He’d seen that transformation occur in his own mother when his father had died. Suddenly widowed, Theresa Manetti had one of two choices. Either crumble, or meet life head-on. His mother had chosen the latter and so, obviously, had Lilli.
Without answering him, Lilli walked over to the radio and turned it on, switching to the CD that was already loaded. When the disc clicked into place, she pressed another button, selecting a song.
As a popular singer’s timeless voice filled the air, she marched back to Kullen and silently presented herself to him.
He took her into his arms.
Just as he did, a little voice inside her head whispered, Idiot, now you’ve gone and done it. Mayday! Mayday!
But it was too late to back away. Unless she wanted to look like a fool.
What could it really hurt? she reasoned. It was only one dance.
So she let Kullen take her hand into his and place it against his chest. Let him slip his other hand around her waist, and let him draw her to him, her body fitting against his as if it had finally come home.
She was an adult, Lilli argued. She could do this without any consequences. After all, she wasn’t an in experienced schoolgirl, barely out of her teens, not anymore….
So why did it feel as if she was?
Why was she trembling? She realized, too, the increase in temperature. By at least ten degrees, if not more. That was the reason why she felt so incredibly hot. Either that, or she had just come down with an instant case of malaria.
This was a mistake, Kullen thought.
A big one.
Up until now, he’d been doing all right—as long as none of his body parts came in contact with hers. The moment they made contact, he could feel it. Feel the latent desire taking up every available nook and cranny within him.
The desire to hold her, to caress her, to make love to her the way she had never had love made to her, all but overwhelmed him. He knew that the popular concept revolved around the word with, but in this case, it would definitely be to. Lilli deserved to be made love to, to be held and revered and treated with dignity, respect and the utmost tender affection.
He ached to do all three.
While he would never, ever violate her boundaries, he was having one hell of a time holding himself in check. Moreover, it was growing exponentially harder and harder with each passing second.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” he told her, his voice strained as every fiber in his being was at war with itself.
“Why?” she whispered, afraid of what she was feeling. And even more afraid not to be feeling it.
She felt dizzy and giddy and excited all at the same time.
“Because,” he told her honestly. “Holding you like this makes me remember how much I wanted you.”
“Wanted?” she repeated. There was a ribbon of sorrow in her voice, as if she regretted what might have been but no longer was. Regretted a loss of what she had never been allowed to experience. “Does that mean you don’t anymore?”
The question was barely audible. She’d raised her face to look into his eyes as she asked the question. Kullen felt her breath gliding along his neck. Felt his gut tighten.
He could barely breathe. She literally took his breath away.
Kullen hardly remembered the precise moment his control shattered. One minute, he was dancing with her to an old, familiar melody as a vocalist sang about the love he’d lost. The next, he’d stopped moving and was kissing her as if his very life depended on it.
The moment his lips touched hers, memories came racing back. Swept away, Kullen scooped her up in his arms, raising her off the floor in his zeal as he lost himself in the feel and the taste of her.
It had been eight long years, with too many women in between to remember. Not a single one of them had come within a mile of generating what he felt right at this moment.
There was a reason for that.
None of those women had ever been anything more than poor placeholders for the only woman who had ever mattered to him. The only one who had ever taken his heart prisoner.
He kissed her again.
And again.
And again.
And she kissed him back. Not hesitantly, not tentatively, the way he’d expected, but with passionate ardor.
Desire exploded in his veins.
Nothing else mattered but having her. And yet, he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t sweep her away, couldn’t assume she was feeling what he felt.
He could only ask. And silently pray he was right. If he wasn’t…he couldn’t even bring himself to contemplate the possibility.
So with the greatest of efforts, Kullen drew himself back from her, his heart pounding like hail on a tin roof in a bad winter storm.
“Lilli—” he began, not knowing how to ask, how even to form the next word.
“Shh.”
Breathing hard, Lilli placed her finger to his lips, silencing him. This wasn’t the time for talking, for reasoning. For doubts. She wanted to feel alive, not frightened, not worried.
He made her feel alive. She wanted him to go on doing that.
But as she pressed her mouth to his, Killen pulled back again one last time, even as he wondered where in heaven’s name he found the strength.
“Lilli, are you sure?” he asked her, then repeated more forcefully, “Are you sure?” all the while praying that her answer was yes.
Sure?
No, she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything. But she did know that with him, with Kullen, she was safe. He made her feel safe. And he wouldn’t hurt her. She had no idea where this confidence about his motives came from or how she knew, but she did.
And knowing allowed her to gather up all the feelings, the emotions that Erik had shattered, and let them go. Kullen helped her feel whole again. The man who would save her son.
She wanted to feel cherished, not used. Feel as if she mattered, feel that he wanted her, not just a body with a pulse. Most of all, she wanted him to block out the dark memory that Erik had branded on her mind.
On her toes, her arms wound around his neck, Lilli whispered into his ear, “Show me what it can be like.”
And just like that, she became his undoing.
He felt as if he had a mandate, a responsibility, and he intended to do right by it. Do right by her. Lifting Lilli in his arms, he kissed her again just before he began walking toward the staircase.
What he had been charged to do, what every fiber in his body was poised to do, needed privacy. Needed to be done behind closed doors so that there would be no sudden interruptions, breaking the mood. No interruptions stealing the moment.
He intended to make love to her and then with her, the way they both ached to have happen.
And he needed to begin right now, before he burned away to a crisp.
Chapter Thirteen
With her cheek resting against his shoulder, Lilli could feel every breath he took. Her adrenaline ramped up an other notch as Kullen came to the landing. He didn’t put her down.
“First door on your left,” she whispered, holding on to him tightly.
The door to her room stood open, but not for long. Crossing the threshold, still holding her in his arms, Kullen pushed against the door with his back.
The soft click told him that the door was closed, but not locked. And seven-year-olds had a habit of having nightmares—he could still remember the ones he’d had. The last thing he wanted was for Jonathan to come bursting in, half-asleep and needing comfort, only to see something he shouldn’t witness.
Lowering Lilli until her feet touched the floor, Kullen reached behind him and turned the lock so that it caught and held. When Lilli looked at him, one eyebrow raised, he told her, “So that Jonathan doesn’t get traumatized.”
Warmth instantly flared inside her. Even as she got caught up in the moment, he had the presence of mind to think about her son. They didn’t make men like Kullen anymore, she thought.
But even as she got
lost in him, Lilli could feel a distant sadness threatening to seep in. She’d had her chance to marry him and turned her back on it. Her disappearance might have been for the best of reasons, but she had still rejected his proposal. Rejected her chance at happiness.
The memory made her want to seize this moment before it was gone, too. Before the phone rang or something else happened to take him away from her.
Or make him come to his senses.
With thoughts like that to spur her on, Lilli wrapped her arms around his neck, leaned into him and kissed him with all the intensity and longing that ravaged every single space inside of her.
Damn, but she was making this difficult, Kullen thought. When she kissed him like that, his very blood caught on fire. Restraint took almost superhuman strength.
But he had to restrain himself.
He wanted to do this slowly, to make love as if there was nothing else to do for the next eight hours. He wanted to touch her, to caress her, to love Lilli with his whole being.
He wanted to worship her.
Kullen had no idea if there had been any other men in her life after she’d run off. In the time they’d been together, she’d made no mention of anyone but that didn’t mean that there hadn’t been someone special between then and now. He had no way of knowing if a boyfriend had taken the care that he should have in making love with her, but whether the answer was yes or no, Kullen knew that he fully intended to do that now.
There was no way—even fleetingly—that he wanted Lilli to think of that animal who had assaulted her.
Kissing her slowly, deepening each kiss a little more than the one that had come before, Kullen could feel his own knees threaten to buckle. Forcing himself to focus, he began to tug the hem of her blouse out of the waistband of her pencil skirt.
When he began to push the shirt’s buttons through their holes one at a time, he heard Lilli’s sharp intake of breath. Was that evidence of excitement he heard, or fear?
Not taking any chances, he drew his lips away from the hollow of her throat and told her in a low, husky voice, “You can stop me at any time. If anything I’m doing makes you uncomfortable, tell me. I’ll sto—”
Kullen didn’t get a chance to finish. Lilli had sealed her mouth urgently to his. Succeeding in making him utterly crazy—and loving it.
What came afterward happened in a kind of haze. The chain of events became a jumble in his head.
He must have finished undressing her because Lilli was perfectly nude beneath his palms as he passed them over her. His heart hitched in his throat as he tried to absorb the sensations created in his belly.
His hands skimmed along her soft, firm skin. Somewhere along the line, amid the bursts of red-hot passion erupting through his body, Lilli must have returned the compliment and undressed him as well because there he was, separated from his clothing, his skin burning for the feel of hers.
Pushing her gently down onto the snow-white comforter, he began to cover her supple body with a shower of light, teasing and, he concluded from her reaction, incredibly arousing kisses.
By pleasuring her, he was driving himself crazy. Each time she reacted, the echo of passion grew even louder within him, demanding things he was trying to hold off doing until he felt that she was ready. But he was determined to go only as quickly as she wanted.
Although her yearning had roots that went back eight years, Lilli admitted that she was afraid of what was ahead. Afraid that making love with Kullen would propel her back to that dark place.
But this was nothing like that other time.
What Kullen was doing was in a different league. He had lit fires within her and he treated her as if she were made out of spun sugar. She could feel the urgency within him, but she could also feel that he held back. Even so, he touched her so lightly with his hands and his lips that she could feel needs vibrating within her, almost pleading for release.
He was an artist and she was his canvas. A hungry canvas ready to absorb every stroke, every nuance. He made her feel things. Good things. Things that made her blood rush and her head spin.
She wanted him.
Wanted him to seal his body to hers.
Wanted to be one with him.
But when she raised her hips to his in a silent invitation, rather than fill her the way she expected him to, Lilli suddenly felt his breath travel lower on her skin. And lower again.
Her stomach muscles quivered as anticipation roared through her limbs.
He went lower still.
Suddenly, explosions ripped through her veins, carrying her off to where the sky was filled with a plethora of incredible, heated colors. She grasped sections of the comforter beneath her with both hands as sweet agony filled her.
His mouth was hot, his tongue quick, gentle and wildly arousing. She had to bite down hard on her lower lip to keep from screaming out his name as a climax rocked her very core. One sensation flowered into the next like a Fourth of July fireworks display.
For a second, there seemed to be no end.
Exhausted, she let a low sigh escape as the sensations finally receded. She would have hugged the world if she’d been able.
Lilli realized that her eyes were shut, as if that somehow enhanced the experience. Feeling a little foolish, she opened them and saw that Kullen had drawn himself back up to her level again, his eyes on hers.
Before she could tell him how wondrous the whole experience was, he had covered her mouth with his own. And then he was directly over her. Rather than completing the action of becoming one with her, he drew back and looked at her. There was concern in his eyes.
“Is it all right?”
Because he had asked, it was. His kindness, his concern effectively erased all her fears, dispelled any remnants of the memory that had haunted her for so terribly long.
She whispered yes, and felt him entering gently. The act completed, they were temporarily fused into one. Everything throbbed within her. She anticipated more. Was eager for more.
And then, there was more.
Kullen began to move his hips, igniting her even as she mirrored his movements, his tempo.
They raced each other up the side of the mountain, then experienced the last seconds of this transient paradise together.
At the last second, the gratifying euphoria seized him. Kullen hugged her hard. So hard that he was afraid he had bruised her ribs if not broken them outright. For a split second, he’d had trouble controlling the lightning-fast surge she had generated in him.
“Sorry,” he murmured, releasing her.
The word echoed like a hoary insult, hanging just above her heart, hurting more than physical daggers.
“Sorry?” she repeated, feeling her heart constricting. Why was he doing this to her? “Sorry you did this?”
Where had she gotten that idea from? Kullen wondered, staring at her. Erik Dalton had not only stolen her innocence, the slime bucket had shattered her confidence as well.
“No,” Kullen corrected patiently, “sorry if I squeezed you too hard.”
“Oh,” she acknowledged quietly. When he raised him self up on his elbow to look at her, there was an expression of satisfaction on her lips that seemed to penetrate down to the very bone.
Just as it did within him, he thought.
Slipping his arm beneath Lilli, he pulled her to him, affection building inside him. It occurred to him that he would have been perfectly happy to remain like this with her indefinitely.
His career would eventually go to hell, he reasoned whimsically, but his soul would be happy. It seemed like a good trade-off to him right now. But she was being too quiet. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked.
“No,” she replied softly, “you didn’t hurt me.” But there was something she had to know. Lilli searched for courage to form the words. “You weren’t…” Her courage flagged, her voice faded.
Instantly alert, knowing he had only a tiny window of time to clear up any misunderstanding, he pressed her to finish. “I
wasn’t what?”
“Disappointed, were you?” she finally managed to get out. Did that sound as egotistical to him as it did to her? But she wasn’t looking to get her ego stroked, she just had to know if she’d failed him.
“Disappointed?” he repeated incredulously. Very slowly, he ran his knuckles lightly along her jawline. He saw a spark of desire flare in her eyes. “I’ve been wanting to do that for eight years. And it was everything I thought it would be—and more.”
She appreciated what he was trying to do, but she knew how inexperienced she was. Until just now, her only sexual encounter had been that one awful time when she’d been assaulted.
“You don’t have to lie,” she told him, lowering her eyes.
“I know I don’t. And I’m not,” he added in case she still had misgivings. Shifting, he moved so that he could look into her eyes. “Lilli, please, don’t let what happened to you eight years ago scar you forever,” he entreated.
Anger mounted inside him, all but choking him. Had Erik Dalton not been dead, Kullen would have been sorely tempted to call the lowlife out and beat him with in an inch of his worthless life. Or maybe even to go further than that.
There was such a thing as justifiable homicide, he thought darkly, and if anyone ever deserved to be sent to their maker in a pine box, it was Erik Dalton. The fact that the man had died as a result of an accident didn’t provide the right kind of satisfaction.
“You should have told me,” he said, lightly brushing her hair away from her face. “Eight years ago, when it happened, you should have told me about it.”
But Lilli shook her head. “I didn’t really get to know you until afterward.” She pressed her lips together, not wanting the old feelings of guilt and regret to find her. “Let’s not talk about it now.”
“Okay.” He didn’t want to mar this moment with bad memories. “No talking. What’ll we do then?” he asked, pretending to ponder the dilemma. “Oh, wait, I think I know.”
The next moment, he lightly trailed his lips and tongue along the hollow of her throat, resurrecting desires she’d thought had all but burnt themselves out for the duration of the night.
Unwrapping the Playboy Page 13