And she drew her gaze upward to find that he was watching her with dark eyes that seared her to her soul.
Firelight burnished his hair and caressed his face in a way she longed to do. She started to lift her hands but Kee held her away from him. He swept her up into his arms and then lowered her so that her body pressed every hard, muscled inch of him, before he laid her down on the blanket. It had happened so quickly that she did not say a word.
He knelt before her and pulled off her boots, tossing them aside. His hands enveloped her slender foot, gently rubbing warmth into her cold skin.
“Wrap the blanket around you, Isabel. You’re still shaking.”
“Yes,” she whispered and gathered the wool around her, for without his heat she felt the cold brush of air despite the fire’s blaze, despite the heat burning inside her.
Kee rubbed until her flesh felt warmer, then he reached up and their fingers entangled on her belt. He let her win the right to open it, but he slid the buttons free before she was done.
“You are very quick, Kee. How many women—”
“Now, lovely, that’s no question for a lady to be asking. And never one a man’s going to answer.” His smile teased one from her. “Lie back, lovely one.”
Her eyes held his. She was almost completely covered with the blanket but she had never felt more vulnerable.
“It’s all right, Isabel. You know that, don’t you? I won’t do one thing that you don’t want me to do.”
His words only alarmed her. Did he expect her to tell him what she wanted? Put these strange needs into words?
Kee leaned back on his heels. Her expression wasn’t all he hoped for. If anything, she appeared frightened. What the hell had he said? But he went over every word and nothing he said should have brought an almost fearful look to her eyes.
“What did I—”
“Do you expect—”
They both started and stopped at the same moment.
Kee had lost his smile. “Tell me.”
“You want me to tell you what I—I—I cannot say this.”
“This? What’s this? I said I wouldn’t do anything that you didn’t want.”
She shook her head so hard that water splattered him.
“I cannot tell you what to do.”
If Kee hadn’t leaned forward when she spoke he would never have heard one mumbled word.
“I’m losing my mind and my—” Her quick alarmed look shut him up. “Okay, let’s try this again. I know that you’ve never been intimate with a man.” His half-questioning tone was answered by the deep blush that colored her cheeks.
“You don’t have to tell me what to do, Isabel. Trust me. I have experience enough for both of us.” He wanted to hold her and pet her fears away, but if he touched her right now, he wasn’t going to soothe either one of them.
“You don’t need to say words. Your body will tell me what I need to know to make this good for you.” Oh, hell, she had him so tied in knots everything he said was coming out the wrong way.
She lifted her head and her dark, earnest eyes sought his. She studied his face, feature by feature, until she came back to the smoldering invitation that awaited her. And she drew from her proud, ancient heritage all the courage she needed to speak.
“Will you make love to me? Will you make me a woman, Kee?” Very silently she added, Your woman?
For a long moment he held her gaze with a stare of granite.
“Yes,” hissed out from between his clenched teeth. For all his fumbling denial that this was going to be nothing more than slaking a lustful hunger, he lied again to himself. He was going to make love to Isabel. He was going to make her a woman. His woman.
And with all the patience he had promised her that he had, he hunkered down before her and waited until she lay back. He could see the desire in her eyes and he fed on that look that approved everything about him. Just as he found favor with all of her.
If her life had depended upon it, Isabel could not have spoken. She lay back. Trust in Kee brought her compliance. She knew men would not have hesitated to name her body as a price for their help. Or they would have taken what they wanted. But Kee was a man of honor. She believed that he was cherishing the growing feelings between them. Each moment they had spent together, the danger, and the laughter had brought them closer.
She was aware of every tug of wet cloth that drew her toward Kee and what he offered. She did not realize he was done until he suddenly shifted. His hands were flattened on the earth on either side of her. He loomed over her, his dark shadow cast against the stone wall.
“If I don’t taste you right now, lovely, I’m going to die right here.”
But he did not taste. He stroked his forehead against the firm slope of one breast, then the other. His mouth opened and his breath caressed her. His gentle restraint was a lure for all her senses. She loved his voice and his quick smile, loved the rippling strength of his muscles, loved…No! She stopped thinking and saw that all this while he watched her mouth with that dark intensity that left her so weak and breathless.
Kee lifted his head. The faintly alarmed look was gone. In its place was that sensual curiosity that drove his desire deeper, hotter, harder. He shifted slightly upward, slowly lowering his head until all she breathed was his breath, all she tasted was his hunger, all she felt was his heat.
“Kee?” she murmured, nervously licking her bottom lip.
“I’m here. Always here.”
His lips settled over hers. And he stole her breath for his own, but so gently, so softly, that she could not say when the kiss began.
Her mouth was a sweet promise of generous, honeyed warmth that made him dizzy with need. The tiny, hungry sounds she made set a blaze burning deep and low. A shudder ripped through him, yet he refused to take and take all that he wanted.
More than his own need, he desired to see and hear and feel hers. He wanted exactly what he told Isabel—her body to tell him what she wanted. And it spoke the ancient language with a heated elegance all its own.
He rocked his head back and forth, teasing her, and teasing himself, until her mouth clung to his in giving and retreat, and he made it all his.
Then he tasted deeply in an intimacy he knew she had never shared with another man. Minutes later all that was heard was their broken breaths.
He kissed the corner of her lips, then slid to trace the shape of her jaw. The delicate line of her throat invited his mouth to scatter more random kisses until he nipped the hollow of her throat and felt her pulse hammering against his lips.
Kee slipped his hands beneath the blanket to touch her trembling body. His warm, hard palms settled on her collarbone. His long fingers stroked the curve of her jaw. His lips followed each touch, moving again down her bared, arched throat to the small hollow that drew his kiss.
Isabel tossed restlessly under his confinement. She made a plea of his name. All she felt, and saw, and needed was Kee.
She shivered when she felt the sweep of his hands down her arms and only then barely realized that he had drawn the straps of her camisole down to her waist. The wool of the blanket rubbed against suddenly too sensitive skin, and then, then that too, was gone.
Nothing protected her from his smoldering gaze.
He looked at her with half-closed eyes, afraid his control would break if he touched her. He clenched his hands around the blanket. It was pure pleasure to see her lit with the deeper gold of the fire. It was pain, too.
He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “You’re all I thought, more than I dreamed,” he said hoarsely, then closed his eyes.
For long moments all he heard was the sound of his own rough breathing. Now he had her image blazed in his mind. And he knew that the feminine curves haunting him were more beautiful than those he dreamed about, more perfect than if he had conjured up everything he never knew he wanted in a woman.
“Kee?” She reached up to touch his arm, but he jerked away.
“Don’t touch me, lovely.�
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“But I am dry and you are still wet. Let me help you.”
He reared back, eyes open. They were hungry, almost wild and his voice was the same way, stressed to breaking.
“You’ve got that all wrong. It’s going to be the other way around.” He spoke hurriedly, stripping off his boots and clothes faster than if the water hole waited at the end of a summer’s day of hard work. “Men don’t need the same amount of time a woman does to become aroused. Hell, you just breathe near me and I’m hotter than a house afire.”
His look was nearly savage as he came to her. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll give all the time you need.”
She could not resist caressing the curve of his jaw as he settled himself beside her. She drew in a long, shaking breath.
“Is that how I will burn, Kee? Like a house on fire?”
He caught her hand and brought it to his lips.
“Hotter.”
Chapter Eighteen
Kee lifted her hair and carefully untangled the wet braid. He spread her long black hair out behind her. The long, damp tendrils seemed alive. They curled and clung to his fingers as though pleading for his touch. Like her eyes watching him. An involuntary shiver ran through him. He lifted her hair to his lips and buried his face in the damp strands, inhaling deeply.
Isabel stirred restlessly. She saw his face buried in her hair and breath lodged in her throat at the sharp contrast of his hard-cut features and her wealth of hair. Then she could not breathe at all, for he brushed the hair aside and she saw the passion burning behind his dark lashes. Need exploded softly inside her and brought fever to a heightened state.
If she thought she had any defenses left against him, they crumbled in that moment. With her gaze holding his, she twisted to her side and before she thought about what she was doing, her lips pressed tiny kisses against his thick dark chest hair. She felt the tension that gripped his body, but she was caught in a sensual web. Her lips traced over the sodden bandage and a murmur of regret escaped her.
Kee slipped his arm beneath her, arching her into his body. “Yes, just like that. Closer, lovely.”
She felt the incredible warmth of his body all along the length of hers, but the blanket remained bunched between them. Blindly, she turned her face up toward his, wanting to feel his mouth on hers.
And she clung to his muscular strength against the spinning dizziness that took hold of her. Just as his mouth took hers, sweet and hot. She did not mind the roughness of his beard stubble beneath her palm. This was Kee—soft and gentle in the place their lips met, hard as the mountains everywhere else. It was an irresistible combination that made her wish the moment would never end.
She moaned when he broke the kiss. His body tightened as if someone had wrapped barbed wire around him. She came to him with trust and innocence that pierced his desire. Every slow tremor of her body fanned the flames of his. He wanted every untouched secret she held in the feminine grace of her slender body. He needed to possess all of her, to feel her softness yield to his hard flesh. She arched against him once more, her hands on his naked shoulders making frantic petting motions as her mouth sought his. He fought pulling her hard against him and kissing her the same way.
She pulled him closer still in unconscious demand. When she felt the hard edge of his teeth on her lower lip, she opened for him just as he had taught her to do.
Isabel swallowed a cry as a wave of heat swept from the pit of her stomach, heat that was so fevered, her very bones seemed to melt.
Her hands slid to his arms, holding tight. All she knew was Kee and the penetration and retreat of his tongue caressing her. Very bravely then, she returned the gliding pressure of his tongue with her own. She was lured deeper and deeper into the hotter texture of his mouth, needing his taste, giving him back the same pleasure she received.
When he tried to lift his head and break their kiss, she eased her fingers into the thick pelt of his hair and joined his mouth to hers. Instinct and Kee’s own sensual ways taught her what to do. She traced the very masculine outline of his lips with the tip of her tongue, then with her lashes half veiling her eyes, she carefully rubbed the edge of her teeth on his lower lip. When she heard his groan, and felt the tremble of his body against her own, she smiled dreamily and slowly released him.
“So, you like to tease me?” he asked softly, willing to pay the price when he saw the blue depths of her eyes.
“Do men like to be teased?” She touched his lips with her fingertips.
“This man does when it’s you doing the teasing.” He shifted just enough to catch her earlobe in a delicate vise.
“Kee!”
“Feels good?” He stroked the soft pad of flesh with his tongue.
“Yes,” she sighed. “Everything you do feels good. But will you…”
“Kiss you? Yes. All over? Yes. Come give me your mouth, lovely lady. Yes.” It was the softest of whispers, just the way he skimmed his lips over her mouth. “More?”
“Yes. Like before.”
The soft heat of her mouth, her tongue, drove the thought of talking from his mind. He groaned and took her mouth even as she took his. Like a sudden violent desert storm, passion exploded through him, shaking him with its wildness.
She whimpered softly and tossed her head when his lips slipped to her arched throat. He used his teeth to drag the blanket down, but kept the rest of it bunched between them out of fear of shocking her.
Desire had misted her skin until she shimmered in the fire’s glow. He licked her bare shoulder and felt the wild trembling that shook her. He warned himself that he needed patience. But couldn’t stop himself from wanting to taste the softness he had just uncovered.
He rubbed his lips against the slope of her breast. She tasted of the night and a wild sweet rain. Kee looked up into her eyes. And still watching her watching him, he caught the edge of the blanket with his teeth and very carefully tugged it across her breast.
Her eyes closed. She moved restlessly, her hands half-curled on either side of her head where the wild tangle of her midnight hair framed her face. He could almost taste the flush that heated her body, could almost see the rush of blood that tightened her nipple. His breath sighed out around her.
And with a delicate care that he didn’t know he was capable of, Kee brought his hunger to her and drew the tip of her breast into his mouth.
“Kee!” Her voice was husky with the same desire that was driving him to the edge. He felt her over every inch of his body. Every hammering pulse, every thundering heartbeat was echoed in the rigid flesh straining to be joined with her sultry flesh. The deep instinctive need to mate brought his hips flush against her side. He pinned her legs beneath his thigh, pressing tight, but the folds of the blanket kept her from feeling how violently aroused he was.
And he told himself it was better this way.
Better for Isabel. For his move had only increased the need arrowing through him.
But Isabel felt the fire that kindled in the pit of her stomach when he moved against her. She wanted and desperately needed to ease the sweet ache he created in her body. She knew Kee was strong. His lean body was tense as a drawn bow, hard muscles glistening with sweat in the fire’s light. But the feel of him was too new, shocking and maddening and arousing all at once.
She cried out softly and arched against him, yearning to feel that cutting blaze again. His smile against her breast was half savage, half triumph, at bringing the smoldering passion he had sensed in her to life.
But he wanted her hungrier, and so aroused that she would never feel the pain of losing her virginity to a man who made no promises of tomorrow. He stretched his arm up until his fingers entwined with hers and cupped her breast with his other hand. He deliberately held his body away from hers, teasing the velvet peak into a pouting hardness that rubbed against his tongue, begging for more.
She twisted against him, her back arching, trying to free her legs. Each gentle tug of his mouth on her breast sent fire shimmering throug
h her, but never eased the ache of her body. She felt where the fire pooled into unbearable need, and squeezed her thighs tight.
Nothing helped. She was not ignorant of how a man and woman made love. No one who bred horses or cattle remained innocent for long.
But not one of the whispers that stopped when she came near the village women had hinted of the coiled aching knot that built inside her.
Kee eased her onto her back. He lifted his head, leaving one nipple taut in the fire’s glow and bent to take the other in his mouth, to shape this delicate female flesh into the same tight peak. Her every cry was a goad to hurry, and he fought himself, even as the temptation to other sweet, hot flesh lured him.
A low sound of pleasure was torn from her lips and the arching of her body was pure reflex this time as with exquisite care he teased her. He drew cries of passion from her. She clenched his hand and brought the other down to caress his head, pressing him against her.
It was maddening not to touch him as he was touching her. She felt the corded muscle of his shoulder and the shudder that rippled through him. To know her touch could arouse him to the same fever pitch was heady power. And she wanted more.
His hand stroked her from breast to thigh and back again while his mouth gently devoured her supple skin. He traced the curve of her belly with tiny licks and scattered kisses. She pulled free of his hand, and used both of hers to hold his head, crying out his name. Her voice splintered as the first wave of heated pleasure swept through her body.
Her cry was so ragged that he lifted his head.
“Sweet hell. Did I hurt you?” he asked in a voice close to breaking.
“No. Yes. Oh, Kee, I do hurt. Everywhere you are not touching me hurts,” she moaned, her short nails biting into his skin.
“I know. It’s the same for me. But this happens only once for you. I want it perfect. Like you.” But her need acted like someone had poured raw whiskey in his veins. Lightning scored through him, stripping his control. He took her mouth as he wanted to take her body, again and again, but it wasn’t enough, nothing would be enough.
Once a Hero Page 16