The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [34]
“It’s not a mistake to care for people,” she pointed out.
“So they say.” His fingers tangled in her soft hair. “Want something to drink?”
“No, thanks,” she replied. Her fingers spread involuntarily in the thick hair over his breastbone, and his intake of breath was sharp and audible.
His body tensed again. She and Carl had kissed, but she’d been careful not to let things go very far. In fact, she hadn’t felt any sort of strong physical attraction to the football star, which was strange, considering how much he meant to her. With Mack, she experienced sensations she’d never felt before. She felt hot and swollen in the most unusual places, and it puzzled her. The sudden tension she noticed in the man holding her puzzled her, as well. Mack didn’t say a word, but she could feel his heartbeat increase, hear the rough sound of his breathing.
She let her face slide down his muscular arm, and her curious eyes met his good one. It was narrow and unblinking and vaguely intimidating. Even as she watched, his gaze went to where her robe was open and one of her breasts in its lace-trimmed satin lay soft and warm against his chest.
Involuntarily, she followed his intense scrutiny and saw what she hadn’t realized before—the gown had slipped so far down that her nipple, hard and tight, was visibly pressing into the thick hair over his chest.
He looked into her stunned eyes, and the hand in her hair tightened. “Didn’t you do this with your boyfriend?” he asked bluntly.
“No,” she said shakily.
“Why not, if you loved him?” he persisted.
She frowned worriedly. It was becoming increasingly hard to think at all. “I didn’t feel like this with him,” she confessed in a whisper.
Mack’s face changed. His hand in her hair arched her face to his and tugged it into the crook of his arm. He shifted, so that the bodice came completely away from one pert little breast, and his arm tightened, moving her skin sensuously against him.
She gasped. Her nails bit into his chest, and her lips parted in shock and delight. Involuntarily, she arched closer, so that her breast dragged roughly against his skin.
The hand in her hair began to hurt. His body tensed, and a faint shudder rippled through him.
His jaw clenched, and he fought his hunger. She realized that he wanted to feel her against him without the fabric between them, and it was what she wanted, as well. She forgot about wrong and right, about decency, about everything except the pleasure they were giving each other here, in the quiet room with the silence only broken by the sound of the rain outside the window and their breathing.
“I should be shot for doing this, and you should be shot for letting me,” he said through his teeth. But even as he spoke, his free hand was stripping the robe and gown to her waist. His gaze fell to her naked breasts, and he shuddered again, violently, as his arm suddenly tightened and dragged her breasts against his hair-roughened chest in a feverish caress.
She moaned harshly. Her nails bit into the hard muscles of his upper arms as he crushed her against him and buried his face in the thick hair at her ear. He held her, rocked her, in an aching excess of desire.
Both arms were around her now. She slid her arms around his neck and clung for dear life. She couldn’t catch her breath at all. It was the most intense pleasure she’d ever known. She trembled with desire.
The embrace was fierce. They held each other in a tense silence that seemed to throb with need. Her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his strong neck, and her eyes closed as she lay against him, unafraid and unashamed of the growing intimacy of the embrace.
He could feel his body growing harder by the second. If he moved her any closer, she’d be able to feel it. He didn’t want that. It was years too soon for the sort of intimacy they were leading up to. He could barely think at all, but the part of his brain that still worked was flashing with red warning lights. She