Come Lie With Me - Linda Howard [53]
Blindly she clung to him, hearing the tone of his voice, though the words didn’t make any sense. His arms were living shackles, holding her to him, his long, bare legs pressing against hers, her breasts crushed into the dark curls that decorated his chest, and she wasn’t afraid. Not of Blake. The taste of him was wild and heady, his tongue strong and insistent as it moved into her mouth and tasted her deeply, possessively. Instinctively she kissed him in return, making her own discoveries, her own explorations. He bit gently at her tongue, then sucked it back into his mouth when she began a startled withdrawal. Dione’s knees buckled and she sagged against him, which was enough to upset his precarious balance. He lurched sideways, and they stumbled to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, but not once did he release her. Again and again his mouth met hers, demanding things that she didn’t know how to give, and giving her a wild, alien pleasure that set her to trembling like a tree in a hurricane.
Her nails dug into his shoulders and she strained against him, mindlessly seeking to intensify the contact with him. Not once did she think of Scott. Blake filled her world. The sweaty male scent of him was in her nostrils, the slippery texture of his hot skin under her hands; the unbearably erotic taste of his mouth lay sweetly on her tongue. At some unknown point his kisses had slipped past celebration and become intensely male, demanding, giving, thrilling. Perhaps they’d never been celebration kisses at all, she thought fuzzily.
Suddenly he removed his mouth from hers and buried his face in the curve of her neck. When he spoke his voice was shaky, but husky with an undertone of laughter. “Have you noticed how much time we spend rolling around on the floor?”
It wasn’t that funny, but in her sensitized state it struck her as hilarious, and she began to chuckle helplessly. He propped himself up on his elbow and watched her, his blue eyes lighted by a strange light. His hard, warm hand went to her stomach and slid under the thin fabric of her T-shirt top, resting lightly but soothingly on her bare flesh. The intimate but unthreatening touch calmed her almost immediately, and she quieted, lying there and watching his face with huge, fathomless eyes, in which her tears still glittered.
“This definitely calls for champagne,” he murmured, leaning over to crush his lips lightly over hers, then withdrawing before the contact could start anew the searing fire of discovery.
Dione was under control again, and the therapist in her began to take over. “Definitely champagne, but first let’s get off the floor.” She rolled gracefully to her feet and extended her hand to him. He used his hands to place his feet in a secure position, then placed his forearm against hers, his hand cupping her elbow. She stiffened her arm, and he used the leverage to pull himself up, swaying for a moment before he found his balance.
“What now?” he asked.
Someone else might have thought he was asking about the immediate future, but Dione was so attuned to him that she knew he was asking about his progress. “Repetition,” she replied. “The more you do it, the easier it’ll be. On the other hand, don’t push yourself too hard, or you could hurt yourself. People get clumsy when they’re tired, and you could fall, break an arm or a leg, and the lost time would really hurt.”
“Give me a time,” he insisted, and she shook her head at his persistence. He didn’t know how to wait; he pushed things along, impatient