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James, disturbed by the sensual movement of her body against his, woke up, cursing silently as he reached out to push her away and put some distance between them.
In her sleep Poppy protested about the removal of the warmth which had been giving her so much pleasure, the body which had felt so good against her own, the man who had made her feel so protected and loved, and she protested both verbally and physically, muttering a husky plea for him to come back and, at the same time, resisting his attempts to put some distance between them, wriggling her body back against his and curling her fingers possessively around his wrist.
‘Poppy...’ James warned her savagely under his breath.
He had always prided himself on his self-control. The need to conceal his own feelings had been something he had learned young—he had had no other option when his father had died or when... But there came a point when no amount of self-control was enough, when no man...
He took hold of Poppy’s shoulder, shaking her, but her eyes remained tightly closed, her body locked in sleep. In the moonlit room he could see the rich tumble of her hair, silk against silk where it lay against her skin; he reached out and touched it, smoothing the tangled tendrils.
Poppy smiled sensuously as she breathed in the familiar scent of his skin. She moved her head and touched her lips to his shoulder, sighing blissfully as she absorbed the taste of him, opening her mouth so that she could touch him with her tongue.
James went completely still and then slowly lifted his hand from her hair, but it was too late—had been too late, he suspected, since he had walked into the bedroom and seen her discarded robe lying on the floor and known that she was sleeping naked.
‘Poppy.’
As he said her name he gathered up his strength to push her away and instead discovered that he was actually gathering her closer—so close that they were lying body to body—and that the hands which should have been holding her away from him were actually moving urgently over her skin, following the narrow contours of her back, the feminine curve of her waist and hips, the smooth roundness of her buttocks.
Her lips were still touching his skin, and against his body he could feel the excited thud of her heartbeat.
If she woke up now she would feel the equally aroused pounding of his, and the even more betraying arousal of another part of him. If he had any sense, any thought of self-preservation he would...
James bent his head and slid one hand into Poppy’s hair, tilting her face up to meet his, covering her mouth with his.
When Poppy woke up she discovered that she was being kissed in the most sensual, demanding and exciting way that she had ever known, her whole body responding to the hungry male pressure of the mouth caressing hers, the male hand that held her locked against him so that their bodies fitted together as exactly and perfectly as two separate pieces of one complete whole.
As she breathed in dizzily, she felt her breasts swell and press against his chest, his body moving to accommodate the movement of hers, the sensation of his skin dragging slightly against hers so shockingly erotic that she trembled and moved more urgently against him, wanting to repeat it, wanting to feel him against her—
She wanted to feel all of him against her, she recognised longingly as she moved her body pleadingly against his, trying to seek even closer contact with him, needing to feel the sensual roughness of his body hair against her, wanting more, much, much more than the tormenting male heat and hardness of his aroused body, which, for some reason, he was allowing merely to rest lightly against hers when she wanted...
Poppy tried to show him exactly what it was she wanted by opening her mouth under his and kissing him passionately at the same time as she moved her hips against him, pressed her breasts against him, arched her spine and made soft keening sounds of need as she opened her legs and rubbed her body hungrily against his.
It was unfair of him to withhold himself from her like this when he knew how much she wanted him, how much she needed him, how much she loved him.
Poppy’s soft moans of protest turned to sharper sounds of delight when he suddenly responded to the urgent little movements of her body, thrusting his thigh between hers and making her shiver from head to foot with pleasure at the sensation of his hair-roughened flesh moving against the silky softness of hers.
It must feel good to him as well, she realized, because now he kissed her much more passionately, thrilling her with the husky growl of her name as he held her face in his hands and circled her lips with his tongue-tip, using the weight of his body and the pressure of his hands to make her lie completely still while he teased her with the movement of his tongue and an even more erotic movement of his hips to the point where she couldn’t be still any more and her body physically and very visibly shuddered in uncontrollable response to what he was doing to her.
For how many years had she longed for him like this, dreamed of him holding her like this, wanting her like this, loving her like this ...? All the feelings and needs she had suppressed surged up inside her in a flood-tide that swept her with it, drowning out everything but her need and her desire.
‘No,’ she protested in a husky whisper when his mouth left hers and he lifted her wrist to kiss the delicate, blue-veined skin. ‘Not there, not there,’ she urged; her body burned, ached, hurt almost with her need for him.
The memory of the couple that she had discovered in the Jacuzzi made her shudder, the blood burning up under her skin as he lifted his mouth from her wrist and asked her thickly, ‘Not there... Where, then, Poppy? Where...?’
His voice sounded different, deeper, rougher, much more raw and masculine somehow, and she shivered again as she recognised why. It was the voice of a man who was aroused... who wanted her...
‘Here,’ she told him, placing his hand against her breast, holding her breath almost as she looked first into his eyes and then at his mouth. His mouth...
‘Here,’ she heard him repeat softly, and the feel of his mouth against her, slowly caressing her nipple, was almost more than she could bear. Her body, her senses weren’t equipped to handle so much pleasure, and yet not to have it would have been a loss she could not bear to contemplate.
‘And this one?’ she heard him asking her hoarsely as he slowly released one breast to turn to the other, lingering over a delicate exploration of it whilst he waited for her response.
Did he really need to ask? Poppy wondered feverishly, but she still said the words, whispering them jerkily as she told him, ‘Yes... oh, yes... yes...’
This time the sensation of his suckling on her nipple actually made her cry out in exquisite, sharp pleasure—a high, bitter-sweet sound that made him take hold of her so tightly that she could feel the bite of his fingers against the flesh of her waist, his mouth moving on her so demandingly that she wasn’t sure if she could endure such intense pleasure.
She could feel the sexual tension that he was creating within her coiling and stretching like a tautly drawn cord from her breasts right the way down her body so that her womb ached as hotly as her breasts and her need for him drenched her skin in a moist heat.
And somehow, as though he knew how and where that cord ran and why, he started to trace its pathway along her body until the sensation of his mouth moving over her made her tremble wildly and cry out to him that she couldn’t bear any more, that the intensity of what she was feeling was too much for her to endure, that she felt as though the terrible pressure of her desire for him was somehow going to tear her apart, destroy her self-control, make her...
Her eyes wet with tears, she tried to tell him how not even all the years of wanting this, of aching for him had prepared her for the intensity of what she was experiencing...how she had never known that just looking at his body, so strongly and powerfully male, would fill her with a need that she couldn’t control and that touching him and being touched by him would quicken her pulse and her heartbeat until her whole body shook with the violence of their excitement.
‘I never knew i
t would be like this,’ she told him helplessly. ‘All these years and I never knew it could be... it would be...’
She felt his own hand tremble as he cupped her face and kissed her gently, his mouth absorbing the dampness of her emotional tears.
‘No,’ he told her thickly, ‘but I did.’ And then he was kissing her as Poppy had never known that it was possible to be kissed, so that the pressure of his mouth and the thrust of his tongue was an act of possession as intimate and shockingly intense as the final act of possession itself.
His hands swept down over her body, his thigh nudging hers apart, his body so fully aroused that her hot flood of eager response was shot through with small, bright sparks of apprehensive female awe and female pride at knowing that she was the one who had aroused him so intensely, that she was the one he wanted, the one...
The touch of his hand against her sex as he stroked her swamped her with hot forked-lightning darts of pleasure, making her move her body closer to him, making her...
She reached down for his hand, her voice unsteady with emotion as she told him, ‘No... not that... it’s you I want... you.’ And then, as her control broke when he moved over her then into her, she cried out, ‘Oh, yes... yes. Oh, Chris, I want you so much—’
‘Chris!’
The name was snarled at her, hurled back at her, the exquisite, unbearable, unimaginable pleasure of the slow penetration of her body by his ceasing in mid-thrust as she felt him grasp her shoulders and then lift one hand to her face as he demanded savagely, ‘Open your eyes, Poppy. I am not Chris.’
No, of course he wasn’t Chris. How could she ever have imagined that he was, deceived herself that he was, believed that he was? Poppy agonised in shocked self-awareness as she looked up into the icy, furious glare of James’s eyes.
Her teeth started to chatter, her brain seized by a nausea so intense that it paralysed any logical thought.
Like someone in a trance she stared up at James. James, who had touched her more intimately than any other man had ever done. James, who had made her body feel... want. James, who...
