” he asked.

She stared at his shirt, curious about how he looked without it. She’d only seen him that way from a distance, when he was working on fences with the men or digging a new bore.

“It’s too late now,” he said deeply, his voice amused. “If you wanted to go on safari, you should have indulged yourself while we were lying together on the bed.”

She flushed, and he laughed.

“The months will pass,” he said lightly, giving her a last careless kiss. “Write to me.”

“Could I?” she asked, breathless.

“Of course.”

“Will you write back?”

He shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m not much good at letters, honey,” he confessed. “I’ll get Mother to write for me.”

His words hurt her. They wouldn’t be love letters—he was saying as much. Perhaps he’d meant what they had just shared as a going-away present, a fond farewell. Something to make up for the times when he’d ignored her, crumbs from his table.

She felt sick all over, but she was too proud to let it show. How could she have forgotten what her father had said, about John being glad to let her go, about his being too old to be interested in her?

“I’ll see you at the Easter holidays,” he said. “You’ll be home then?”

“Of course,” she said woodenly. “’Bye, John.”

He traced her cheek lightly with his finger, and his eyes met hers in a long hot exchange, but he didn’t touch her again. “’Bye, Priss. Keep well.”

“You, too.”