"You were very lucky," he said softly, "to come through that as well as you did."
"Thanks to you," Joey replied. She felt the heat radiating from his body, as intense as that of the fire. More so. "You saved my life, didn't you, Luke? I might have died."
"Yes." His voice was suddenly sharp, and his eyes glittered in a brief, intense glance. "I thought you understood the basics, but it was my fault you got to the point you did—my responsibility."
Joey dropped her gaze, feeling the rising flush. "No, it was my fault. It was all so beautiful, and I—I should have known better. I told you I did, and you trusted me." There was a beat of silence. "It won't happen again."
"You're damned right it won't," Luke said between gritted teeth. There was a very real warning in his voice, now he was most definitely staring at her. "I won't let you do anything to kill yourself. Ever. You'd better understand that right now."
In an earlier time Joey might have risen to the bait, met his proprietary rebuke with defensive anger. Instead, she reached out, very slowly, to rest her hand on his leg. The muscles grew taut and slowly relaxed again under it.
"I think I do understand," she murmured. Luke looked away, and in the dim light it was hard to tell if the color in his face was merely a reflection of the flames. "I want to thank you again, Luke. For taking care of me, and for saving my life."
Luke was very quiet. He looked at the cave walls, at the ground, at the flames—everywhere but into her eyes. Joey bit her lip. "If you were really serious when you said you would keep me safe..." Luke jerked his head sharply to frown at her. "Actually, I feel a cold spell coming on again. I don't think these sleeping bags and blankets are quite enough."
Opening his mouth and shutting it again with a snap, Luke stared at her. She could see impending signs of one of his internal struggles, perhaps trying to determine how serious she was. Or what hid under the surface of her words. Suddenly the fight seemed to go out of him in one long rush. He sighed, slowly, with visible reluctance, he moved closer to her, so that their legs touched from hip to calf, and looped his arm over her shoulder
Joey closed her eyes with a matching sigh of utter contentment. For a moment she simply savored the feel of his hard shoulder under her cheek. The pleasure of that, and the soft puff of his breath stirring the loose hair at her forehead, was enough to last her for a good span of time. When it was no longer quite enough, and the silence had taken on the peace of deep accord between them, she allowed her head to roll onto his chest and brought her hand up to rest beside it.
Predictably, he stiffened again—but this time the relaxation came more quickly and more easily. As if she were gentling some wild, skittish forest creature, Joey moved her fingers very cautiously over the hard swell of his chest. The beat of his heart increased, ever so slightly, under her ear as her stroking hand traced the muscles and found the small masculine nipple under his shirt.
His indrawn breath told her all she needed to know. He did not push her away. She caressed his chest with the lightest of touches and risked a glance up at him, his eyes were shut, his head leaning against the cave wall. The expression on his face was one she had never seen before, lost and on the verge of surrender.
To speak now would break the spell. Carefully, ever so carefully, Joey slid her fingers between the buttons of his shirt. His skin was burning hot under the wiry curls. His heart lurched and settled again into a rapid, urgent rhythm beneath her palm as she undid the buttons from the base of his throat to the place where they disappeared into the waistband of his pants.
Now her hands were free to caress his skin, with no barrier between. The feel of him was beyond anything she had ever experienced, could even imagine experiencing. Only in her dreams—those incredible dreams—had she come close. His body was perfect and solid and masculine, filling her with need.
His breathing came more deeply as her palm slid up to push the shirt half away from the marvelous breadth of his shoulders. Those arms, which could carry a heavy load as if it were nothing, which were so strong and sure about her; she let her fingers trace the arch of muscle between shoulder and neck, tickling the hollow between his collarbones, moving up to caress the hard edge of his jaw.
She could feel the pulse in his throat. There was resistance in his posture, as if he would lower his head to look down at her, but she kept him still, turning more fully to him so that she could bring her other hand into play. His arm about her was rigid, but she hardly noticed the sudden powerful grip of his fingers. With both hands she drew patterns from the high cheekbones and down into the hollows beneath, sweeping over the firm planes of his face, drawing out the tension and care. He shuddered but did not twist away. Teasing the lobes of his ears, she found the lightest dusting of hair at the upper rims and followed her original plan to brush the errant black locks away from his forehead.
There was a new tension building in him now, visible and undeniable. She knew the instant that he would have broken free, to flee or take her into his arms, but again she stopped him; she brought her mouth slowly down to the places her fingers had traveled, lips caressing the fevered, silky firmness of his skin.
The hair on his chest was surprisingly soft against her cheek as she kissed him there, tickling and teasing. Almost timidly she licked at his nipple, he jerked with a gasp. She smiled against the hard muscles and teased him further until she felt ready to give the same attention to the remainder of his upper torso. Only then did she move up, to kiss his shoulders, sample the masculine taste of the hollow of his throat, move her tongue over the stubble of his jaw so that the roughness made her tingle.
She was just preparing to give his right earlobe the same treatment when, with a sudden groan and a movement so swift and powerful she had no hope of resistance, he turned on her. Suddenly she was crushed against him, her face lifted to his, for an instant the full, seething intensity of his eyes was locked on hers, and then he lowered his mouth to claim her lips.
The yielding softness of Joey's lips sent a jolt of uncontrollable desire through Luke, and he knew the edge of sanity had been reached. Some faraway part of him screamed to stop, to end it before it was too late, as he'd ended it twice before. But it was already too late. He could no more have broken off what Joey had started than he could stop the fall of snow beyond the cave's primitive shelter. She had finally succeeded in doing what he had never believed any woman—any human woman—could manage. The siren call of her body and the undeniable bond forming between them was more powerful than his resolve—or than either one of them.
Too late. Her mouth blossomed under his, the lips like petals parting to be tasted. Without ending the contact, he pulled her onto his lap, dragging her free of the sleeping bag until she straddled him, her bare thighs to either side of his. She was trembling, but not with cold. His heart rushed in his ears. Her eyes were closed, her fragile neck arched back, her hands pressed against his chest and trapped between them.
The taste of her was exquisite as he explored the hidden warmth of her mouth with his tongue. Her own rose to meet it, danced along it as their breath mingled, he pressed harder and more deeply as if that alone could seal what had grown between them. Her soft groan came from the very heart of her, vibrating where his lips moved on hers. There was an urgency there that matched his own, but he maintained that much control, the last shreds of rationality held him back. Now there would be time.
His teeth grazed her lower lip, tugged at swollen fullness. Her hands struggled to free themselves, sliding over his bare chest and up to his shoulders, he allowed her fingers to clutch at him and then pressed into her again, exploring her delectable mouth until he knew every part of it. Then the sensitivity of his tongue moved on to taste elsewhere—sliding over her delicate chin, along the fine jawline, pausing to tease the lobe of her ear as she had done with him. She gasped, her head flung back in complete surrender. He tangled his fingers in the pale gossamer of her hair, loosening the last remnants of braid, and brought his mouth to the vulne
rability of that soft neck so gloriously exposed.
When his teeth closed lightly on it, she stiffened, for the barest moment her nails dug into his shoulders with surprise. But he was gentle, mindful to leave no marks, establishing his dominance with utmost care. And she accepted. Perhaps she didn't understand the language he spoke with his body, but she accepted.
His excitement grew to an unbearable pitch, but still he held back. This time it would be right. His teeth and tongue traveled down her throat to the gentle hollow, where her borrowed sweater hid the beauty beneath, he untangled his fingers from her hair just long enough to help her pull it over her head.
The open neck of the shirt he had given her shadowed the swell of her breasts, rising and falling with the rapid rhythm of her breathing. He pressed his face into the soft skin where neck and shoulder joined, smelling the woman scent of her where it mingled with his own in the worn cloth. The smell of her alone could drive him to madness. He breathed it in and closed his eyes until the lurching of his heart settled again.
Her arms had come up around him, gripping the loose fabric of his own shirt where it bunched against the cave wall at his back. He let her pull it off, twisting his body until he was entirely free of it. The touch of her fingers on his back, on his shoulders, were like pinpoints of fire. Her eyes came up to his, insensible, wanting, needing, the gold flecks like embers, her parted lips were swollen with his kisses. He forestalled her silent demands, lowering his face once again to the arch of her collarbone, while his fingers came up to loosen the buttons one by one.
She arched back with a gasp as he pushed the open shirt away from her body, pulled it from her shoulders. Her breasts were small and firm and incredibly beautiful, the nipples already hard in anticipation of his touch.
For a moment he could do nothing but gaze at her, until with a cry she caught his hair in her fists and pulled him down to her.
It was sheer wonder to explore what she offered. He kissed her first, gentle kisses that traced the rich curves in ever-smaller circles around the thrusting, ready center. When at last he took her nipple into his mouth, she cried aloud, arching high as he began to tease it with lips and tongue. He was thorough, savoring the tautness of it with gentle nibbles, sucking, licking it in time to her gasps of pleasure. In the brief moment that he paused to transfer his attentions to the other breast, she twisted her fingers in his hair so tightly that at another time he might have winced. Now the slight discomfort was part of the pleasure, like the heavy weight of his arousal.
He took his time with her, until her breathless moans were more than he could bear. Only then did he press his lips into the valley between her breasts, licking up the delicate moisture gathered there, stroking the underside of each one before starting the inevitable path downward.
Joey's body was no longer within her control. It had become a wild, unruly thing of pure sensation, of burning hungers. The indescribable feel of Luke's mouth on her breasts, his tongue on her nipples, had brought her to the brink of ecstatic madness. And now his burning mouth was moving down, caressing the hill of her ribs, trailing like fire across her belly. She quivered under him.
It was her body that cooperated so fervently when Luke moved lower still, pausing to bury his face in the skin just above the center of her need. She lay back on his taut thighs and arched against him as she had before, shamelessly, wanting him to taste her, to caress her, wondering if she could survive his touch. Once he raised his head, his eyes were nearly black with desire, reflecting her own instinctive responses, forging something between them beyond her understanding. She wanted to speak then, to say something, anything to prove she was more than merely a creature of wild and uncontrollable urges. But then his mouth moved lower, and she was lost.
The tip of his tongue was like solid flame as it touched her where she was most sensitive, most vulnerable, with expert caresses he teased her until the hot moisture of her readiness overflowed. He tasted that as well, stroking over fullness as the gasps were torn from her one after another. And when at last his tongue found the aching place made so ready for him, she cried aloud.
Luke heard her cry like music as he savored the sweetness of her, relished the taste of her readiness. His tongue pushed gently and then with greater, more rhythmic force into the giving entrance to her body; she closed about him, opening herself for him with unstinting abandon. His senses were nearly raw with absolute awareness of every part of her.
It took every ounce of willpower for Luke to hold himself in check, to keep from tumbling her back onto the cavern floor, free himself, and sink deeply within her hot and willing body. He would have continued to stroke her with lips and tongue until she begged him for what he himself wanted so desperately, but suddenly her hands were sliding up once again to his shoulders, and she was using them to lift herself, to meet him, her nipples caressing his chest. It was her mouth now that claimed his, her hands that moved between them to the hardness that strained against the unwelcome bonds of his clothing. She traced over his trapped length with her fingers until he groaned, and she laughed softly, with a woman's triumph, against his mouth. The wildness rose in him, and he bruised her lips with his, but she had suddenly become equally savage and met him with matching ferocity.
There was no gentleness in her when she tore impatiently at his trousers, pulling loose the buttons one by one until he was free. She did not wait to take him into her hands, and the jolt of her fingers there was beyond any previous sensation. Distantly he knew there had been others, some skilled in their lovemaking—but none, none had made him so utterly helpless. Now it was she who dominated, who demanded, who teased to a sweet, agonizing fever of hunger. She needed no skill to bring him again and again to the brink, always stopping before he could lose control. And he dared not lose control—not yet. Not before he had made her his.
Somehow, in her fragile strength, she had tugged him down, straddling him, her glorious nakedness a vision filling his sight. After the final barrier of his trousers was discarded and forgotten, she paused to gaze at him, the delicate oval of her face flushed with passion, her eyes wide and wild and bold as they raked over his body. And then she followed her gaze with her mouth and caressed him, her gossamer hair brushing his belly to the point of madness, taking him in so deeply that his fingers gripping her arms sank with bruising strength into the soft flesh.
Joey felt his grip, a pain indistinguishable from pleasure. The delightful response of his body, the firm, unyielding length of him, was a temptation she sampled again and again. She paused once to watch his face, so completely abandoned that the taut grim lines of it had relaxed and reformed into tension of a very different kind. She felt her power over him, gloried in it and in the raw, wild savagery she controlled, knowing in this instant it was she who held dominion.
At the moment that she was most confident of her mastery, that she had him tamed to her will, she lost the fragile victory. He pushed her back with undeniable strength, as if she were no more than a creature of firelight and heated air, back across his thighs until her body lay once again open to him. He held her there so tightly that she could not move, and his eyes caught at hers with such feral madness that for an instant she was almost afraid. The moment passed quickly, for there was no room for fear in what followed.
Somehow, in a movement too swift to perceive, he had eased her back onto the abandoned sleeping bag, kneeling between her thighs. His hands were burning brands against the most sensitive skin as he pushed and lifted them, had she wanted to deny what would follow, she would have been utterly helpless to do so. There was no humanity in his eyes. She tried to reach up to him, to gentle the ferocity, but he pinned her arms to her sides and lowered himself atop her. He hovered there, and for a brief instant the blackness that had swallowed up the pale green-gold of his eyes receded, so that she recognized what she saw there, he recognized her, he remembered who she was. Remembered the time before.
There was a single suspended moment when she believed he would a
bandon her again, jerk away, deny her and himself. He shut his eyes and flung back his head, a soundless cry seemed caught in his throat, his jaw working in silence. And then he met her eyes again, and there was nothing but passion and uncomplicated desire. And acceptance.
She did not understand, but there was no more time for understanding. Only sensation as he descended, caught the soft skin of her shoulder between his teeth, pulling her against him as his surging hardness unerringly found its mark. She cried in pleasure and relief as he entered her, sank so deeply within her that it was only then she realized that the void had been filled at last. When he began to move, she felt her fingers clutching the fabric beneath them in time to each thrust, heard her gasping breaths caught up in the rhythm until there was only that one primal beat in all the world.
Luke could hear the tattoo of her heartbeat under his, her breasts under him firm as they rose and fell with each ragged breath. She was more deliciously hot and tight than he could have imagined, made so perfectly to fit him that he knew then it had been destined. The thing he had been fighting had been as inevitable as the flow of seasons and the coming of snow.
She arched and moaned under him, when he freed her arms they came up to rake his back, searing trails of fire. The two of them together had become incandescent, merging together into a flame that heated the cave beyond the ability of any mortal fire. Her legs were strong where they came up to close around his hips, urging him on. He needed no urging. He let the rhythm take him, holding himself from the brink, sucking the place at the hollow of her shoulder where he had bitten, soothing it with his tongue. Even the taste of her brought him too close to the peak, so he withdrew for a moment to look into her eyes. They were wet with tears, and he kissed them away, he knew they were not tears of pain. There could be no pain. Only pleasure, as he brought his hand between their bodies to caress her delicate folds and seek out the erotic core of her sensation, stroking while she shuddered and tightened about him again and again.
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