Darkness Dawns

Roland eagerly complied, his tongue gliding in to stroke and tease hers. His body tightened as lust hit him hard. Touching her sides just beneath her arms, he drew her nearer. She was so small. So delicate. He could feel the faint ridges of her ribs beneath his fingers as his thumbs brushed the sides of her full breasts.



Sarah thought her heart might burst from her chest as Roland’s lips seduced hers, first gently, then hungrily, speeding her pulse. Fire danced through her as his thumbs stroked the sides of her breasts, straying ever closer to the sensitive peaks. Again she rose onto her toes so he wouldn’t have to bend down so far. Smoothing her hands up his chest and around his neck, she leaned into him and buried her fingers in his hair, clutching a silky fistful.



He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her to him, a low growl rumbling in his throat. Sarah winced when one of his hands slid up her back and put fleeting pressure on the large bruise a tree had spawned. At least, she assumed there was a bruise. She had forgotten to look earlier, but it hurt badly enough.



His other hand followed the same path, triggering the same sharp pain.



A niggling thought pricked her.



Dragging her lips from his, she turned her head aside and tried to clear her muddled thoughts.



Roland merely kissed a path along her jaw and down her neck, making her knees go weak.



“Wait,” she protested feebly.



His body hard and throbbing with need, Roland drew his tongue across the pulse that beat rapidly just beneath the soft skin at the base of Sarah’s neck. “You smell so good,” he whispered hoarsely.



“That isn’t me. It’s your expensive bath products.”



He shook his head. “It’s you.” He drew in a long, deep breath and held it a moment. It was stronger now and mingled with the even more enticing scent of her budding arousal. “You could set me down blindfolded in the middle of a packed football stadium and I could find you by your scent alone. No perfume on the planet can compare.”



She tasted good, too, he discovered, brushing his lips over her soft skin. And there was so much more of her he wanted to taste. To feel. To stroke. Explore.



Resenting the T-shirt that kept him from touching bare flesh, he caressed her back and sought her succulent lips once more.



“Wait,” she said again, pressing against his chest. “Where are your hands?”



A groan of frustrated desire welled up inside him, but he didn’t let it escape. Swearing silently, Roland forced himself to take a step back, held his hands out to his sides where she could see them, and wished fervently that she had waited a little longer to come to her senses. They were both breathing hard as she stared up at him with lips red and swollen from his kisses. Her lovely breasts rose and fell rapidly beneath the cotton of her T-shirt, making him clench his hands into fists to avoid reaching for her.



He supposed he should apologize. He had taken an innocent gesture of affection and turned it into something else entirely. Not what she had expected, he was sure.



“Were you healing me again?” she demanded breathlessly.



He blinked at the odd question. “What?”



“Your hands were on my back. Were you trying to heal me on the sly again?”



He frowned. “What’s wrong with your back?”



Her fingertips still touched his chest, holding him at bay. She waved the other hand dismissively. “Just answer the question. The last time you kissed me, you only did it to distract me while you healed me.”



She didn’t really believe that, did she?



The suspicion and hurt reflected in her eyes suggested she did.



Well, hell.



“Distracting you while I healed you was only an excuse. I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since I woke up with your beautiful body stretched atop mine and your enchanting scent making my head swim.” He paused. “No. No, that’s not true. I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since you held me in your kitchen after helping me remove the spikes. That was a bit earlier.”



Her hands falling limply to her sides, she swallowed visibly. “Really?”



He nodded slowly, then took a step closer as a spark of heat returned to her eyes.



When she backed into the counter, he braced his hands on either side of her, trapping her in between. “You don’t know how much I regret passing out this morning. Missing the feel of your hands bathing my naked flesh.” Leaning down until his lips nearly touched the sensitive skin beneath her ear, he drew in a slow, deep breath. “I love your scent.” He let his lips follow a path down her neck to the hollow where it met her shoulder, still close but not touching, breath warming her skin. “Your every touch inflames me, leaves me hard and aching, unable to hide my reaction to you.” Raising his head, he stared down at her. “Can you truly not know how much I want you?”



Reaching up, she rested her palm against his cheek. Roland covered her small hand with his and held it there, savoring her touch.



“Your eyes are glowing again,” she whispered.



“They’ll always glow when I want you.” He hesitated. “Does it … frighten you?” Disgust you?



Smiling, she shook her head. “I think it’s beautiful.” Her hand moved beneath his and he released it, expecting her to withdraw. Instead she curled her fingers around his neck and drew him toward her. Leaning forward, she brushed her lips against the base of his throat, tasting him with her tongue.



Roland did groan then, pulse leaping, and rested his hands on her hips, gripping the material of her jeans tightly.



She placed her other hand on his chest and slid it down, burning a path across his stomach, making the muscles there quiver until she was cupping the heavy erection that strained against the front of his slacks.



Igniting at her bold caress, he stared down at her and saw the glow from his own eyes reflected in hers.



“I want you, too,” she murmured.



Roland swooped down and captured her lips, devouring her even as the hunger devoured him from the inside out. Finding her breast with one large hand, he stroked a hardened nipple through the thin T-shirt and lace that covered it.



She tore her lips from his with a gasp and began to stroke him through his slacks. “What are you doing to me?”



He licked and kissed a fevered path down her throat. “If you have to ask, I’m not doing it right.”



She responded with a sound that was part laugh, part moan. “If you weren’t doing it right, I wouldn’t be this tempted.”



Continuing to stroke and squeeze him, she drove him nearly mad with lust.



Giving her nipple a pinch, he poised his mouth above her other breast. “How tempted are you?”



“Extremely tempted.”



Roland fastened his mouth onto her breast, dampening the material of her T-shirt, finding the hardened peak and teasing it with his teeth.



She groaned, inflaming him further. When she abandoned his erection, he nearly protested. Then both of her small hands reached around, grabbed his ass, and pulled him flush against her as she rose onto her toes.



“I’m not like this,” she gasped.



Leaning his body into hers, he slid his free hand down the outside of her thigh, tucked his hand beneath her knee, and drew her leg up over his hip. “I like you like this,” he murmured around her breast. He could feel her heart beating wildly in her chest.



He rocked against her, urged on by those hands on his ass and her leg over his hip.



“You don’t—” She moaned, arched into him. “Y-you don’t understand. I don’t”—another gasp—“I don’t have sex with men I’ve just met.”



He slid the hand at her knee up her thigh, down over her lovely ass and farther until he was stroking her hot, moist center through the damp material of her jeans. “By sex I assume you mean intercourse?”



“Yesss.”



He raised his head and met her hungry eyes. “No problem. I can give you orgasms without it.”



Sarah stared into those glowing eyes, then grabbed a fistful of his hair and dragged his mouth to hers. His fingers continued to stroke her through her jeans as his body thrust against hers, increasing the pressure, raising the pleasure, making her wild with need.



She began an almost frantic foray with her hands, gliding them over his back, his arms, his chest, feeling the hard, heavy muscle ripple beneath her palms. His lips left hers, sweeping down her neck, briefly closing over the pulse that raced just beneath the skin before returning to her breast. Her head fell back.



The hand teasing her other breast slid around her back and crushed her to him.



Pain burst through her in a shattering wave. Sarah stiffened and thought she may have cried out.



His head jerked up, his eyes seeking hers.



Blackness swam at the edges of her vision.



She didn’t know what he saw in her face, but his hands left her in a rush.



Concern flooding his features, he eased her thigh off his hip and lowered her foot to the floor. “Sarah?”



She shook her head, unable to speak, unable to breathe it hurt so badly. Tears welled in her eyes.



“Where does it hurt?”



She shook her head again.



Gently cupping her face in one large palm, he held her gaze as the amber glow in his began to fade to brown. “Breathe,” he commanded softly.



She did, each breath choppy and torturous, realizing only then that she was clutching fistfuls of his T-shirt. Jeeze, it hurt. Every time she inhaled, it felt as though someone were pounding her back with a sledgehammer.



His thumbs brushed aside a few tears that escaped as she gradually began to recover. “If you can’t tell me,” he enjoined quietly, “show me. Is it your upper or lower back?”



Had the pain not begun to mellow from agony to hurts-like-hell, she probably would have told him, knowing he could end it. But she remained silent, breath coming a little easier now.



Perhaps her expression revealed that it was no longer that she couldn’t tell him, but wouldn’t, because she could actually see the frustration well up within him and spill over his handsome features.



“Don’t be stubborn. I’m at full strength. It won’t harm me.”