Page 57 of Once an Angel
She shivered at his husky promise. His mouth closed on hers, tracing its shape, its softness, with a patience and delicacy he was far from feeling. He wanted to make her ache deep inside, as he was
aching. He rubbed his lips across hers, nibbling and coaxing with an expertise he'd almost forgotten he possessed. He was determined to stoke the flame of her need with exquisite stealth until she burned only for him.
Her lips parted shyly beneath the tantalizing pressure, burning his restraint to cinders. With a will of its own his tongue snaked out, delving deep inside the lush sweetness of her mouth. She met his thrust with
a soft swirl of her own. He groaned. She tasted like a hot, luscious berry— succulent and ripe for his picking. With a hunger that made him quake inside, he wanted to taste the rest of her, to feel her sugared heat melt around every throbbing inch of his body.
The knowledge of what Justin wanted to do to her exploded through Emily, both terrifying her and imbuing her with a delicious sense of power. Gasping for a breath of sanity, she tore her mouth away from his. Dear God, what was she doing? It wasn't supposed to happen this way. She was supposed to coolly seduce him, scorn him, and toss the shreds of his broken heart in his face like confetti. Instead,
she was clinging to him like a helpless wanton, drowning in the fervor of his kiss. With only a few expert caresses he had become the hunter and she the prey.
His lips flowered hungrily against her dimpled cheek, the curve of her jaw, the tingling skin of her earlobe. His tongue flicked out to taste the damning pulsebeat below her ear. A hoarse whimper escaped her throat. She struggled to remember why she must hate him.
Pressing her burning brow to the hollow of his throat, she whispered, "You always treat me like a child."
"No more," he vowed, sliding his hands down her back. Their callused strength against her bare flesh made her shiver. "You're all woman. Woman enough to take whatever I can give you." His warm, rough tongue plundered her ear, sending ribbons of sensation cascading deep into her womb.
Her knees buckled, but he caught her, dragging her against him. If he only knew how desperately wrong he was. She was no match for him, she knew. No match at all. She knew that with dread certainty as he angled her thigh upward and pressed his flagrant arousal to the aching cradle between her legs.
She moaned as his mouth took hers again. The slow grind of his hips and his tongue's feverish strokes painted a dark and vivid picture of his desires. She trembled, but his body was too broad, too unrelenting for escape. There was no place for her to flee from the tender assault she had provoked.
The rough satin of his fingertips inched between her breasts, gliding wider with each sensual circle. She gasped as his palm cupped the threadbare calico of her bandeau, molding it to the soft globe of her breast.
He pressed his mouth to her ear. "I'm not like the others, Em. I won't hurt you. I swear it."
How could she tell him he'd already hurt her beyond bearing? Unable to resist his hoarse promise, she clung to his shoulders. His fingertips skimmed her nipple like butterfly wings, igniting tremors of pleasure. Beneath his caress the calico became not a barrier, but silky kindling for a spreading wildfire. She muffled her whimpers in his chest, desperate to hide her agonized blush. She could not still the irrational fear that he might discover not only what she was, but who she was as well.
His lips brushed her hair. "I've spent the last few nights pouring all of my passions into my music, when all I really wanted to do was pour them into you."
His blunt confession and the loving stroke of his thumb over the tender bud of her nipple were her undoing. Longing coursed through her in dark waves. She rubbed her lips against his chest, tasting the salty spice of his skin, teasing the rigid nub of his own nipple beneath her tongue.
Justin was shaking almost as hard as Emily was, hardly daring to believe his sweetest fantasy was unfolding like a dream before him.
To hold Emily naked in the moonlight, her smooth young body his domain to pleasure and possess. To slake her darkest and most secret desires with his fevered touch. To ease himself inside her scrumptious body and take her, each stroke as deep and measured as the tide against the shore. It was as if time had rolled back to that other windy night and he'd been given a precious gift he thought lost forever. Now that gift had been sweetened by the privilege of knowing her sparkling mischief, her tender wit, and her irrepressible spirit. She was no longer a mysterious nymph coughed up by the sea. She was his Emily, a shining thread of melody wound around his heart.
His deft fingers tugged at the knot of her bandeau. Before she could moan a protest, the fabric unfurled and slipped from his finger to the sand, baring her breasts in all their pagan splendor.
Emily could feel their dusky peaks pucker beneath the greedy mouth of the wind and the smoldering caress of Justin's gaze. She shivered, seized by a terrible vulnerability.
He wrapped his arms around her, crushing her against the unyielding warmth of his chest. "What is it? Have I frightened you?"
Beneath her ear his heart slammed like the distant thunder of drums. "Everything is happening so quickly."
"Quickly?" He tilted her chin up and gazed into her eyes. "I've waited a lifetime for this."
Her broken hiccup was half sob, half laugh. "So have I. If you only knew . . ." No longer caring if this was revenge or madness, she tangled her hands in his hair and drew his mouth down to hers, kissing
him with a ravenous passion to match his own.
Groaning, Justin dropped to his knees in the sand, only too eager to worship at the altar of her pleasure. He stroked her rounded shoulders, the satiny hollow above her collarbone, the plump underside of her breasts, utterly captivated by the contrasts in their bodies. What had seemed common with other women now seemed exotic, shaded with mystery. Emily's body was ripe with secrets just waiting to be unfolded and stroked and explored.
He reached beneath her skirt, running his hands up the back of her calves and thighs to the bare curve
of her rump. His thumbs angled across her hipbones, marveling at the cushion of flesh that softened her
in all the places bone and muscle tempered him to hardness.
She quivered at his touch but did not shrink from him, not even when his thumbs curled around to graze the delicate fleece that sheltered the feminine heart of her. Not yet, he warned himself. Too soon. He lay his burning cheek between her breasts and let the sea breeze wash over him, praying it might soothe the desperate tide of desire in his groin. She had known enough of the hasty, selfish fumbles of boys.
