She explained, “I don’t know when it started. Maybe this morning, when I heard you singing, but something about that…about you… Or maybe it is your insufferable teasing. Whatever it is, Mr. Hawk, I feel as if I will go to pieces if I don’t finish this, if I leave your arms without this. I think that I need you, perhaps as much as you want me.”
Oh, how she wished to capture the look on his face to memory, for it was like watching a dam bursting. Gladness, passion, yearning—it was all there. With arms so strong she could barely breathe, he hugged her to him.
Was this love?
Perhaps. Perhaps.
His fingers unerringly found her breasts, and his lips soon followed where his fingers led, his long hair spreading over her, as though to envelop her in a sensuous curtain. Angelia threw back her head, glorying in the sweet uproar that was washing over her.
So this was what lovemaking was all about.
It was not a passive thing, nor was it stagnant. It was a living, breathing need. A need to take, a need to give. A need to be close, to draw close.
Reaching up a hand, she guided it through his dark hair, which was still wet from their adventure. Arching her back so as to give him better access to her bosom, she swept the touch of her fingers down his back, cherishing the shiver that crept over him.
So, he felt the fervor of her caress too.
For a moment, he ceased his adoration at her chest and glanced up to catch her gaze. Black, passion-glazed eyes met hers as he brought a hand up to trail over her cheek. Briefly, he smiled at her, then he let his fingers drop to her neck, up again to cup her chin. Next, reaching around to hold her gently, he raised her up toward him, bringing her face to his, where he rubbed his cheek against her own.
Oh, how gentle he was, how sweet his touch. Fire struck her insides, and starting with her stomach, it cascaded through her system like a wild prairie blaze. But she had to have more.
Slowly, she brought her lips to his. It was like the strike of a lightning bolt, that kiss. One touch, another, and then his lips settled over hers, his tongue seeking out her mouth, as though he would commit the act of love with lips and tongue alone.
For a moment, she felt the togetherness that she craved. Soon, even that wasn’t enough, and she squirmed against him.
He broke off the kiss, both of them barely able to catch their breath. His pure, masculine scent filled her senses, its woodsy aroma arousing. Again, she twisted in his arms. Heseemed in no hurry, and settling his cheek against hers, he uttered, “It is good between us.”
She, however, was incapable of speech, and she merely inclined her head.
Then he kissed her all over again, only this time as he did so, his fingers found that place between her legs—the place where her body ached for something. She was wet, either from need or from the river water, she realized, and his fingers slid easily over her.
Dear Lord, the rapture of that touch.
Never had she felt such stirring, such wonder, such bliss. Oh, that it could go on and on.
And it did.
He whispered, “Move your hips against my hand, and tell me if it feels good to you.”
Angelia really needed no such prompting. All on her own, her hips were already moving and she was wiggling against him, as if reaching for something.
One of his fingers slid into her hidden recess, there at the junction of her legs, and she thought she might lose her mind. In truth, she did lose it, if only for a little while. This, him, his touch and what he was doing with his fingers, only this held importance in her mind. There was no room for anything else…nothing but him.
While she fidgeted against that hand, he gazed into her eyes, smiling at her. “You are so beautiful, in this, as is everything about you.”
What an exquisite thing to say, and she responded to it, to him, in an odd way. She thrust her hips more vigorously and was suddenly tripping over the edge of reality.
Staring up into his gaze, there was nothing here for her but him, pleasure, sensation and utter joy. A tiny, high-pitched noise escaped her throat, and looking up, she discovered that his reaction to that wee bit of sound was strange. For he shut his eyes and shuddered.
Closing her eyes too, she rolled her hips over and over against that hand, against him, the pleasure washing over her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, until at last she reached the precipice of her pleasure.
Was this love, then? If it weren’t, she was very close to it.
She settled back against him, the need to be held close no dimmer than it had been before. When he made to rise up, she held on to him so tightly that he desisted any movement at all, and after he pulled her in even closer to him, they sat in one another’s arms silently, each one it seemed in hushed admiration of the other.
She had never been this close to another human being. And she had discovered something. Lovemaking was not only a joining of bodies, it was a fusion of spirit, because she had felt the essence of exactly who he was.
And she had found him…wonderful.
