Baby Love (35 page)

accept it. She could see it in his eyes. More than that— she felt it in her heart.

Knowing that gave her the most incredible feeling. It was madness, she knew, but she felt like a prisoner being miraculously released from manacles and chains. A heavy weight, slipping off her shoulders. A wondrous, almost giddy sensation of lightness. Nothing to fear. Nothing to hold her. Knowing Rafe, loving him—he had somehow set her free, yet in doing so, he had also bound her to him.

Maggie didn't allow herself to think it through. She just drew her hands from his broad wrists and grasped the hem of her undershirt. When he saw what she was about to do, he tensed, his forearms turning rock-hard and his palms pressing more firmly against the sides of her face.

"Maggie," he said in a gravelly whisper, "don't bite off what you can't chew. Please, be sure you're ready first."

She could only pull the undershirt up so far with his arms in the way. "Let me, Rafe. Please?"

He darted a glance downward, glimpsed her bared breasts, and said,
"Jesus.
Didn't you hear me? I'm inches away from—" He closed his eyes, his larynx bobbing, the tendons along his throat distended. "Holy hell."

Maggie twisted to escape his hold and jerked the shirt off over her head. As she tossed it aside and felt cool air washing over her skin, a wave of embarrassment hit her, and right behind it came a rush of insecurities. That maybe he'd find fault with her. That she wouldn't be what he had expected. That once he saw her, he might not want her.

She caught her breath, waiting for his reaction, and all he did was continue to sit there with his eyes closed, his shoulders pressed hard against the wall behind him. An airless pounding began in her temples.

She waited. Waited. Finally she had to draw in oxygen.

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"Rafe?" she said shakily, fearing that he'd not liked what he saw when he glanced down. "Aren't y-you going to ll-look at me?"

A muscle rippled along his jaw. In a taut, gruff whisper, he asked, "Do you
want
me to lose it? Damn, Maggie. I'm not made of stone. One look, and you'll be flat on your back in two seconds, tops."

"Just as long as you're there with me."

He didn't say anything for a beat. Then he narrowly cracked open one eye. "What?"

Maggie laughed tremulously. "You're torturing me. Would you please just look and get it over with? I'm scared to death you won't like me."

The crack of his eye widened a hair. He looked down. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

Maggie crossed her arms over herself. "I'm sort of saggy."

He opened both eyes. "You're sort of
what?"

"Um... saggy. And there's stretch marks. Do you hate stretch marks?"

He searched her gaze as if he couldn't quite believe she was seriously asking. Suddenly his expression softened. "You're worried I might not—" He chuckled, albeit a bit shakily. "Sweetheart, don't hate me, all right? But I've already checked out the terrain."

"You have? When?"

He smiled slightly. "In the motel when you were so sick."

"Oh." Maggie hugged herself more tightly. "And?"

"And what?"

"Did you—well, you know—like what you saw?"

He did laugh then—a full-blown rumble of laughter that rocked his broad shoulders. "Like? Did I
like
what I saw? I'm here, aren't I? Maggie, you're beautiful. Gorgeous.
Perfect.
I didn't see any stretch marks."

"Then you didn't check very close. It must have been a sneak peek, and you missed the bad stuff."

He sighed. "The bad stuff?" He dropped his gaze to

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her arms. "The moment of reckoning. Let me see."

Maggie forced herself to lower her arms. It was the most awful moment of her life, just sitting there while he looked her over. Every place his gaze touched, her skin burned. And why didn't he say something? She imagined he was thinking all kinds of awful things— that they were shaped like balloons that had lost some of their air, maybe. And that the stretch marks, silvery white, were ugly. Oh, God. If he didn't like her, she'd die.

"Well?" she demanded, hearing the quiver in her own voice.

He drew his gaze back to hers, his face so solemn she just knew he was going to say something terrible.

"Those," he said slowly, "are, without question, the most beautiful, perfect,
gorgeous
thingamajigs I've ever seen in my life."

The next instant, he hooked an arm around her waist, and before Maggie knew quite how it happened, she was flat on her back with him braced on his arms over her.

"I warned you," he said huskily. "You can't say I didn't." He bent his dark head to nibble below her ear.

"Oh, God, Maggie, forgive me. I know you need me to go slow."

At this point, Maggie was just pleased to have him go forward at any speed. "I guess I should warn you.

I've got some stretch marks on my tummy, too. And a couple on each hip." When he just kept kissing her neck, she added, "Not real bad ones. Just little white lines like I've got up top."

"Does that mean you probably won't ever wear a string bikini in public?"

Maggie wouldn't wear a string bikini anywhere. Just the thought made her cringe. "Oh, no. I couldn't."

"Good," he growled, the deep timber of his voice seeming to rumble through her. "I'd kill the first man who looked twice at you. You're mine, Maggie girl." He trailed feverish kisses along her throat, suckling her

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skin as if to savor her taste. "Mine," he repeated fiercely.

You're mine.
The words echoed through her mind, calling up memories. For an instant, everything within her recoiled. But then she turned her gaze to the man who'd said them. The blurry darkness of his profile, the glint of lantern light playing over his jet-black hair.
Rafe.
Not Lonnie.
Rafe.
She wanted to belong to him. Needed to belong to him. And just hearing him say the words filled her with joy. She was his now, not Lonnie's.
His.
And that made her feel absolutely safe.

"Yes, yours," she murmured.

He groaned deep in his throat. "Say it again."

"Yours," she said more loudly. "Yours, Rafe."

His mouth burned a searing path over her collarbone, his teeth nipping lightly at her skin. His tone throbbing with need, he said, "If I do anything you don't want me to, just tell me. I give you my word, I'll try my damnedest to stop."

Try?
That should have alarmed her, but oddly, it didn't. He would try. No guarantees. No promises. He wanted her so badly, she could feel him shaking. But if she asked him to stop, he would try.

She smoothed her hands over his shoulders, wishing she could feel his skin and the play of steely muscle beneath. "Rafe, could you take off your shirt?"

He reared up, grabbed the hem of the undershirt, and peeled it off over his head. He knelt astride her hips, and as he tossed the shirt aside, Maggie took in the bronze splendor of his upper torso—the broad, well-padded shoulders, the striated belly, the mounded pectorals and biceps. The skin of his upper body, more frequently exposed to the sun, was the color of rich caramel, one of her favorites, and looking at him made her want to taste him just as he had her.

He raked at his hair to settle the tousled waves, his gunmetal-blue eyes glinting as he gazed back at her.

"Anything else you want off?" He gave her a mischie-BABY LOVE 341

vous wink. "Be careful what you ask for. I believe in equal opportunity."

Maggie giggled. He was mercurial, this man, hotly passionate one second and teasing her the next. "Does that mean you'll demand I remove any articles of clothing I ask you to take off?"

"Damn straight."

She pretended to consider. "That isn't equitable. You've got no thingamajigs."

He chuckled and ran a hand over his chest, ruffling the light dusting of black hair that she yearned to run her fingers through. "Thank God."

He fell forward, catching his weight with his hands, his chest a scant inch from hers. Maggie gave a startled squeak. He smiled and dipped his head. His silken mouth settled over hers. Maggie moaned, her breath spilling into him in a rush when his chest lightly grazed hers. Sensation ribboned from the tips of her breasts like jolts of lightning, streaking fire into her belly.

His lips molded gently to hers.
Wet heat.
He traced the shape of her lower lip with his tongue, then drew the sensitive flesh between his teeth to lave it and suckle. The fire in her middle turned white-hot. She clung to his shoulders, overcome by the feelings.

He suddenly drew his mouth from hers, plucked one of her hands from his shoulder, and began kissing her fingertips, his gaze locked with hers. When he drew the tip of her forefinger into his mouth, she was sure she'd never felt anything like that warm, wet, incredibly soft pulling on her flesh. He worked his way down the underside of her finger to her palm, tracing the lines there with his tongue. Then he moved on to her wrist. Then up to the bend of her elbow. Every touch of his mouth struck a chord within her, enlivening and torturing nerve endings she hadn't realized existed. She felt like a delicate string instrument being played by a maestro.

Oh, yes.
Her whole body tingled and she wanted to experience the sensation of his mouth on her skin in
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other places. Everywhere. He drew her arm out from her side and began nibbling his way up the ladder of her ribs. She sucked in her breath, her stomach so concave it felt glued to her backbone. Airless pressure hummed inside her head. Like the caress of feathers, tendrils of his black hair teased over her breast. Oh, God. She wanted his mouth there, ached to feel his lips on her there.

He nibbled a path to the sensitive hollow beneath her armpit instead. It tickled, and she tried to jerk her arm back to her side to protect the spot. He seized her wrist and pinned her hand to the bed. "Oh, no, you don't. I've been dreaming about doing this. Every sweet inch of you, Maggie girl. Finally all mine. There isn't a spot on you I'm gonna miss out on."

Not a single spot? She tried to laugh, but just breathing seemed to be beyond her. This was—oh, God. He pushed her arm straight out to give him better access. Her underarm? In all her wildest imaginings—not that she'd traveled down that path very often—she'd never for a moment considered her armpit as an erogenous zone.

"It—tickles," she gasped out, squirming to escape the delicious torture.

He trailed the tip of his tongue up the side of her breast, licking the swell as if she were a melting cone of his favorite ice cream. Her nipple hardened and thrust upward shamelessly, aching for him to reach it.

Almost there.
Maggie was lost to the need building inside her. She turned slightly to bring the throbbing peak closer to his seeking mouth.

He circled to kiss the underside of her breast instead, the brush of his hair on her screaming flesh an exquisite torment. Up. Wet heat. His teeth nibbling and teasing. At the edge of her pebbled aureole, he backed off and resumed kissing the under-swell of her breast again. Maggie sobbed. At the back of her mind, she heard the echo of Lonnie's voice.
Ask me for it Say please. Beg
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me for it.
She'd sworn each time that she never would again. But now the pleas were there at the back of her throat, aching to burst forth.

She started to swallow them back. Only she
wanted.
And this was Rafe. There was no shame. No wrong.

No degradation.

"Rafe, kiss me," she whispered raggedly. "Please, kiss me there."

In a distant part of his mind, Rafe was aware that she had run the slender fingers of her free hand into his hair and was hanging onto him for dear life. She arched her spine and let her head fall back, offering herself to him in a way no sane man could refuse.

As he bathed her thrusting nipple with his tongue, she jerked and cried out. He could feel every beat of her heart in that swollen, erect tip. He drew her gently into his mouth, his mind spinning with multiple shades of red that blinded him.
Maggie.
She sobbed, a tremor coursing through her that was so violent it rocked his own body.
His.
She was his. The need to have her raged through him, blanking out all else.

He drew urgently on her. The sweet, dizzying taste of her inflamed him. He caught the turgid peak between his teeth and teased her captured flesh with flicks of his tongue until she quivered and moaned, begging him with inarticulate cries to ease away the ache. He more than happily obliged her, dragging hard with his tongue, then suckling.

She bucked and sobbed. When he released her hand, she promptly caught his hair in both fists. She was so sweet and infinitely precious. While keeping her mindless with the ministrations of his mouth, he pushed her bottoms to her knees, then jerked them off, removing socks and all in one tug.

He ran a hand up her slender leg, slipped his fingers between her thighs, and then turned his hand so the width of his palm pushed her knees apart. She flinched when his fingertips caressed the thatch of tight curls he

344 CATHERINE ANDERSON

sought. He separated the silken folds, slipping his fingers over slick heat to gently invade the velvety sheath of her femininity. Thrusting deep, then withdrawing, his rhythm slow.

She sobbed again and lifted her hips, bumping awkwardly against his hand. He abandoned the one breast to give some attention to the other one. Her nipple gave him sweet welcome, so swollen and eager, begging for the pull of his mouth. He granted the request, waited a beat, and then slipped his fingers over her wetness at the apex of her thighs. Lightly stroking her. The node of vulnerable flesh beneath his fingertips went instantly turgid. He increased pressure and speed of stroke. Faster, harder.

Her slender body suddenly went rigid. Her breathing stopped. Then she emitted a low cry, her muscles quivering and jerking with each pass of his fingers. He gloried in the hot, wet rush.

When she went limp, he smothered her soft sobs with his mouth, kissing her deeply while he fumbled with his belt buckle and jeans. His zipper caught. Frustrated, he gave it a hard jerk. As the denim parted, he rose over her, then knelt between her open legs.