He dipped his head and nibbled at her lips. She caught his bottom lip between her teeth and sucked. He drew a harsh breath. Against her breasts, his heart bucked like a rodeo bronco gone wild. Hers went wild with him.
“Ally, I want to see you. Do you mind?”
The question was undemanding, eager but patient. Tears sprang into her eyes. “You are so gentle,” she said.
“I want to be gentle. I wouldn’t do anything to scare you. Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
He urged her to rest against the car door. His hands went to her blouse. One by one, he unfastened the row of tiny buttons shaped like bows, white against the blue cotton. Her white bra looked dainty, almost flimsy against her tan. She moved instinctively to cross her hands over her chest, then placed them instead around him, sliding one behind him, the other resting on his upper arm.
He smiled again, his gaze catching hers and holding it while he laid a broad hand over her tummy and caressed. “You are so innocent,” he said, almost as if he spoke to himself.
“I am…I mean, I haven’t…”
“I know what you mean. Neither have I.”
He dropped a quick kiss on her mouth, then, looking into her eyes, slid his hands behind her. She felt him pause, then his fingers glided beneath her bra on each side of the hook that held it closed.
“Are you comfortable with this? I can stop at any time. Just say the word.”
She considered, then shook her head, not wanting him to stop. He understood her meaning.
After unfastening the hooks he pushed the blouse off her shoulders. The bra came with it. He carefully laid them over the steering wheel. His eyes came back to her.
“I’m not—”
“Shh,” he said. “You’re beautiful. May I?”
Spellbound, she watched as he tested each tip with his tongue. She closed her eyes and rubbed his shoulders, his neck, threaded her fingers into his hair. He kissed her breasts until they tingled. He drew magic circles that spun off madly into her body and collided with the spirals he’d already caused.
“I want us to touch…my skin, yours,” she tried to explain. “I need to touch all over….”
He leaned away from the seat and stripped his T-shirt off over his head. When he pulled her against him, hot smooth flesh against hot smooth flesh, she trembled as their need reached the flaming point.
“Spence, that’s…that’s…it feels…”
“Incredible,” he murmured. “Ah, Ally, you are so incredibly sweet.”
She writhed against him. He caressed her with sweet movements and shrugs of his body against hers, satisfying and feeding her passion at the same instant.
He fed on her lips. She sipped from his. She learned the shape of his teeth, the points and edges, that the bottom one wasn’t quite even with the others. He explored the texture of her mouth, the smooth flesh behind her lips, showed her the velvety tracing of tongue on tongue.
His movements were sure. There was a maturity about him, a manliness, she had never noticed. It reached deep into her soul.
In turn, she felt a blossoming inside, in a hidden glen that now felt the kiss of the sun warming the loamy earth, readying it for spring and new growth.
“Straddle me,” he requested.
His hands on her waist lifted her. He had strength she hadn’t suspected, her weight easy to him. She swung her leg over his thighs. He settled her against him.
“Oh,” she said as entirely new sensations erupted.
“Now be still,” he ordered and gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. “You have me on the edge. One slip and I’ll go right over.”
His confession thrilled her in ways she couldn’t name. Her blood flowed with golden lava, with champagne bubbles and laughter.
“Me, too,” she said, biting desperately, carefully, on his shoulder. “I’m the same, so…so…” She didn’t know the words.
“Very much so,” he agreed.
He found the bow that closed the drawstring to her summer slacks. It opened when he tugged. Then he slipped his hands inside the material and cupped her bottom. She fit her breasts to his chest.
“We’re hot, you and I,” she whispered. “Our skin, it’s like fire on fire.”
“I went up in smoke a long time ago. You’re just now catching up.”
When he moved slightly, she gasped as tremor after tremor of need arced through her.
“See?” he said.
He smiled again, and it was so tender she could have wept had there been time. But he was kissing her again, and the stars dropped from their orbits and into her soul.
She didn’t know how long they kissed and touched each other. Forever, it seemed.
The moon spread a molten path of silver across the river as it rose higher. Still they kissed.
And kissed.
At last she knew it had to stop or they had to go further. “This isn’t enough,” she complained, panting lightly, placing carefully spaced kisses along his collarbone and down his chest as far as she could reach. “This has got to…to finish.”
He groaned and caught her to him, pulling her hands behind her back and holding them there.
“Let me touch you,” she requested and pressed hard against the ridge in his jeans.
“No.”
She rose slightly on her knees and rubbed against him.
“Don’t.”
This time the tone was stern, older, the disciplined male taking command instead of letting her do as she wished in their love play.
“Why?”
He kissed her eyes instead of answering when she stared at him in the shadowy moonlight. She leaned farther back and looked at him, beginning to feel hurt and confused.
“Don’t hate me,” he said.