Fit for a King (11 page)

84

Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

85

"King?"
she whispered, her body throbbing wildly
from the knowledge of
what her response had done
to him.

"Oh,
what the hell," he breathed, and he bent to
her mouth.

His lips
came down on hers and opened them sensuously, while his arms lifted her
against him, savor
ing her soft weight. He carried her to the huge king-size
bed and placed her carefully on the black silk
coverlet. Then he
slid alongside her, his look lazy, his eyes dangerous. Lowering his head, he
trailed a string
of warm, moist kisses from her temple to her throat.

"Does
this untie?" he murmured, searching her
shoulders for the ends of the straps.

Her lips
parted. She thought she wanted to protest,
but her body was
singing to her, her blood raging in
her veins. She wanted his eyes on her,
there, his
mouth, she wanted...

"You
have bedroom eyes," he whispered. His fin
gers found the tiny bows just behind her
shoulders,
and he untied them very slowly.
"When I look in
them I can see
what you want."

"What
do I want?" she whispered, her voice husky
and unfamiliar to her
own ears as she lay beneath him.

"My
eyes," he replied, drawing the bodice of her
dress down just to the soft beginning
slope of her
breasts. "And my
mouth." He bent his head to her
creamy
skin, running his lips just beneath her collar
bone in slow, sensuous sweeps. His hands were on

her rib cage, smoothing the black crepe,
his thumbs
just under her breasts, touching
them as if by accident.

Her fists
clenched beside her head, and her breath
caught. He lifted his
head, looking at her.

"You're trembling,"
he breathed, reaching for the
top of the
bodice.

"King," she moaned helplessly.

"Innocent,"
he whispered. He held her eyes as his
hands moved, and she felt the cool night air on her
breasts as the fabric fell to her waist.

"Oh!"
she whispered softly, arching her body
gently.

His gaze
moved slowly down to her breasts, their small pink nipples aroused and hard,
her body shud
dering
a little with the newness of this kind of inti
macy.

"The
first time," he said under his breath. "My
God, they're exquisite." His lightly
callused fingers
brushed them, tenderly
tracing their contours, touch
ing
the hard nipples just lightly enough to make her shudder with pleasure.

She
couldn't even speak; her throat was tight with
exquisite tension.

"Now,"
he whispered, bending. "Now, Elissa,
now..."

His hand
cupped her while his mouth opened on
her, and she cried out. Then his
mouth caught hers,
stifling the tiny sound while his hand possessed her,
savoring
her silky warmth.

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Palmer

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King

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"I
could eat you," he ground out against her eager,
open mouth. "I
could eat you like candy."

Another sound
tore from her, and he lifted his head,
looking dazedly past
her to the radio. His hand trem
bled as he reached for the volume and turned
it on to a heavy reggae beat.

"Now,"
he murmured, "you can make as much noise as you want."

Her lips
opened to voice a protest, and his crushed
down over it, his
tongue moving into her mouth with a slow, hungry rhythm, his knee easing
between her
legs.

She felt
her fingernails digging into the nape of his neck, reveling in the feel of his
thick dark hair. Her
body was on fire for him; she'd never in her
life felt anything as explosively sexual. She wanted fulfill
ment; she
wanted to be part of him, rock with him, writhe under him.

Her moans
grew sharper when his mouth traveled
down over her breasts to her waist,
her stomach. She
moved helplessly in his embrace, feeling his strength,
loving his hands, loving the ardor of his warm mouth.

He
paused, breathing raggedly, to strip off his shirt,
and she gasped at the
sight of him like that, looming over her, his chest thick with dark hair, the
bronzed
muscles rippling, his face dark with passion, his eyes almost black.
She could feel the heat of his body, see
the fine tremor of his arms.

"Come
here," he commanded, kneeling before
her.

She rose to
her own knees, and he pulled her to him, pressing her breasts hard against his
hair-
roughened chest and making her shudder with the
fierce pleasure of
it. He held her there, kissing her
deeply and shifting her against him in
the process
until her nipples were so sensitized that they burned
and her
nails dug into his back.

 
“I want.. .you,''
was dragged out of her throat. She
buried her face in his neck and clung
to him, her hips
against his, her thighs trembling.
"I...want...you."

His hands
went to her hips, grinding her into him,
and a burning
sensation shot through her lower body. She shuddered helplessly, gasping with
pleasure and
barely contained desire.

"Lie
down," he whispered shakily. "Lie down un
der me. I'll make you
stop shaking. I'll make you
part of me...."

"The door...is it
locked?" she asked huskily, feel
ing
his weight come over her, his hands urgent on her
body.

"Locked?"
His hands stilled, and he looked into
her feverish eyes. "Elissa?" He swallowed, his
bare
chest rising and falling with the force
of his heartbeat
as he looked down at her. "Elissa...I could make
you
pregnant."

She was
hardly able to breathe. His eyes were the world. She loved him, and she hadn't
known. He was

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Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

89

more than her
friend. He was everything. And to have
his child—the
thought was too wonderful for words.

Her eyes
went down his body possessively, loving
its long, powerful
lines, loving every inch of him with sweet abandon. Her hips moved sensuously
under his,
eliciting
a groan from him.

"No,
honey," he whispered, stilling her impatient
movements.
"Don't make me. We've got to stop
while we can."

"Why?" she asked dazedly.

"We
can't make love with Bobby and Bess sitting
in the next
room." He laughed brittlely. "I must have
been out of my mind to
let things go this far."

His hands
cupped her head, and he dropped a hard,
quick kiss onto her
lips. Then he sat up, smoothing
his hands blatantly over her breasts, his
eyes appre
ciative and boldly possessive. "God, you're some
thing,"
he said. "As hot and wild as I am. We'd set
fires together,"
he added with what sounded like re
gret.

She sat
up, too, more than unsettled by the confusing sequence of events and moods.
Feeling uncomfortably exposed beneath that frank stare of his, she
tugged at
her bodice, but his hand prevented her from
tugging it up.

"Not
yet," he murmured. His hand went to her
back, arching her
over his arm, and his mouth opened,
taking her breast inside the moist darkness.

She shuddered, biting her lip to keep from crying

out. It was the sweetest kind of ache he
made there,
his tongue rubbing lazily at
her nipple, his lips tugging at her. She clutched the back of his dark head,
holding him there, while his free hand came up just
below his mouth and
cupped her sensuously.

It was a
long time before he lifted his head, and he clearly liked what he saw when he
looked at her. "I'd like to have you on the beach, just the way I dreamed
of."

She flushed
to the roots of her hair at the image
that had haunted her all day, too.

His hand
moved over her soft breasts. "You're
very pale here," he said. "I'd
like to teach you the
delicious pleasure of
sunbathing nude. Swimming
nude."

"You
do," she said without thinking, her voice
breathless sounding.

He lifted his head, smiling
slowly. "Yes. You've
watched me sometimes
at night, from your kitchen
window,
haven't you?"

The flush
got worse, but she didn't look away. "I
was curious," she
confessed softly. "There was
moonlight once, and you came out of
the water very
close
to the cottage...I never knew a man could be
beautiful."
She faltered, blushing furiously. "I didn't
think you'd know I was watching."

He
brushed his mouth over her eyes. "I knew," he
murmured.
"I don't mind if you look at me."

She was still trembling when he got to his feet and

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Palmer

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King

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pulled her up with him, slowly retying the
straps at
her shoulders.

"You
look loved," he said unexpectedly. He
brushed her tangled
hair away from her damp face,
then turned away to pick up his shirt.

To Elissa's amazement, her hand
reached out to
protest when he started to
put it on.

He looked
up in surprise, then gently drew her hands to him. "Go ahead. Indulge
yourself."

"You don't mind?" she
asked, savoring his hair-
roughened skin
with hands that had never known a
man's
body.

"Mind?
Not in the least," he returned. "Come
here. I'll teach you
how."

She
hadn't known there was a right and wrong way
to touch a man, but
with his hands showing her how,
urging her mouth to his skin, teaching her
what excited him, what pleased him the most, she felt her
confidence
grow, and with it a new sense of womanly
power. She didn't protest, not even when
he guided her hands and let her experience him in a way she'd
never dreamed of.

Finally
he emitted a low groan and slid her arms around his waist.

"Sometimes
I forget how innocent you are," he
said in her ear. He
bit it, laughing softly, and his
cheek nuzzled hers. "You make me
forget," he whis
pered. He drew his mouth across her cheek,
then

raised his head to
search her eyes. "You shut out the
world while I'm
holding you."

He kissed
her gently then, and she understood. She
blotted out his
hunger for Bess—that was what he
meant.

But I love
you, she wanted to say. I love you, and
I want so much more
of you than this. Two years of friendship, and it had never occurred to her
just how
necessary
he'd become to her, just how possessive she'd become of him. Nothing he'd done
to her was
unwelcome. She realized she
could lie with him and
give herself
and live on it for the rest of her life,
despite all her hard-won principles. Was that lust? Or
was it the natural hunger for oneness, for total
knowl
edge?

With his
mouth still over hers, she frowned and
opened her eyes, only
to find his eyes open and
watching her. Her heart went wild. His tongue
pene
trated her mouth, his hands came up under her breasts,
and she
couldn't sustain the look a second longer. She
closed her eyes with
a hungry moan, and he kissed
her deeply, thoroughly, before finally releasing her
and putting her from him. She straightened up and
smoothed out her dress as best she
could.

"Don't
brush your hair," he said when she reached
for a brush on his
dresser just as they were about to leave the room.

"Why not? I must look a mess."

"Because I want her to see you like this," he
said