Secret Desire
Page 31
“And he was shooting at you?”
“Yes.”
“Every time you leave me, I’ll be scared for you.”
He took both of her hands in his. “Is that the only thing about my job that bothers you?”
She looked him in the eye. “All I can think of right now.”
“What about your father’s arrest and conviction?”
She’d known that was coming and had prepared herself, thanks to her father’s letter. “You had no choice but to do your duty, and you did the right thing, just as you did this afternoon. My father respects your integrity, and so do I. I’ve been wrong in this, Luke. Terribly wrong. I wish I could undo—”
He was standing over her now, his hands on her shoulders, staring into her eyes. “I don’t need to hear any more. Just put your arms around me. Oh, Kate. Kate!”
He lifted her to him, then held her away as if to be certain. “Are you sure you have no reservations. None at all?”
She shook her head. “Not one.” Tremors laced her speech, and he held her closer, cradling her to him. “Shh.”
The feel of his lips brushing hers softly, skimming her skin as though she was precious to touch, filled her with hope. She could hear her heart singing and feel the rhythmic beat of its music. His hands brushed her bare arms, and he folded her to him, pressing light kisses on her eyelids, cheeks, ears and neck, telling her how he adored her in ways that words could not.
When he held her away from him and gazed into her eyes, she didn’t see hot desire, but adoration, a sweetness that exposed a vulnerability she’d never seen in him and dragged a catch from her throat—an open, wordless declaration of love. She reached up, placed her hands at his nape and urged him to kiss her. Then his face bloomed in a smile, a sweet and wicked thing that excited and thrilled her, for she knew its promise.
She thought she would buckle beneath his gentle and tender caresses, that she couldn’t bear the sweetness with which he loved her.
“Luke, kiss me.”
His lips settled on hers, almost in reverence, but she flicked her tongue against them and his kiss began to heat her mouth, to burn her with the fire of his rising desire. Her body rippled in response to his need, a need that had suddenly flared in a blatant demand. She parted her lips for his tongue, and shivers coursed through her as he dipped into the honey that was for him alone. She could feel the tension building in him, and sucked in her breath as the heat of his body swirled around her like the rising wind of a coming storm. She pressed herself to his hard frame and rejoiced in the touch of his arousal against her belly. Jolts of electricity whistled through her veins, and her hips began their rocking plea for the feel of him inside her. Dizzy now with lust for the powerful aphrodisiac in her arms, she undulated wildly against him. When she tried to wrap her legs around him, he gripped her and pulled her up to fit him. The air snapped and crackled like unharnessed electricity, and she moaned his name in frustration.
“Luke. Love, I need you.”
As if he’d been awaiting that cue, he lifted her into his arms, found his way to her bedroom and placed her on her bed. She let him remove her clothing, besotted, drunk on his tenderness and passion. She gazed at him in his glorious nudity, licked her lips in anticipation and opened her arms. But he needed more.
“Tell me that you accept who I am, and what I do,” he said, and the tremors in his voice let her know what her answer meant to him.
She sat up. “I believe in you, and I wouldn’t change you or anything about you.”
She lay back on the bed, opened her arms, and he moved into them and buried his face in the curve of her neck. The feel of his skin electrified her whole body like a barrage of fireworks. She shifted beneath him, and he rimmed her lips with his tongue. She sucked it into her mouth and feasted on him until he withdrew it and then darted it in and out, promising and teasing. She spread her legs and reached for him, but he held her hands above her head and feasted on her breasts, sucking and loving until she moaned. “Luke, please. I’m aching. I need you.”
But he charted his own course, dipping his tongue in the hollow of her neck, trailing his lips over her belly and thighs until he reached the ultimate, the center of her. There, he kissed her quickly, moved up her body and tortured her breasts, arms, neck, and ears with searing kisses.
Out of control now, she rocked beneath him until, exasperated, she found him, wrapped her fingers tight around him and brought him to her. But he moved away, slipped on a condom and took her mouth in a drugging kiss. Then she raised her body and gloried in her womanhood as he capitulated and drove home. She knew him now and raised herself to his powerful marksmanship, meeting his strokes and riding his rhythm.
“Do you feel what I’m doing to you?”
“Yes. Oh, yes. Yes!”
She was going to die. That earthquake inside of her wouldn’t stop trembling, and wouldn’t let her burst wide-open.
He sucked on her left breast and stroked the nub of her passion, filling her until cyclonic waves plowed through her, and she exploded all around him, spent. He kissed her to smother her keening cry and collapsed in her arms as he joined her flight to ecstasy.
Luke stretched out on his back with his arm tight around Kate. She was so quiet. He turned on his left side and looked at her. “Planning to put me out?”
Relief spread over him when she stretched leisurely, as she always did when she was well sated, reached down and pinched his buttock. “Try getting out of that door, and you’ll discover how crafty I can be.”
“What about…You once told me you wanted us to be together forever. Did you mean that?”
She sat up and leaned over him. “I meant it.”
“That means you’ll marry me?”
“Not necessarily.”
He sat up and eased her down in the bed. “I’m serious, Kate. Will you marry me?” He gazed down at eyes glistening with love and at arms raised to him.
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to ask you. Of course I will,” she said.
He lowered himself into her arms, and the touch of her sweet lips and warm welcoming body sent showers of joy zinging through him. “I love you, Kate. I love you so much.”
“You’re my heart, Luke. I’ve loved you almost from the first.” She frowned, and seemed to draw into herself.
“What is it? If you have any reservations, any questions, tell me now.”
“You don’t mind that…that your father-in-law will be a prisoner?”
He gazed into the face of the woman whose love gave him the peace he’d longed for. “Maybe not for long. From what I discovered a few days ago, he should get a new trial, with a new lawyer that you and I will choose.”
“You think there’s a chance?”
“I know there is.”
Her face bloomed into the smile he loved. “Then maybe he can finally see his grandson.”
“A man has the right to kiss his woman’s nose,” Luke said, so he did just that. “I wish I knew how to reach Lucy Monroe Watkins.”
“Why? What do you want with her?”
“She told me the man would be driving when I caught him. I want to congratulate her. What do you say we take Randy to visit his grandparents in Hawaii and go on to Tahiti for our honeymoon?”
“Wherever you go, love.”
He cradled her to him. “And whatever you do, I’ll be there for you.”
SECRET DESIRE
An Arabesque novel published by Kimani Press/November 2008
First published by BET Publications, LLC in 2000
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2383-1
© 2008 by Gwendolyn Johnson-Acsadi
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