Slowly Carla came to her feet. Without looking away from Luke she skirted the fire, scarcely aware of the flames, for it was the golden blaze of Luke’s eyes that consumed her. Motionless, waiting, every muscle taut with his inner struggle, he watched her slow approach. He knew he should turn away from her, walk out into the rain and keep on walking until the heavy running of his blood slowed. He shouldn’t stay rooted to the land while she came closer to him. He shouldn’t watch with eyes narrowed against the pain of wanting and his whole body rigid from battling his endless hunger for the girl who could arouse him with a word, a look, a breath.
The girl he had promised himself he would never take.
Carla stopped only inches away from Luke. She looked into his eyes until she could bear no more. She leaned forward, speaking his name in a voice as murmurous as the rain. When there was no answer, she raised a trembling hand to his cheek. The gentle touch of her ringers made him shudder as though he had been brushed by lightning. She felt the violent currents of restraint and passion coursing through him as though they were her own. She knew if she touched him again there would be no more turning back for either of them, no more frustrated desire, nothing but the sweeping reality of a man’s hunger and a woman’s answering love.
Where once the depth of Luke’s passion had frightened Carla, it now sent wild splinters of sensation through her. She had never felt the sweet violence of her own sensuality with any other man. She doubted that she ever would – not like this, her body shaking as she reached toward the man she had loved before she understood what a man needed from a woman who loved him.
Delicate fingertips traced Luke’s dark eyebrows, the blunt Slavic thrust of his cheekbones, the knife straightness of his nose, the heavy bone of his jaw, caressing him as she had a thousand times in her dreams. When she touched his mouth he made a raw sound and she trembled. That, too, had been part of her dream, his wanting her until he would feel the same tearing pain at not having her that she felt at being separate from him.
"Love me," Carla breathed against Luke’s mouth. "Teach me how to love you."
"Baby," Luke said hoarsely, shuddering, unable to force himself to step back from her. "Don’t do this to me. I’ve wanted you too long."
"Please, Luke. Oh, please, don’t turn away. I’ve dreamed of you for so many years."
Luke looked down at Carla’s haunted eyes and trembling lips and suddenly knew that he could no more turn away from her now than he could walk out on his own skin. With that bittersweet realization an odd calm swept through him, a feeling of potency and certainty combined. In no longer battling himself he had redoubled his own strength. That was good. He wanted that extra control. For Carla, not for himself. For Carla he wanted to be the kind of lover he had never been with any woman.
A small movement of Luke’s wrist sent his coffee cup in an arc that ended out in the rain. Slowly his big hands came up and framed Carla’s face with a tenderness that stopped her breath. Only in that instant did she admit to herself that she had been expecting a passionate onslaught from Luke of the kind that had frightened her three years ago.
"I’ve dreamed, too," Luke said, his voice deep, watching Carla with eyes that reflected the warmth and heat of flames. "I’ve filled so many empty hours dreaming of living that night all over again, of having you stand in front of me again, offering yourself, looking at me and trembling with hope and desire. And now you’re standing in front of me again, and you’re trembling… Is it fear, sunshine? Tell me it isn’t fear."
"I don’t know why you make me shake," Carla said, trying to laugh, making only an odd, ragged sound. "But I know it isn’t fear."
Luke’s slow, essentially male smile made Carla’s heart turn over with desire. The leashed hunger in his eyes stopped her breath. Gently he turned her until her back was no longer to the fire. Without moving, hardly even breathing, he looked for a long time at the silken curves of her hair, the elegant arch of her eyebrows and the silent dance of flames reflected in her eyes. And then he began looking at her all over again.
She didn’t understand why he had turned her profile to the fire, why he made no move to touch her now. "L-Luke?"
"I want to see you," he said simply. "I want you to see me."
The warmth of his hands enveloped Carla in a gentle vise. His lips traced the graceful margin between her hair and her face, smoothed her eyebrows, breathed warmth against her eyelids, outlined the hollow of her cheeks, whispered along her chin. She stood enthralled, unable to move even if she had wanted to, unable even to breathe, suspended between Are and rain and the unexpected, exquisite tenderness of Luke’s passion. When his lips finally brushed her mouth, her pent breath came out in a moan.
Luke froze, lifted his head and saw the glitter of tears caught in Carla’s long lashes.
"Does my kiss really mean that much to you?" he asked, his voice strained.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, unable to speak.
"My God," he whispered, shaken.
He bent down to her mouth once more, murmuring the nickname he had given to her the first time he had seen her smile so many years ago. The sound of his voice mixed with the fluid murmur of water sliding over stone in the darkness beyond the fire. He brushed her mouth once, twice, then again and again, touching her with the tip of his tongue each time, taking tiny sips of her until her lips parted helplessly, hungrily, and the tip of her tongue touched his.
"Yes," Luke said huskily, encouraging her. "Do you want that, too? Do you want to taste me the way you did in the dining room?"
Blindly Carla turned her face to follow Luke’s teasing, gentle, maddening mouth, lips that kissed and lifted, kissed and lifted, never giving her what she suddenly, wildly needed. She made a sound of frustration and need that was too ragged to be a word.
"I hope yes is what you’re trying to say, sunshine," he murmured, flexing his hands, pulling her closer to his body. "I hope you liked the taste and feel of me, because remembering that kiss has kept me awake too damned many nights since then."
Carla’s eyes opened in surprise. "You, too? I would lie in bed and remember kissing you."
She didn’t understand what it did to Luke to hear that hunger for him had left her sleepless. She only knew that the powerful hands framing her face trembled for an instant. He breathed a word that could have been prayer or curse or both hotly mingled.
"Show me the kind of kiss you wanted when you lay awake," Luke said against Carla’s lips. "Show me your dreams. Let me make them come true."
Her arms slid up around Luke’s neck as she pulled herself up on tiptoe, balancing against his big body. His palms slid from her face to her shoulders and then around her waist, holding her close, but not so close that she would be frightened by the hard bulge of flesh beneath his jeans. Softly her lips brushed his and her tongue glided along his lower lip. He shuddered but made no move to take her mouth. Her arms tightened more and she trembled.
"Please," Carla whispered against his lips. "Please, Luke. In my dreams I tasted you."
Luke’s lips opened on a low sound of pleasure-pain and suddenly there was no barrier to the kind of kiss Carla had both remembered and dreamed. Her tongue sought and found his for a wild, hungry tasting; and then his arms closed harshly around her, arching her into his body in helpless response to the naked, innocent demands of her kiss. Instantly he tried to pull back, cursing his own loss of control.
But Luke found he couldn’t pull back. An unexpected, fiercely feminine strength held him close, for Carla was placing no leash on her own response, her own dreams. She was kissing him as she had dreamed of being kissed, hunger and trembling, heat and sensual fire; and something more, something she couldn’t name but knew waited for her within this one man’s arms.
Luke bent down, arching Carla’s supple body more deeply, bending her into the curve of his own body, satisfying her instinctive urgency to match a woman’s soft heat with a man’s hard need. His arms tightened even more as he slowly lifted her until she had no support but his strength, no place to rest but against his hard flesh, nothing but his heat and hunger surrounding her. She was spinning languidly, turning, folded in hot darkness, sweetly consumed by fire, and Luke was spinning with her, the taste of him spreading through her, his arms locked around her, a dream coming true, wrapping her in ribbons of fire.
A long time passed before Carla felt herself being lowered slowly to the ground, still held so close as Luke eased her down his body that she could feel each ripple of his muscles, the snaps of his shirt, the blunt metal of his belt buckle and the much blunter ridge of his arousal pressing against her. When her feet touched the ground she stumbled, taken unaware by the weakness of her knees. Instantly his arms tightened, supporting her. She felt the rock hardness of his thighs and then he groaned, locking her hips against his as he moved in the primal rhythms that had once frightened her and now sent an incandescent heat cascading through her, echoing the movement of his hips.
Groaning, Luke tore his mouth away from Carla’s and forced himself to loosen his hold on her. He was breathing roughly, all but out of control. His mouth felt empty, violently hungry for the sultry completion it had so recently known. He closed his eyes, caught between frustration and surprise.
"Luke?" Carla asked shakily. "What is it? Did I do something wrong?"
His eyes opened. Her breath stopped as she looked at the twin pools of molten gold. His smile was like his eyes, hot and restrained, bemused and very hungry.
"It’s all right," Luke said. "I just thought I knew all that mattered about men and women and sex. I was wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"I can’t put it in words, but I know it’s true just the same. Give me your mouth again, sunshine. I’ve never enjoyed just kissing anyone so much in my life."
"But I’m not – not that experienced," Carla said, perplexed and pleased at once, her thoughts vaporizing at the heat of his eyes, her hands clinging to his arms because she was thoroughly off balance.
Luke’s eyelids lowered in reflexive pleasure as he ran his thumb over Carla’s flushed lips. She followed his caresses with the tip of her tongue, caressing him in turn.
"You’re so damned honest," he said huskily. "Your words, your responses. I didn’t know a woman could be that passionately honest. It’s making things harder than I expected. Kiss me, baby."
"What things?" Carla said shakily, letting Luke take the weight of her body as she reached up to give him the kiss he had requested. Then she heard her own words and buried her face against his neck, realizing anew precisely what that hard ridge of flesh was beneath his jeans – and aware, too, that his arousal made her feel proud and restless and more than a little curious all at once. "Er, besides the obvious, that is."
"It’s obvious, all right." Luke laughed softly, realizing that his changed body didn’t frighten Carla as it had three years ago. He tilted her face up and saw the mixture of feminine pride and virginal curiosity in her expression. Amusement and passion warred for control of his body. Both won. "God, I wish I could stop time and keep you locked away forever. My own very private supply of sunshine," he said against her lips.
When Carla started to answer, Luke took her mouth with a hunger that shook both of them. She felt vividly the velvet penetration of his tongue, the power and hardness of his arms lifting her, the world turning and dipping, ribbons of fire wrapping around them once more. When the ground came up softly to meet her, she realized that she was lying on one of the sleeping bags with Luke beside her, urging her closer and closer to himself. She trembled even as she pressed more intimately against his big body.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You’re trembling."
"So are you."
"I know. I barely had the strength to lift you."
Carla’s eyes widened and her hands tightened on Luke’s muscular shoulders, silently pointing out the inherent power of his body.
"Yeah, being weak came as a surprise to me, too," he said, his voice uneven with desire and laughter. He whispered her name and bent down to her mouth once more. "I ache, Carla. Want to kiss me and make it all better?"
The passionate whimsy of Luke’s question made her smile. She was still smiling when his mouth came down on hers in a slow, complete mating that drew a moan from deep within her. He drank the small sound and thirsted for more.
Luke’s hands smoothed over Carla’s body, seeking her breasts, caressing them in hot silence. Her cotton shirt and sheer bra didn’t conceal her immediate response. He caught the hardened nipple between his fingers and plucked rhythmically, hearing her shattered moan, tasting it, feeling it, demanding it with the deep seduction of his kiss and the hunger of his hands.
When Carla’s breasts were hot and swollen, their tips hard and aching for more of Luke’s caresses, his right hand slid down her body. Stroking, probing, smoothing, inciting, he savored the curve of her waist and belly. She arched against his hand, burning and shivering, needing something more, unable to tell him what she wanted because her mouth was wholly his, caught in a slow mating she didn’t want to end.
Luke’s palm caressed her hips and thighs repeatedly, pressing against her, moving her in the rhythms of his tongue deep within her sweet mouth. Gently, inevitably, his hand eased higher and higher between her thighs until he could go no farther. His fingers curved around her and his palm began to move slowly, insistently, rhythmically; and the sultry heat that blossomed at his touch made him groan.
His hands and mouth became harder, more demanding, dragging a broken sound from Carla, a sound that incited Luke unbearably. He wanted to hear more such cries ripple from her, wanted to coax them from her in a fiery, unending cascade, wanted to discover and savor and taste each of her responses. He wanted to consume her and find hot consummation in an unbridled intimacy he had neither sought nor desired with any woman but her, and he wanted it until he died.
The broken whimpers Carla was making finally penetrated Luke’s passion. He tore his mouth away from hers and dragged his hands free of her rich, alluring softness.
"Luke – please – I – "
In the moment before control came back to Luke, he shuddered like a man in torment.
"Sorry," he said hoarsely, smoothing the hair away from Carla’s face. "I’m sorry, sunshine. I didn’t mean to frighten you."
"That’s not – " Carla’s voice broke. "I didn’t mean – "
She tried to bring herself under control but couldn’t. She made a ragged sound and captured one of Luke’s hands, kissed his palm, then closed her teeth on it in helpless response to the baffling, conflicting feelings raging within her, wanting to caress and savage him at the same time.
"Oh, baby," Luke said, closing his eyes, his whole body clenched in violent response. "You’re killing me and you don’t even know it."
"I’m sorry," Carla said shakily, shocked by her own actions. "I don’t know why I did that. I just – just – "
He didn’t wait for her to finish her sentence. "I’ll forgive you if you do it again."
"What?"
"You heard me. Only harder, baby. Harder."
Luke’s body tightened as Carla sank her teeth into the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb. Her barely restrained violence told Luke that her frustration equaled his own, and she didn’t even know what she was missing. The thought of giving her what she needed sent a searing rush of blood through his body that nearly undid him.
Watching Carla, feeling as though he were going to lose control with the next breath or the one after, Luke lifted his hand, licked the small marks she had left on his skin and saw her tremble. His fingers closed on his collar and he pulled sharply. The shirt came undone with a rippling sound as metal snaps gave way, revealing a dark pelt of hair and muscles gleaming with firelight and desire. His hand shot out and wrapped around her head, pulling her against his naked chest.
"Again," Luke whispered.
Uncertain, Carla brushed her mouth over Luke’s chest, raked him lightly with her teeth, tasted the salt of his passion and the fierceness of his restraint, inhaled the exciting smell of skin and soap and male heat Slowly she put her mouth against Luke again, tasted him again, felt the unbridled sensuality of his response. A soft, fragmented sound came from her lips as urgency rushed through her, twisting her, making her ache. Her hands clenched against his chest "Harder," Luke said, watching Carla with burning golden eyes. "Go ahead. Bite me. That’s what you want You’re shaking and tied up in knots and you know I’m the cause of it and you want it to stop but you want it to go on forever, too. You’re frustrated and on fire and confused and you want to take it out on me. Do it, baby. Do if."
With a small, wild cry, Carla did what Luke urged, what she wanted, what she needed. Her teeth sank sensually into the flexed muscles of his chest, testing his strength and her own restraint at the same time. He made a hoarse sound of pleasure and encouragement. Her fingers worked through the wedge of springy, silky hair, pulling and kneading, her nails biting into his hard flesh even as her teeth did.
Luke laughed and urged Carla on while he undressed her. His words were dark and hot, punctuated by the ragged rush of her breathing and his own. The scoring of her nails down his chest was like wild, hot rain, and the primitive caress of her teeth was stroke after stroke of lightning scorching through him, setting him on fire. He didn’t know how much longer he could endure the sweet torment, but he knew he was going to find out. The thought of denying himself one fiery instant of Car-la’s passion was worse than any frustration he might feel at the moment.
With a hoarse groan Luke finally pulled Carla’s mourn up to his own and devoured her in a ravenous kiss that would have frightened her only minutes before; but now she needed that fierce claiming more than breath itself. She put her arms around his neck, tangled her fingers deeply in his hair and gave back the kiss with an unleashed passion that matched his.
The world spun again as Luke’s hands moved over Carla like hard, warm rain, dissolving everything away, leaving her naked and shivering in his arms. He held her, felt her shaking, heard her broken breaths and remembered all the years he had spent dreaming of having her offer herself to him again and his own vow that he would be gentle if she ever did. Cursing his own nearly overwhelming need, aching, burning alive, he fought for self-control.
Carla called his name, her voice breaking.
"It’s all right," Luke said tightly. "I won’t hurt you, sunshine. You’re so wild that I forgot you’re not used to this."
She forced herself to breathe. "C-can you get used to this?"
"Being naked?"
She shook her head. He saw the helpless shivering of her body and waited, but she said nothing more.
"What?" he urged softly.
Carla made an odd sound and dug her nails into Luke’s chest in an unconscious gesture of sheer frustration.
"Wanting," she said, her voice aching. "And not having. Wanting and wanting and wanting."
Before she had finished speaking, Luke turned away and began stripping off his own clothes, throwing them aside. When he turned back to Carla and lay on his side again, she was sitting up, looking at him. All of him. He froze, motionless, regretting his haste and the fact that she had never seen a naked, aroused man before; and he had never been more aroused. He saw the change in her expression, the heedless passion suddenly checked, as though the blunt reality of his hunger had shocked her.
"Still want me?" Luke asked, his voice rough with restraint.
Carla’s only answer was the glide of her fingernails over Luke’s chest, down the center line of his body, below his navel to the thatch of dark hair. There she hesitated for a moment before she touched the evidence of his desire with curious fingertips. When he jerked reflexively, she looked up into his blazing golden eyes.
"I don’t know which is more exciting," he said thickly, "seeing your sweet curiosity or feeling it."
"You don’t…mind?"
Slowly Luke shook his head, then caught his breath as Carla’s soft fingertips found each irregularity in his hot flesh and lovingly traced it He had never known such a fragile, tender, consuming exploration. He had never guessed that he could be so aroused without losing control, but he refused to consider letting go, because even in sexual release he had never known such wild pleasure as he was discovering right now.
"Will you mind?" Luke asked, running his hand caressingly along Carla’s calf, her knee, her inner thigh.
"What?"
"When I touch you the way you’re touching me."
Before Carla could answer, his fingers had discovered the soft, swollen, sultry flesh at the apex of her thighs. She made a startled sound and reflexively closed her legs around his hand.
"Is that yes or no?" Luke asked, rubbing gently, finding and stroking the nub hidden within her soft folds.
Carla’s breath broke as pleasure showered through her, a wild, unexpected cascade of sensation that made her shudder. He felt the sudden, small melting, saw mist bloom beneath the firelight on her skin and wanted to lower himself over her, sink into her, filling her, bathing his aching flesh in her passionate response. Eyes closed, back arched, moving helplessly against his touch, she shivered again, melted again, searing him with her heat.
"Sunshine?" Luke whispered, caressing Carla with tiny motions, tearing a moan from her lips. "Look at me."
Carla’s eyes opened, dazed by passion. His hand moved again, sliding over her, gilding her with the sultry rain of her own response. He wanted more, much more of her, but he didn’t want to take it. He wanted her to give herself to him while she looked at him, knowing every bit of what was happening.
"Don’t hide, baby," he said softly. "Open for me."
For a moment Carla looked at Luke; then his fingertips moved gently and pleasure shimmered and burst inside her. With a small moan she shifted her legs, allowing him greater intimacy, wanting it as much as he did.
"That’s it," he said, his low voice both praising and encouraging her. * "Brace yourself on your hands and relax those beautiful legs for me."
As Carla leaned back, Luke’s fingers moved coaxingly, skimming her flushed skin, teasing her, asking silently for what she had given no other man.
"L-Luke?"
"It’s all right," he said, his voice deep. "Just a little more. Open just a little more. Let me – " His voice broke as Carla obeyed, allowing him into her softness. "Oh, baby, you’re like honey."
He shuddered even as she did, pleasure rushing wildly between them at the slow glide of his caress, penetration and retreat, a silken measuring of her ability to receive the gift of his body. Slowly he rose over her, kneeling between her legs, redoubling and deepening his presence within her softness. When his thumb found and teased the velvet focus of her passion, she sank back onto the sleeping bag with a hoarse cry.
Luke froze, afraid that he had hurt Carla despite all his care.
"Don’t stop," she pleaded brokenly, looking at him, moving helplessly against his hand, caught up in an urgency that stripped away everything but her incandescent need. "Oh, Luke, if you stop I’ll die."
"Sunshine," he said, "baby, are you sure?"
Carla’s body answered for her, bathing Luke in sweet fire, burning away all his questions. Slowly he lowered himself over her. The teasing of his fingertips was replaced by the hard flesh she had so recently explored. The satin caress sent ripples of pleasure through her, expanding rings of sensation that burst sweetly, melting her in rhythmic waves. Gently Luke rode the waves of her passion, letting them ease his way, merging with her gradually, lovingly.
The slow consummation wrung a low moan from Carla. She had never felt anything so exquisite as the merging of flesh with flesh, the elemental fire of her lover’s body blending with her own equally elemental rain. A lightning stroke of pain flashed through her, but it swirled away and was lost in the glittering, gathering storm that was consuming her – Luke’s mouth on her neck, her throat, her eyelids, and his fiery words licking over her. She arched upward again and again in the primal rhythm of the union. His body enfolded her, surged deeply within her, a part of her. She tried to tell him that she could take no more, the pleasure was too great, she was dying; but the only word she could say was his name. A glittering darkness swept over her, followed by a wild shimmering of her body that shook her to her soul, hurling her into ecstasy.
Luke heard his own name called again and again, a passionate litany that echoed the rhythmic tightening of Carla’s body beneath him, around him, demanding all that he had withheld, all that he was, all that he had. Her name was a hoarse cry torn from his throat as passion exploded into a release that was unlike any he had ever known, violent and tender at once, ecstasy convulsing him savagely, softly, endlessly, as he gave himself to the woman he had sworn never to take.