Soon she forgot that she was lying on her back wearing only a small towel and a fragrant shimmer of oil. She sighed, relaxed, and gave herself over to the pleasure of Linc’s touch once more.
“That feels so good,” she murmured.
“I’m glad.”
“I didn’t realize how tight I was,” she admitted.
Smiling, Linc touched her cheek. It wasn’t quite a caress. More of a reassurance.
She sighed and rubbed her cheek against his fingers.
His heartbeat increased so much that his hand shook. Not trusting himself so close to Holly’s sweet breasts, he got up and went to the end of the bed again.
Soon he was rubbing oil into her feet and legs once more. He slid his hands beneath the towel, kneading the smooth curves of her thighs, savoring the silk of her skin.
Holly gave a murmur of pleasure that sent wildfire through Linc’s blood.
Slowly he eased his weight onto the bed, straddling her without confining her, never breaking the easy rhythms of the massage.
In a haze of growing pleasure, Holly felt Linc’s hands slide up and over her hips, over the flat muscles of her stomach, up to a point just short of her breasts.
Then his hands swept down again, leaving behind a dizzying spiral of sensation that showed as a flush just beneath her golden skin.
The sure, slow pressure of Linc’s hands on her body made Holly want to stop time, to float suspended forever while his hands soothed and set her on fire at the same time.
Without realizing it, she sighed his name and shifted her body in the same slow rhythms of his touch.
Linc closed his eyes and tried to still the violent leap of his flesh.
It was impossible. He wanted her more than he ever had, more than he believed he could want a woman.
Even so, he didn’t vary the firm, gentle glide of his hands as he skirted the most sensitive areas of her body. Her trust in him was both humbling and more arousing than any experienced lover’s caress could have been.
For Holly the tender torment was endless. She was suspended in pure sensation. Linc’s hands were advancing, skirting, always retreating just short of intimacy, and the towel slid over her newly sensitive breasts with each breath she took.
Hot wires of sensation began radiating from the pit of her stomach. Her nipples tightened. She moaned without knowing it as Linc’s hands slid up the inside of her thighs, only to curve aside at the last instant from the soft nest between her legs.
Restlessly, Holly shifted. She wanted him to touch her as he had at the campsite, tenderness and hunger and heat combined.
“Linc . . .”
Instantly his hands stopped moving. Holly felt the outline of his fingers press briefly against her stomach. Then his weight shifted as he moved to get off the bed.
She sat up in a rush, not caring that the towel slid off, leaving her naked.
“That isn’t what I meant,” she said.
“What did you mean?”
Linc’s voice was neutral. He wasn’t looking at her.
Holly took his hands in hers and put them back on her stomach.
“I want more, not less,” she whispered, lying down again.
She felt the shudder that went through his powerful body. Only then did she understand that his casual words and gestures had been an act to reassure her.
He wanted her as much as he had earlier.
It should have frightened Holly. Instead, it sent another hot thrill through her body.
“You don’t have to,” Linc said huskily.
Then he turned and looked straight into her eyes, hiding nothing of his desire.
She shivered as stirrings of that same sweet and violent need went stitching through her like silver lightning.
“Frightened?” he asked.
“Not really,” she whispered.
She shivered again.
“I meant what I said earlier,” Linc said in a low voice. “I won’t touch you at all, if that’s what you want.”
Holly took a deep, uneven breath.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” she said honestly. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything at all. Let me pleasure you.”
Linc bent forward and kissed Holly’s eyelids. Then he traced the base of her eyelashes with the tip of his tongue.
The odd, tender caress made her tremble.
“Fear?” he asked huskily.
“No.”
Her whisper was soft, shaky, almost a sigh.
“Whenever you want me to stop,” he said, “tell me.”
“I don’t think I’ll want you to stop. I . . . ache.”
So did Linc, savagely, but he didn’t think this was the time to say anything about it.
“Do you?” he asked softly. “I’ll make it go away.”
Despite Holly’s growing hunger, she couldn’t help tensing against what she knew was coming next. It had hurt the first time. She was afraid it would hurt the second time as well.
Linc warmed a tiny pool of oil in one palm. The oil sent up a fragrance that was clean and tantalizing. He sensed that for all her brave words, she wasn’t ready for intimacy.
So he began seducing her all over again.
He started at her fingertips, but this time he went from her shoulders to her waist.
She gasped when his hands flowed over her breasts and moved on as though he had not noticed the taut rise of her nipples.
His hands kneaded down her stomach toward her thighs.
Holly held her breath, waiting for Linc to find and caress the aching warmth between her legs.
Again he disappointed her. His hands divided and slid around her, caressing down her thighs, setting fire to her skin.
When his hands drifted upward again, fingertips teasing, she unconsciously moved her legs apart, silently asking for his touch.
Linc almost gave in to the temptation. But he had taken too much for granted the first time. He would go slow this time if it killed him.
It probably will, he thought with a mixture of humor and raw need. Because I won’t take her again unless she wants me as much as I wanted her the first time.
An invisible shudder went through Linc. He didn’t know if it was possible for a woman to want a man that much, until there was nothing else that mattered.
But he knew he had to find out.
With Holly.
Nineteen
Deliberately Linc’s palms caressed up the length of Holly’s thighs.
Her breath caught in her throat, only to be let out in a groan of dismay. He did no more than let his palms glide over her, ruffling the midnight nest of hair.
“Linc?”
“Hmm?”
She opened her eyes and saw the intense pleasure he took simply in watching his hands on her body.
When he sensed her look, he smiled and let his hands move slowly from her navel to her breasts. The nipples hardened even more beneath his fingertips, telling him of her growing arousal.
Linc’s breath came out in a rush. Slowly he lowered his face between her breasts, kissing her with great gentleness.
Only then did he admit to himself how much he feared he had lost her.
After a long moment Linc lifted his head and kissed Holly’s lips with an unhurried pleasure that made her tremble. Then he lowered his head to trace her nipples with lazy strokes of his tongue. His teeth closed delicately around her taut flesh, drawing gasps of pleasure from her.
Slowly, deliberately, he caressed the length of her body with his teeth and tongue and lips, pausing to taste each new curve of flesh. And all the while his hands moved in slow, undemanding rhythms over her skin.
When Linc’s teeth found the softness of Holly’s inner thighs, she twisted slowly against him. Her fingers threaded into his thick hair in a sensual demand she wasn’t even aware of making.
She felt an agony of suspense as his mouth hesitated, then moved upward. He nuzzled aside her midnight hair and discov
ered the scented, melting heat of her response.
Linc whispered her name and her beauty against her softness. Then he began a slow, thorough savoring of all the textures of her desire. He felt the waves of pleasure that claimed her, heard her broken breathing, trembled to hear his own name called with each ragged breath she took.
After a time Linc resumed his languid exploration of Holly’s body. His tongue teased her sensitive navel, made her breasts ache with pleasure, and gently tormented her lips.
His hand stroked her from her earlobes to the vulnerable hollow of her throat. He cherished her breasts, her navel, then eased his fingers into the silky hair between her thighs. Tenderly he sought the sleek, incredible softness inside her.
Holly made a sound deep in her throat and moved hungrily against him, asking.
Linc went rigid, gripped in a vise of relief and hunger that almost overwhelmed him. Many women enjoyed love play. Not as many liked having a man inside them. He had been afraid that he had killed that expression of passion in Holly.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
Her hands slid over Linc’s face, tilting his head up to her, looking at his eyes.
“I was afraid you’d never want me inside you again,” he said raggedly. “But you do. Your body can’t lie.”
His fingers stroked intimately.
The rhythm of his caresses stole the breath from Holly’s throat in a husky sigh. Her hips moved against his hand with a sinuous demand that shredded his control.
Linc closed his eyes, fighting to master his fierce response to her innocent sensuality.
When he opened his eyes, she was watching him. She held out her arms to him.
“I’m not afraid of your strength anymore,” Holly said simply.
Despite her words, Linc gathered her against his body as though she were more fragile than her new trust in him.
Holly’s hands slid down his naked back, pulling him closer, savoring the power of him, a power that he was holding in check for her.
But she no longer wanted him to hold back.
She took his hand and guided it down her body. The intimacy of his fingers was no longer a shock, but rather a revelation of her own sensual possibilities.
With each sleek, probing movement of Linc’s hand, the languid weakness that pervaded Holly became a tension that had nothing to do with fear. A fine mist bloomed over her skin and her breath shortened. She moved against him with liquid warmth, melting over him with small moans.
Linc shivered as wild hunger fought self-control.
When her fingers found the towel that was still wrapped around his hips, she tugged it off impatiently.
“Holly—” Linc began.
“I want to feel your skin against mine. All of you.”
This time when Holly touched his heavily aroused body, she didn’t retreat.
As warm fingers closed around him, Linc couldn’t control the groan that shuddered through his chest. Guiding himself to her sleek center, he rubbed gently against her soft, very sensitive flesh.
A sunburst of fire went through Holly. She twisted against him, trying to touch all of him at once, seeking something that would end the beautiful agony gripping her. She whispered his name in a litany of desire, asking him to be part of her.
“Are you sure?” Linc said huskily, fighting his own consuming need to be inside her. “I couldn’t live with hurting you again.”
She shifted, opening herself to his body with a trust that almost undid him.
Hands trembling, he reached into the bedside drawer. With swift motions he sheathed himself.
“Linc—?”
“Gently, Holly. Very gently.”
He guided her legs around his waist. Then he teased her slick softness with his body until she cried out and melted all over him again.
At that instant Linc began to take her, using the same tender care that he had in seducing her. He advanced by fractions, always giving less of himself than she wanted.
“Linc,” she said, trembling. “You said you would make the ache go away. You’ve made it worse!”
With a husky sound that was Holly’s name, Linc let himself sink into her.
Holly’s eyes widened with surprise as she felt how deeply they were joined.
“Does this—hurt you?” he managed.
She tried to answer. She couldn’t. A sweet heat was melting her very core, spilling over to him.
It was the only answer Linc needed and far more than he had expected. He moved slowly within Holly, deeply, watching her surprise and wonder as her own sensuality consumed her, giving her wholly to him.
Arching, shivering, crying his name again and again, Holly clung to the man who was giving her ecstasy.
Linc kept moving slowly, wanting it to last forever, to spend his life held within the shimmering instant of Holly’s consummation. Fiercely he willed himself not to give in.
Then he felt control being stripped from him heartbeat by heartbeat. Each silky contraction of her body was a tongue of fire licking over him.
With a throttled cry he bent down and drank the cries of ecstasy from her lips, letting himself drown in the sweet rain of her release.
The next morning Holly woke up still held closely along Linc’s powerful body. Their legs were tangled together, his arms were around her, and the hair on his chest both tickled and delighted her.
With unselfconscious pleasure she burrowed against him. She enjoyed the intimacy of his hard thigh between her legs, his muscular chest warming her breasts, the strong tendons of his neck beneath her palm. She moved even closer to him, savoring the changing pressure of his body on hers.
Memories of their lovemaking sparked through her. Last night had been a time of sleeping and waking in warm darkness to the feel of Linc’s mouth loving her. Passion had broken over them like a desert storm, shaking them until they cried out and held each other in an ecstasy as fierce as lightning.
Then Holly had slept again and awakened with a smile because even in total darkness, she knew Linc was near. She could taste him, touch him, drink in his presence with every sense in her body. Then she could pull his male strength around her until he filled her and lightning rained down again.
Heat uncurled in the pit of Holly’s stomach as she remembered how it had been. She tried to lie quietly, but finally the temptation of having Linc so near was too great to resist any longer.
She stretched sensually against her sleeping lover, caressing and being caressed by his body in return. Smiling and murmuring softly, her skin so sensitized to his presence that it was almost painful, Holly stretched again.
Even before Linc was fully awake, his arms tightened around her. He pulled her onto his chest and smoothed his hands down her spine to her hips.
Holly shivered with pleasure and sensual anticipation. She smiled down at him.
“Good morning,” she said huskily.
Linc looked at Holly for a long time. His hazel eyes were dark with emotions that she couldn’t name, but she sensed that all of them weren’t as warm and peaceful as hers.
“You’re even more beautiful in the morning,” he said, thinking about the night before.
Memories of Holly, sweet and wild and abandoned in his arms, responding to him as no other woman ever had.
Memories of himself, responding to her as he never had to any woman.
Then came memories of his father, a shell of a man obsessed by a woman too beautiful to be faithful to just one man.
“My God, what am I going to do . . . ?” Linc asked in a raw tone.
Holly’s breath caught at the tension in him, the darkness in his eyes and voice. She knew he was thinking of his mother and stepmother, as cruel as they had been beautiful.
“You’re going to trust me,” Holly said. “I’m not like them.”
Before he could respond, she bent her head and traced his lips with the tip of her tongue.
“I love you, Linc.”
He groaned and buried his fingers
in her thick, long hair. He held her mouth against his in a passionate kiss.
The phone on the bedside table rang.
He ignored it. The mating of her mouth with his was too good to end.
The phone kept ringing.
Five times. Six.
“I never should have plugged the damned thing in again,” Linc said against her lips.
Silently Holly agreed. Silently, because Linc was kissing her again, deeply, telling her with each slow movement of his tongue how much he wanted her.
Ten rings.
Eleven.
Twelve.
With a savage curse, Linc turned aside. His finger raked over a switch, activating the speaker on the phone.
“People usually give up after twelve rings,” he snarled.
There was a pause, then Roger’s laughter floated up out of the phone.
“Good morning to you, too,” Roger said dryly. “Is Shannon still around, or did you have her for a midnight snack?”
Linc raised an eyebrow in Holly’s direction.
She sighed.
“Good morning, Roger,” she said with a total lack of enthusiasm.
She tried to ignore Linc’s expression, changing as she watched, stopping just short of the hard-faced stranger who had taken her so casually the first time.
Then she remembered his anguish when he realized what he had done . . . and the single tear that had burned all the way through her skin to her very soul.
Silently Holly prayed for more time with Linc.
He’ll learn to trust me, she thought, if only I have more time before we’re torn apart.
Roger cleared his throat.
Holly realized he must had said something that she hadn’t responded to.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Sorry if I caught you at an inappropriate moment,” Roger said. “We leave for Cabo San Lucas in an hour.”
“That’s not enough warning—” she began.
“It’s all I have,” he interrupted. “Hurricane Giselle is closing in on the cape.”
“But—”
“If we’re lucky,” Roger continued relentlessly, “we’ll get five days. If not, only two. Giselle and the fashion seasons wait for no man. I’ve packed up your stuff here. Meet us at the airport in an hour.”
Holly made a sound of frustration.
Desert Rain with Bonus Material Page 18