Andrea Kane (29 page)

“All night.”

She stopped inches before him, watching a muscle work in his jaw, a multitude of conflicting emotions registering in his eyes.

“Do you have any idea”—he swallowed—“how worried I was?”

“Yes,” she murmured. “Do you have any idea how humiliated I was?”

He stared down at her, remembering what he had subjected her to the previous night. All the anger and resentment drained away, to be replaced by a wave of longing so acute, he couldn’t speak. He fought it, closing his eyes to block out the beauty that made every rational thought flee from his mind.

It didn’t work. He could still feel her presence beside him, smell the sweetness of her skin, ache to take her in his arms, to lie with her. How could one woman hold so much power over him, he wondered wildly. Worse, how could he
permit
it? With his last filaments of self-protection he battled to retain control of his mind, of his heart.

Kassie watched the struggle on Braden’s face, his tortured expression telling her everything she needed to know. There was much left to resolve between them. But that would come later. For now, Braden needed her. And it was up to her to show him how much.

“I didn’t mean to worry you, Braden.” With the tip of her index finger Kassie traced a drop of water from his shoulder down to his clenched fist. “I just didn’t know how to cope with my anger and my hurt.” She lightly stroked his closed fingers, his wrist, the hair-roughened skin of his forearm, then slid her hand back up his powerful biceps to his neck. She could feel his muscles contract, feel the inadvertent shudder of his body. And she could feel him fighting it, fighting her. She ached to tell him that only by losing would he win.

Standing on tiptoe, Kassie pressed her lips into the damp hollow at the base of Braden’s throat, sliding her fingers into the thick, wet strands of hair at his nape.

Braden stiffened, instantly and painfully aroused. He could not, would not give in to this feeling that was so much more than physical desire. “Stop it, Kassie,” he commanded hoarsely, even as his body throbbed its command for her to continue, burned to be joined with her.

“No.” The word was a breathy whisper against the sensitized skin of his neck, and Braden could feel himself drowning, dissolving into a million fragments of helpless need.

“Dammit, Kassie,” he got out between clenched teeth, “I don’t want—”

“Yes, you do,” she breathed, pressing herself lightly against his straining, engorged manhood, the evidence of his craving for her.

Braden threw back his head and groaned, unconsciously gliding his fingers through the loose dark waves of her hair. He opened his eyes, caught her face in his hands, and lifted it to meet his smoldering gaze. “My body wants you, Kassie. Is that what you want from me?”

Kassie stroked her fingers across his lips. “That … and more.”

“I have nothing else to give you.”

She smiled dreamily. “You’re so wrong, husband. Even you don’t know how much you have to give. But I do. I
know
you. I’ve always known you … from the moment we met. You’ve given me everything … everything. And I don’t mean my jewels and my wardrobe. You’ve given me a home, security, a place where I can belong.” She paused, letting everything she was feeling shine in her eyes. “And you’ve given me
you.
Your protection, your name, your loyalty. You’ve taught me what it means to be a woman, to be wanted by a man. But most of all, you’ve given me something I’ve never had. Someone I can rely upon, someone who will always be here for me.” She pressed her fingers to his lips when he tried to reply. “You’ve told me on several occasions that I should lean on you. Did you mean it?”

He was watching her intently. “You know I did,” he murmured against her fingertips.

Kassie nodded. “Yes, I know you did. And I believed you then, just as I believe you now.” She slid her hands down his arms, catching his fingers and entwining them with hers. “Do you remember when we first met?”

A small smile played about his lips. “You were the most precocious fifteen-year-old I’d ever encountered.”

“And the loneliest,” she added. “Do you recall what I told you about my love for strolling along the beach?”

The memory was as clear in Braden’s mind as if it had happened yesterday. “You said that the beach soothed you; that the sea, the wind, the sun, and the stars were always there for you.”

Kassie nodded again, bringing his fingers to her open mouth. “And they are. But so are you. I never dreamed there would be someone in my life I could count on the way I count on you.”

“You’re grateful to me,” he qualified, in a tone filled with raw hope.

“I’m in love with you.” She said the words without hesitation or shame, willing him to believe her. For his belief would be the first step toward their future.

For a fleeting second joy and relief flashed in Braden’s eyes. Both were quickly replaced by a skepticism that refused to be quieted. “What you’re feeling,” he began, “it’s …”

“… love,” Kassie finished definitely for him. She twined her arms around his neck, pressed her face against his chest. “I love you, Braden,” she whispered, a tremor in her voice. “I always have. I always will.”

“Kassie …” His voice broke as he absorbed her words.

But Kassie gave him no time to think. “Take me to bed,” she breathed against his damp skin. “Please, Braden, make love to me.”

It was all he needed to push him over the edge.

With a groan of total capitulation Braden dragged Kassie to him, crushing her soft lips beneath his urgent mouth. Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her to the bed, dropping down heavily with her, never breaking the kiss. She wrapped her arms about his neck, murmuring some unintelligible endearment, but Braden barely heard her. He was wild with a bottomless hunger that gnawed inside him, eating its way into a part of his soul that had never before been touched. He stopped fighting the feeling, and his whole body pulsed with its demand, exploding into a primal need to totally possess the beautiful, giving woman in his arms.
His
woman. His wife.

“God, I was so afraid,” he panted between kisses, tangling his hands in her hair and anchoring her head to receive his plundering mouth. “So afraid. I thought you were lost … or hurt … or worse.” He crushed her to him, feeling the cool silk of her dressing gown caress his feverish skin. “Don’t ever do that to me again. Ever.”

“I won’t,” Kassie promised breathlessly, closing her eyes and surrendering herself totally to her husband’s stormy passion. “I won’t. … Oh, Braden …”

His hot kisses trailed down her neck to the swell of her breasts. At the same time he seized the hem of her gown and dragged it upwards, running his greedy hands up her bare legs to the softness of her thighs. “The gown,” he managed in a hoarse rasp.

Kassie’s eyes flew open, and she stared at Braden with a dazed, dreamy expression, totally lost to the sensations that were claiming her body. “The … gown?” she repeated blankly.

Waiting was fast becoming unendurable agony for Braden. Impatiently he raised up on one elbow and solved the problem on his own, tearing the interfering garment in two and flinging the fragments of material to the floor. Kassie gasped as cold air shivered across her bare skin.

“You’re so damned beautiful.”

At Braden’s husky words the cold vanished instantly, to be replaced by a liquid heat that flowed through her. Kassie’s heart began to pound wildly as she lay unmoving and watched her husband’s openly carnal gaze explore every inch of her nakedness.

Braden’s smoldering eyes returned to her face, and Kassie began to tremble from the undisguised longing that blazed within them. “Come here,” he commanded in a deep, sensual voice that was rich with promise. “Come to me now.”

She moved toward him, but he had already caught her arms, dragging her to him, molding her soft, pliant body to his hard, muscled one. Every inch of her was claimed by his power, and Kassie relinquished herself to Braden’s urgency, letting it dominate their lovemaking, knowing that it expressed feelings that her husband was not yet willing to admit.

Braden was beyond coherent thought. Over the past weeks he had come to accept his consistent loss of control when he was in Kassie’s arms. But until now there had always been a small, protective portion of his mind that was aware of Kassie’s youth, her inexperience; an inner voice that demanded he take care not to alarm her with his lust or shock her with his actions.

This time that voice remained silent.

Braden’s mouth and hands were everywhere, touching, stroking, arousing Kassie beyond endurance. He barely heard her cries of pleasure, so lost was he in her scent, her taste, the sensation of her satiny skin against his face, his hands. Drunk with desire, he slid his open mouth down the hollow between her breasts, turning his head from side to side to allow him access to each tight, hardened nipple. Lifting her from the bed, he anchored his arm beneath her back so that he could deepen the contact, drawing her aroused flesh into his mouth with a suction that made Kassie arch against him, sobbing his name.

Braden raised his head, his eyes glazed with passion. “That’s it, sweetheart, tell me how much you need me.” He buried his face in the curve of her neck, shuddering as her small hands stroked the corded muscles of his back. “Tell me, Kassie,” he muttered thickly against her ear, drawing the soft lobe into his mouth. “Because, Lord help me, I need you.” He took her mouth in another scalding kiss, groaning aloud when he felt her tongue tease his lips, then mate with his own.

He couldn’t stay still. Tearing his mouth from hers, Braden continued his frenzied possession of his wife, moving down her quivering body, shaking his head and pushing her hands away when she reached for him. “No,” he whispered hoarsely, “not this time. This time it has to be me.” He pressed his face against her soft abdomen, licking a slow circle inside her navel, repeating the gesture when he heard her whimper aloud. “Tell me, my beautiful wife,” he urged softly, gliding his hands over her gently rounded hips. “Tell me you need me.”

“I need you … oh, Braden, I need you,” she sobbed, meaning so much more than the words implied.

“Kassandra …” He breathed her name like a prayer, sliding further down in the bed. He parted her thighs with his hands and began to make slow, devastating love to her with his mouth.

Kassie cried out, begging him to end the torture, to come to her, but Braden ignored her pleas, burying himself more deeply in her sweetness. He lifted her legs over his shoulders, leaving her helplessly open to his warm lips, his seeking tongue.

Kassie was drowning. She tossed her head from side to side, pleasure coiling inside her until she wanted to scream with it, to die from it. There was nothing but Braden’s mouth and the desperate need for release that her body sought. She tugged at his hair, wanting him inside her … now.

Braden needed something else. While his own body craved the same release as Kassie’s, he couldn’t stop loving her like this, in the most possessive and intimate way a man could love a woman. He had to feel, to taste her pleasure. Only then would his own pleasure be complete.

“No, love, not yet,” he gasped, pushing her hands away.

Kassie clutched his hands, frightened by the intensity of sensation that was flooding her. “Braden … I can’t … I’m going to …”

“Let it happen,” he demanded, wrapping his fingers tightly around hers. “God, Kassandra, let it happen.” He intentionally deepened the caress.

“Braden!” She cried out his name as unimaginable pleasure exploded inside her, coursing through her body in wild, wondrous waves of completion. Submerged in their wake, she could do no more than call her husband’s name over and over, shuddering helplessly in his arms.

Braden could wait no longer. Before Kassie’s body had stilled he raised up and thrust himself deep into her softness, crying out hoarsely as he felt her contractions pulling at him, drawing him deeper into her hot, pulsating center. “Kassie …” He answered her body’s plea, driving himself into her again and again, keeping pace with each involuntary spasm of her inner muscles as they closed around him.

“Oh … yes …” she whispered in a shattered voice, wrapping her limbs around her husband, dizzy with the pleasure that continued, escalating with each drive of Braden’s hips. “Oh … Braden … I love you …”

“Say it again,” he ordered, taut with the strain of holding back.

“I love you,” she cried out, feeling his thrusts grow faster, harder, with her words.

“Again.” Beads of perspiration broke out on his brow, her words robbing him of his last shred of control.

“I love you,” she whispered, floating back down to earth. “I love you, Braden. I love you.”

Braden lunged forward, erupting in a release of such intensity that it robbed him of thought, of breath. It was like plummeting from a height so great that it was both terrifying and exhilarating at once. He had no choice but to surrender to its magnitude, to give himself up to its incomparable force. And he did so. Gladly.

Because Kassie was in love with him.

“Y
OU WERE VERY ANGRY
at me.” Kassie murmured her straightforward observation into the damp warmth of Braden’s chest.

Braden was silent. Long moments had passed since their bodies had been joined, yet he was still awash in sensation. Physically he was blissfully at peace, but the stirrings of his soul, until now ignored, refused to be silenced. He felt emotionally raw, stripped of his defenses, exposed and vulnerable. And afraid. Afraid of his newly discovered need for the woman in his arms. Afraid to let himself believe what his heart knew to be the truth.

“Braden?” Kassie shifted slightly, gazing up at him with a question in her eyes.

“What?” His voice sounded shattered to his own ears.

“I said that you were very angry at me. Are you still?”

The innocent irony of her question sliced through his emotional turmoil. “No, sweetheart, I’m not angry.” He wrapped his arms more tightly about her back and drew the bedcovers up over them for warmth.

Kassie rested her chin on his chest, a small pucker forming between her finely arched brows. “But you
were.
Why?”