Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(46)

McKenna stood close enough that she could see the grain of his close-shaven whiskers, a shadow that enhanced his swarthy masculine appeal. His lips were set in severe alignment, until brackets formed at the sides of his mouth. Aline wanted to kiss those lines of tension, soothe them away with her tongue, taste the corners of his lips…Desperately she shoved the thoughts away and lowered her face to avoid the sight of his mouth.

“It makes no sense that you should have stayed unmarried,” came his low, aggravated voice. “I want to know what happened to you all those years ago, and why you’re alone. What is the matter with the men of Hampshire, that none of them has taken you for himself? Or is the problem with you?”

That was so close to the truth that Aline felt a chill of unease. “Is this an example of your seductive skills, McKenna?” she asked crisply. “Seizing a lady in the servants’ hallway and subjecting her to an inquisition?”

That provoked a sudden grin, his baffled frustration disappearing with startling quickness. “No,” he admitted. “I can do better than this.”

“One would hope so.” She tried to move past him, but he stepped forward, his solid weight impelling her against the wall until there was no possibility of retreat. Aline gasped at the feel of his body, the thick-muscled wedge of his thigh between hers, the touch of his breath against her ear. He did not attempt to kiss her, only continued to hold her carefully, as if his body were absorbing the details of hers.

“Let me pass,” Aline said thickly.

He did not seem to have heard her. “The feel of you…” he muttered.

Awareness rippled through her as she was trapped between the cold, hard wall and the warm, hard man who held her. His body was different from how she remembered it, no longer loose-limbed and narrow, but bigger, heavier, imbued with the strength of a male in his full-blooded prime. McKenna was no longer the winsome boy she remembered…he had become someone else entirely. A powerful, ruthless man, with a body to match. Fascinated by the differences in him, Aline could not stop herself from sliding her hands beneath his coat. Her fingers passed over the burgeoning muscles of his chest, the sturdy vault of his ribs. McKenna went still, disciplining himself so sternly that a tremor of effort went through his limbs.

“Why are you still alone?” Aline whispered, swimming in the scent of him, a salty, sun-heated fragrance that made her heart pound in almost uncomfortably heavy beats. “You should have married by now.”

“I’ve never met a woman I wanted that much,” McKenna muttered. He stiffened as her hands coasted over the lean sides of his waist. “To be shackled by marriage vows would drive me—” He broke off and began to breathe like a winded racehorse as Aline let the backs of her fingers stroke his tense abdomen.

Relishing a sudden sense of power mingled with searing excitement, Aline prolonged the moment, letting him wonder if she would dare touch him the way he so obviously craved. His body was thoroughly excited, heat pouring from him in waves. She longed to feel the sleek masculine form beneath the layers of cotton and summer wool. Hardly able to believe her own wild recklessness, she slid her fingers over the outside of his trousers, until they curved delicately over the jutting length of his erection. A shock of pleasure went through her, the nerves in her palms tingling at the contact with his hard, tensile flesh. Memories of physical rapture elicited thrills of response from her sensation-starved body, delicate tissues swelling with anticipation.

McKenna groaned faintly and rested his hands on her shoulders, fingers splayed as if he were afraid of clenching her too tightly. She caressed the swelling, twitching shaft…up…her thumb rubbing lightly at the top…then down…her fingers flexing tentatively until his breath hissed between his clenched teeth. Up and down…the thought of having him inside her, being impaled with such plentiful maleness, brought a surge of liquid warmth to her own loins.

McKenna lowered his head, his mouth brushing over her face with the softness of butterfly wings. His reverence astonished her. His lips coasted to the corners of her mouth, lingered, then quested across her jaw until his tongue touched the soft lobe of her ear. Blindly Aline turned her mouth to his, wanting the full pressure of his kiss. He gave it to her slowly, possessing her by agonizing degrees, causing her to moan when he finally settled his mouth fully upon hers. Sagging against him, Aline opened to the penetration of his tongue. He tasted her gently, stroking the satin interior of her mouth with an exquisite skill that demolished her ability to think. The rhythm of her breath turned desperate, while all her muscles tightened with delicious urgency. She wanted to wrap herself around him, welcome him deeper into her embrace until he had sunk fully inside her.

Trying to pull her even closer, McKenna hunched his shoulders over hers and clamped one hand over her bu**ocks, lifting her to the tips of her toes. His mouth drifted to her throat, then wandered back to her lips, and he kissed her over and over, as if he were trying to discover all the ways that their mouths could fit together. His lips caught hers at a particularly luscious angle, and a soft moan rose in her throat, and she squirmed with the need to feel the full length of him against her. The movement of her br**sts against his chest drew a harsh sound from him. Suddenly he broke a kiss with a low curse.

Aline wrapped her arms around herself and stared at him dumbly, knowing that her trembling must have been visible to him…just as his was to her.