by Shirley Wine
Naked and powerful, he reached for her, his strong fingers trembling as he undid the buttons on the pyjama top one at a time to let the top pool on the floor at her feet. She stood before him clothed only in the silken veil of her hair.
He watched her through eyes narrowed to gleaming slits before his eyes slid closed, and the strong column of his throat worked in a hard swallow.
When he opened his eyes, she saw that his anger was gone, replaced by a deeper, more turbulent emotion. Relieved, she eased out the breath she didn’t realise she was holding.
He lifted her and laid her among his pillows, looking down at her for a few moments before striding to the door and turning the key in the lock.
Victoria watched him, fascinated.
Desire curled and licked through her body as he stood over her, uninhibited and proud.
Fully dressed, he was intimidating. Naked, he was mesmerising and so magnificently male—potent and powerful. His long, lean frame was covered with taut muscle that rippled as he moved. When he’d shed his clothes, he’d also dispensed with the civilised cloak he displayed to the world.
Victoria dragged in a tight breath.
‘I know you’ll demand a pay-off for this, but at the moment, I don’t care.’
The harsh words jerked her out of her stasis.
She sat up, sliding her hands up his chest and around his neck, her mouth close against his. She was too aware that she had only tonight to forge a bond strong enough to withstand her deception.
‘Forget about yesterday,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘We’ll deal with any problems tomorrow. Tonight is for us, our pleasure. No strings, no expectations, no family pressures. Tonight you’re my man and I’m your woman.’
As he slid in beside her on the bed, his fierce expression softened into a rare tenderness. Heady with exultation, Victoria felt as if he’d handed her the world. She expected his kiss to be fierce, but the soft gentleness of it flowed over her like warmed chocolate—smooth and all enveloping. Emotion clogged her throat—filling her starved senses—and fuelled the hungry ache gnawing at her belly.
He nuzzled the tender skin below her ear. ‘Witch, you drive me crazy with wanting.’
‘Keir—’ Her choked response was drowned in the warm cavern of his mouth.
His kiss changed, turning carnal and demanding.
His tongue stroked and retreated, over and over. Every sliding caress drove her higher, made her more incoherent. Where he led, she followed—hot and urgent, her mouth, her lips, her tongue melded with his. Victoria moaned and writhed, wanting more. The pulse at the base of her throat throbbed like the beat of a kettle drum as blood pounded through her body.
‘Gently,’ he whispered, soothing her twisting body with his hands, his lips moving down her throat to the hollow of her shoulder and his teeth grazing her skin. ‘We have all the time in the world.’
Did they?
As the anxious thought surfaced, Keir was so close that he sensed her slight withdrawal.
He lifted his head, sliding his hands up and burying them in her silky tresses and holding her immobile. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
‘I know.’ She wanted to tell him about Connor, but the words wouldn’t shape in the dryness of her mouth.
Resting on one elbow, he looked down, a slight frown creasing his forehead. ‘What is it?’
For one moment, confession hovered on the tip of her tongue, but she was afraid so she pushed it aside. Tomorrow would come soon enough. ‘Kiss me.’
His mouth came back to hers as his hands closed over her breasts, confident and firm, thumbs rubbing back and forth across tightly furled nipples.
She arched, pressing her breasts into his palms.
His grunt of masculine satisfaction was echoed by her rasping moan. He caught her flailing arms and anchored them with one hand above her head. Powerless in his grip, she writhed beneath him as he suckled first one breast and then the other. He gathered a handful of her hair and draped it across her body, rubbing it over nipples tender from his ministrations.
Lifting his head, he watched her. His eyes were heavy-lidded and intent as he stroked the hair draped over the length of her body.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured, freeing her hands. ‘Sweet, so tiny, so giving.’
The deep, husky cadence of his voice thrilled her.
She cradled his face between her palms, bringing his mouth down to hers.
Immediately, Keir took control, but this was no gentle kiss.
It was hard seduction that demanded as it gave, devoured as it replenished. He caressed her breasts, finding a pert nipple and rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. He kissed her neck, her shoulder, found her other nipple and suckled hard.
A keening cry escaped Victoria, and her head tossed restlessly from side to side.
His hands roamed her body, her sides, her thighs.
Quaking in anticipation, she rose up off the bed as he stroked the soft curls shielding her sex then slid long fingers past it to stroke her there, where she was hot and aching.
Two fingers filled her, then retreated.
Skilful fingers circled her entrance, then they pressed deep—she gasped.
His fingers slid away, playing along her inner thigh, then returned to the same sweet spot, surging and retreating until she was a trembling mass of sensation.
She caught at his wrist.
Beneath her fingers, tendons and muscle moved, as evocative as the fingers slowly and deliberately probing her.
She opened her eyes and looked at his face. It was hard-edged, his dark eyes now black with passion. Fully aroused, his gaze was locked on where his hand worked between her thighs. When he drew back she moaned, reaching for him, missing him.
But Keir refused to be hurried.
Taking his own sweet time, he moved down her body, slowly, leisurely, his mouth caressing her. He wasn’t gentle; every touch of his lips was hard, desperate and utterly possessive.
This was what she craved. What she needed.
He kissed her neck, the hollow of her shoulder, and the tops of each breast. Then he paid close attention to each dusky nipple. There was no tenderness in him now; he was all hard, male demand. His hands swept down her body over her hips and thighs and settled on her sex.
‘Spread your legs,’ he commanded roughly.
Helpless to resist, she obeyed the jagged order, the husky sound tinged with more than a hint of desperation. It thrilled her to know he desired this as much as she did. His grunt of masculine intent was very sexy and arousing. It left her weak, wanting and so slick she could feel the moisture dewing on her inner thighs.
‘Lift your knees.’ His deep voice rasped against her belly. The pressure of his hands under the curve of her bottom ensured she obeyed. He lifted her, leaving her open and exposed to him.
He lifted his head and smiled at her. All male. Fierce, predatory and powerful.
He blew a hot breath on her swollen sex, the sensation so erotic she moaned. Before she came down, his mouth descended, lips surrounding her sweet spot and he suckled, hard.
She shuddered and screamed, her butt rising off the bed.
As she climbed toward a climax, two long fingers slid inside her, pressing deep. Upward, forward until she was lost to everything except the insistent demands of her body.
With a shuddering, gasping sob her whole body convulsed in spasm after spasm of dark delight. Before she had time to fully come down from that pinnacle, he was there, his hard arousal prodding her entrance.
She strained upwards, wanting, needing.
But Keir was in no hurry. When he claimed her mouth, she tasted her juices on his tongue, salty and erotic. He deepened the kiss. Hard, carnal and slightly cruel.
He teased her, entering her a little and then withdrawing. Growing desperate, she lifted her body upward. She wanted more. His ravenous kiss had her gasping and panting and writhing under him. His hands slid under her body, lifting her, and with one hard thrust he embedded him
self inside her.
Oh yes, this was what she wanted.
She gripped him, fingers digging into the firm swell of his hard buttocks.
Keir towered above her, his face blank with passion. Each powerful thrust stoked the fiery inferno, building to a crescendo. She clung to him, meeting him thrust for powerful thrust. The shattering sensations gathered momentum, and threatened to kill her with their intensity.
She was consumed by pleasure. Slow at first and then faster.
Her focus narrowed to this moment and the spinning, timeless, black vortex until with a gasping cry she collapsed into wave after searing wave of white-hot fire.
Dimly, she was aware of Keir, rigid above her, muscles bulging in his neck and chest, his head thrust back and teeth bared in a feral grimace. His face was contorted in ecstasy akin to pain as he poured himself into her, his powerful body trembling from the force of his release.
He collapsed on her in a tangle of leaden limbs.
They neither moved nor spoke, the thunder of their heartbeats and their ragged breathing the only sounds to disturb the quiet of the night. At last he stirred, and her hands, with a languid life of their own, stroked his damp skin, unwilling to lose such pleasurable contact.
Her hands slid across his shoulders, stroking and finding every muscle and sinew hidden beneath the hot satin of his skin. Her fingernails trailed delicate spirals down his spine, delineating every rise and hollow. She caressed the muscular swell of his buttocks with their tantalising dimples. This was what she had been born for, sated with pleasure, drained and yet replete, alone but with a togetherness that was the pure essence of delight.
‘I’m too heavy,’ he murmured, and in one supple movement he turned them until she lay draped over his powerful body, lax, satiated, and still joined.
He caught up her long tresses and scooped them over her back, letting them fall in a silken shroud that covered them both.
For a moment she was seared with panic as she saw the muscles of his face harden and those sexy lips that possessed the power to lift her to dizzy heights tighten.
She was afraid.
Now the first haze of need was past, she could see him beginning to think.
His powerfulness had already shaped her life. Was she crazy allowing him closer again, to free him from Davina’s toils?
‘Not so bold now?’ he taunted, lifting her chin and refusing to let her hide.
Victoria took a quivering breath then smiled, lifting a hand and stroking one lean cheek, touching the corner of his mouth before running a questing finger along his lower lip. ‘You could never frighten me.’
‘It’s been a long time for you.’ His large hands stroked her back, seeking and finding every rise and hollow along her spine with sensitive fingertips, making her feel safe enough to give him her confession.
‘Since the last time.’
Keir held her away from him, his face a mask of shocked surprise. His lips tightened a moment as his throat worked while he absorbed the impact of her words. He caught her close and turned them both until they were lying face to face on the bed. With gentle fingers, he smoothed several long strands of hair back behind her ear.
‘You fill me with shame,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘That was why you dropped out of university? I screwed you up that badly?’
The hoarse comment cooled Victoria’s aroused senses fast, every self-protective instinct clamouring in warning. She tried to move away, to put space between them, but Keir prevented this by the simple expedient of looping his arm across her torso.
‘It wasn’t your fault. You never hurt or frightened me. You would have stopped anytime I wanted you to. But I never wanted you to stop,’ she countered, even now shying away from revealing the real reason she’d dropped out of university. ‘It had more to do with the shock of my mother’s death.’
His breath came in a soft, shuddering sigh. He raised himself on one elbow and looked down at her. ‘Your open, adoring love was my undoing,’ he confessed, his voice a murmur in her ear. ‘After growing up here, you have no idea the temptation you presented me.’
Victoria’s heart ached for the bewildered little boy buried inside the man. She leaned up to feather an open-mouthed kiss on his chest. ‘You had a grim childhood?’
‘Only Logan’s open, uncomplicated affection made it tolerable.’ He rolled onto his back and flung one arm across his eyes. ‘He was three when my father married Muriel, too young to understand that to the stepfather he adored, I was a symbol of failure, and to Muriel, the living reminder of Caine’s lifelong passion for the woman who left him.’
‘How could they?’ Anger coloured her voice, and the tremor that shivered through his big body increased the emotion.
How could anyone be so unfeeling of a child’s needs?
‘You sound ready to do battle on my behalf.’ Keir’s chuckle held genuine amusement. ‘I’m a big boy now. I don’t need anyone to fight my battles.’
She gripped his hair in her hands, giving it a sharp tug. ‘Who freed you of Davina?’
The moment she spoke, Victoria wished she could claw the words back. Now the other woman’s presence loomed large in the lamp-lit room.
‘Who asked you to?’ His harsh words hit her like a slap as he turned and pulled her against him.
She struggled against the arms that were now imprisoning her instead of cherishing. ‘Let me go.’
‘Oh no, my beauty. You promised me the night. I’m a long way from sated yet.’
He stopped her protest by the simple expedient of covering her mouth with his.
For one long moment, his kiss was hard and punishing, then a shudder shook his body and his lips softened, moving slowly, intimately over hers. He kissed her gently, unhurriedly, content to savour, to taste and enjoy.
Keir turned onto his back and pulled Victoria across him. With a large hand splayed across her back, in one bold movement he sheathed himself inside her yielding body.
The breath backed up in her throat and her eyes opened impossibly wide.
Beneath her, his chest moved as he breathed. Inside her, he flexed and moved, slowly at first, then with long languid strokes. At the same time he kissed her as if she’d offered herself up for his enjoyment. In a way, she supposed she had.
This possession was so different from his previous, hard urgency, and so completely overwhelming, deeper and more devastating.
Keir claimed her as if he was determined to imprint himself on her mind, her body, her senses.
She gloried in his possessiveness; she was his for the taking. And he quite simply took.
Lost in him, she absorbed his touch and opened her senses, as the two of them reached out and connected in a way that words never could.
He held back and let the urgency build.
She grew hot, her skin fevered and caresses more demanding. Stretched out on top of him, she kissed him wildly as she squirmed.
His heated, silk-encased flesh pressed deeper and deeper with each stroke.
Restless and wanting more, she lifted her head. ‘Keir.’
He caught her behind her thighs and lifted her knees towards her chest as he drove into her.
‘My God,’ she choked out as he held her impaled.
‘Lean forward.’
She obeyed the husky order and he caught her nipple between his teeth and tugged gently. A scream bubbled from her throat as his hand moved between them and he rubbed her sweet spot. Her breath escaped in a high keening moan. His hand quickened in pace with his hard thrusts. Quivers shuddered through her in rolling waves.
Another choked cry escaped her. Her head flopped backward and Keir found the other straining peak and suckled hard.
Sensation built on sensation.
She writhed and moaned as he drove her higher, his powerful thrusts turning her into a molten mass of quivering need.
She was dimly aware of her harsh choked cries echoing around the room as he pounded into her with such force she wasn’t sure where he
ended and she began. Response rippled through her in outward spirals as they both strained to reach the shining pinnacle so tantalising close. A wrenching scream escaped at the same moment she heard Keir’s guttural shout. She slumped, draped across him, burned to a scorched cinder by his passion, unable to move as much as an eyelash.
Keir stirred first, running a hand up and down her spine. ‘You okay down there?’
‘I’m totally wasted.’
His chuckle reverberated through her body and very gently he turned them both until they lay face to face but still intimately joined, one large hand splayed across her bare back.
An enervating weakness, all pervading, robbed her of strength as she dropped into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter Twelve
It was dark when Victoria woke. A heavy weight across her chest restricted her breathing and she struggled to remember where she was, thoroughly disorientated.
Deep, even breathing near her ear brought her wide awake as memory returned.
She was in Keir’s bed.
Very carefully, she extended a hand and switched on the bedside lamp. Keir murmured in his sleep. She held her breath, but his breathing settled back into a regular cadence. Afraid to move, she studied his sleeping face. Sable hair lay dishevelled against his wide brow. Thick, dark lashes formed dusky crescents on his bronzed skin. Sleep softened the hard planes of his face and relaxed the uncompromising jut of his chin. Stubble darkened his jaw and lent him a vulnerability he lacked when awake.
She closed her eyes, still caught up in the splendour they’d shared.
But the night was gone, and the issue of their son loomed large. There could be no more prevarication or evasion.
You need to tell him before someone else does.
Once the thought of telling Keir about his son brought her joy, but now it filled her with dread. An inch at a time, she wriggled free of his arm. He murmured and she froze. When he didn’t stir, she carefully slid from the bed and pulled on his pyjama top before she gathered her clothes, crept across the room, and unlocked the door.
The click of the lock was so loud she glanced back over her shoulder, but to her relief Keir never stirred.