This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [45]
“I don’t want you to be hurt . . . ever again,” she said in a low, stricken voice. Her breath was coming quickly, and she felt his body shivering against hers.
“My summertime girl,” he whispered, and leaned his head forward, kissing her reverently on the forehead. His voice was merely a breath in the night. The softly-uttered words and the caress of his hands on her back sent tingles of excitement racing through her. “I had to hear you say it,” he said against her hair.
Her hands moved up to encircle his neck and she lifted her face. A sound, half-groan and half-sigh, exploded from him, and he strained her closer.
He tilted her head so he could look directly into her eyes. His eyes devoured her. “You want me, too!” Relief and surprise made his voice husky and transformed his anxious face.
They stared at each other for a moment that was so still that it seemed time had stopped moving Then, slowly, haltingly, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Summer’s breath left her in a sudden gasp. The shock was abrupt. The first, gentle touch of his lips awakened fires, the bittersweet ache of passion. A strange feeling, until this moment unknown to her, fluttered within her breast. Although his lips were soft and gentle, they entrapped hers with a fiery heat that flamed her cheeks and spread down her throat. The tobacco taste of his mouth, the woodsy, musky smell of his face as her nose pressed his cheek, and the hard strength of his embrace made her head swim—she was only vaguely aware that his hand had traveled down her back to her hips and pulled her to him.
Her arms tightened about his neck and she clung to him, unaware of his restraint, unaware of the tremor in his arms. She came to him with eagerness. Their lips blended with an impatient urgency, and locked in each other’s embrace, glowing waves of pleasure spread like quickfire through her body. Somewhere, she had lost the fumbling uncertainty of her feelings for him, and untamed intensity swept her on. They were two beings blended together in a whirling tide that set them apart, for the moment, from the world.
He drew his head back and looked into her flushed face. He knew that he was the first man she’d ever loved. His hoarse, ragged breathing accompanied the pounding thunder of his heartbeat as he realized that she was not frightened of his passion, that she had responded. It was more than he had dared to hope for so soon.
“It’s a gr-rand thing that’s happened to us!” he said against her mouth. He stuttered with the power of emotion, and his voice sounded vaguely Scottish, like his father’s.
“Yes!” She could feel life pounding in her throat, her temples.
“Sweet, sweet, wonderful Summer!” His whisper was warm against her lips. He was trembling violently, and as he looked into her shining eyes, half-closed in ecstasy, his mouth went dry. He seemed to be drowning in her violet eyes. Mesmerized, he watched as the tip of her tongue came out and moistened her lower lip.
“Slater, I. . . .
“Shhhh . . . don’t say anything,” he cautioned. “We’ve said enough for tonight.”
He drew her arm around behind him and held her hand tightly between his arm and his body. With his arm around her, they walked slowly back to the cabin. At the door, his lips fleetingly touched her forehead
“Goodnight.” His hand gently squeezed her shoulder, and he was gone.
Summer moved into the darkened room. Nothing in her young life up to now had prepared her for the emotions that churned inside her. It was as if she was outside of herself. Her heart still hammered furiously and her lips felt warm and throbbing. A fluttering in the pit of her stomach refused to go away, even as she pressed her hands