Now You See Her Linda Howard(37)

"Good." His breath sighed over her closed eyelids. "Sleepy?"

"Um hmm."

"Go to sleep then, Sweeney." At least she thought he said Sweeney. Something about her name sounded different, but she couldn't quite place what it was. She inhaled with slow, deep precision, drawing his heated scent into her lungs and feeling something deep inside loosen and give way.

His hand covered her breast, his callus-roughened thumb rubbing over her nipple. She had never thought breasts were the great source of pleasure portrayed in books and movies, having never felt more than irritation when some boy grabbed hers and pulled the nipples and expected her to become incoherent with pleasure when what she really felt like doing was punching him in the face. She didn't feel like punching Richard. His circling thumb produced a prickling sort of heat in her nipple, then there was an almost unbearable tightening, and a hot wire of sensation ran from her breast straight to her loins, exploding there and spreading a different kind of heat throughout her body. She moaned, a quiet little whimper of delight.

He repeated the motion over and over, the pleasure building with every second until it seemed to take over her body. She was glowing with heat now, inside and out. She surged against him, back and forth like the gentle, inexorable wash of the tide. A faint remnant of caution was swamped by the flood of pure physical delight.



He tugged on her hair, pulling her head back. His mouth closed over hers, leisurely intensifying the pressure until her lips parted. He slanted his head then and kissed her, deep and hard, taking her with rhythmic thrusts of his tongue. Sweeney didn't open her eyes, couldn't open them, lost in a combination of fatigue and desire that both demanded and beguiled. Her fingers dug into the deep ridge of his back, slippery with sweat.

He moved a little, adjusting his position so that the hard ridge of his penis nestled against her mound.

She felt the soft folds between her legs open, just a little, and he rested between them. She started, a sliver of alarm working through the haze of desire, and that small movement rubbed her against his shaft in a way that sent pleasure rioting along her nerve endings. If the two layers of their underwear hadn't been between them, he would have been inside her then, because she couldn't stop the convulsive thrust of her hips. He groaned, deep in his throat, the sound vibrating in her own mouth.

She felt as if her body were a bow, the hot wire of sensation pulling her tighter and tighter, arching her against him. She made a small, desperate mewling sound, all but clawing at him in her urgency, her thighs opening as she tried to ride the ridge of his erection. She was in pain again, a different kind of pain, hot and empty, almost mindless with need. Richard gripped her bottom and rubbed her against him, and everything inside her tightened, holding her on the verge of shattering for one long, unbearable moment before the tension released and she convulsed on great waves of pleasure. She heard her own cries, thin and wild, muffled by his kiss, and then for a while she didn't know anything.

Her dazed senses gradually regained their function. She was sweating, she realized with astonishment; her body sheened with moisture. As her heartbeat slowed, she realized that his hadn't, but his touch was gentle as he settled her so that her head was pillowed on his arm. "Go to sleep," he whispered.

She didn't have any other choice. Her muscles were like water, unable to function. "I had a climax,"

she managed to say, and heard her own surprise.

"I know," he said on a low chuckle, his amusement strained but genuine. She nestled her face against him, breathed deeply, and like a child, was asleep.

Richard pushed the sweltering blanket down a little. He didn't want to trigger another of those alarming chills, but neither did he want either one of them to have a heatstroke. The apartment was so hot he could barely breathe. Sweat poured off him, and he hadn't helped the situation by what he had just done. Foreplay with Sweeney was more erotic than any full sex act he had ever experienced; her response was swift and intense, and utterly beguiling. He had never before enjoyed so much something that left him so frustrated; he thought one touch of her hand would take him over the edge.

He could have had her. She wouldn't have accused him afterward of taking advantage of her, because she had the kind of bedrock honesty that made her take responsibility for her own actions. But he would have been taking advantage, and he knew it. She had been alarmingly weak, all her energy sapped by that constant, convulsive shivering. Her defenses had been down, and he could have done anything with her he wanted.

What he had wanted most, it turned out, was to take care of her.

He didn't know how he had managed to control himself. He closed his eyes as he remembered the sight of her high, round breasts with the delicate blue tracery of veins and her small, tightly puckered nipples. Those soft mounds were flattened against his chest now, her nipples plumped but still firm enough that he could feel both of them.

Her cheek was flushed now with warm color, her skin smooth and supple instead of roughened with chills. Something was very, very wrong, but he couldn't begin to imagine what it was. There was no medical condition he knew of that would let body heat warm her but prevent any other means of heat from doing the same thing. Her condition this time had seemed far more extreme than it had during the other episode; she'd had all the symptoms of hypothermia, including the slurred speech. That was why he had stripped their clothes off, knowing she would get warm faster without the buffer of clothing between them. He had also known the other likely outcome and fought to keep himself under control while he deliberately aroused her.