From the Heart

nebulous fear, Jessica put her hands to his chest.
    “No. This isn’t what I want.” Yes, yes, it is, her eyes told him even while her hands pushed him away.
    In one move she was under him on the sand. “I warned you, I wouldn’t treat you like a lady.”
    His mouth lowered, took, and enticed. Fear was buried in an avalanche of passion. At the first taste of him, response overwhelmed her, wild and free. Jessica forgot what she stood to lose and simply experienced. His tongue probed, slowly searching, expertly seducing, while his lips crushed hers in an endless, exquisite demand. She answered, mindlessly willing, desperately wanting. Then he tore his mouth from hers to move over her face, as if to absorb the texture of her skin through the sense of taste alone.
    She fretted to have his lips on hers, turning her head in search. Then suddenly, fiercely, he buried his lips at her throat, wrenching a moan from her. The sand made whispering sounds as she shifted, wanting the agonized delight he was causing to go on and on.
    Her hands found their way under his sweater, up the planesand muscles of his back, down the hard line of ribs to a lean waist. The moist air smelled of salt and the sea, and faintly, of the musky scent of passion. His mouth found hers again, unerringly, as water crashed like thunder on the rocks nearby. She felt his lips move against hers, though the meaning of his murmur was lost to her. Only the tone—a hint of angry desperation—came through. Then his hands began to search, with bruising meticulousness, from her hips to her breasts, lingering there as if trapped by the softness. She was unaware of the sun beating down on her closed lids, of the coarse sand under her back. There was only his lips and hands now.
    Calloused fingers ran over her skin, scraping, kindling fresh fires while feeding those already ablaze. Roughly he caught her bottom lip between his teeth, drawing it into his mouth to suck and nibble until her sighs were moans. In a sudden frenzy Jessica arched against him, center to throbbing center. Denim strained against denim in a thin, frustrating barrier.
    On a groan, Slade buried his face in her hair, immersed in the scent of it as he groped for control. But there’d be no control, he knew, with the taste and scent and feel of her overpowering him.
    With a muffled oath he rolled from her, springing up before she could touch him and make him forget all reason.
    Slade drew air into his lungs harshly, letting it cool the heat that radiated through him. He had to be out of his mind, he thought, to have come that close to taking her. Seconds passed. He could tick them off by the sound of her unsteady breathing behind him. And his own.
    “Jess—”
    “No, don’t say anything. I get the picture.” Her voice was thick and wavering. When he turned back, she had risen to brush off the clinging sand. The glint of the morning sun haloed the crown of her head even while the breeze tossed the ends up and back. “You changed your mind. Everyone’s entitled.” When she started to walk by him, Slade gripped her arm. Jessica jerked against his hold, found it firm, then threw up her chin.
    Hurt. Slade could see it all too well beneath the anger in her eyes. It was better that way, he told himself. Smarter. Butthe words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Would you prefer that we’d made love on the beach like a couple of teenagers?”
    She’d forgotten where they’d been. Place and time hadn’t mattered when the need to love had been paramount. It only cut deeper into her pride that he had remembered and had maintained enough control to stop. “I’d prefer you didn’t touch me again,” she returned coolly. She lowered her eyes to his restraining hand, then lifted them again, slowly. “Starting now.”
    Slade’s grip only tightened. “I warned you once not to push me.”
    “Push you?” Jessica retorted. “I didn’t start this, I didn’t want this.”
    “No, you didn’t start it.” He took her shoulders now, giving her three hard shakes. “And I didn’t want it either, so back off.”
    Her teeth snapped together on the final shake. If hurt had outweighed anger before, now the tide was turned. Enraged, Jessica knocked both of his hands away. “Don’t you dare shout at me!” she yelled, outdoing him in volume. Behind them water hurled itself against rock, then lifted in a tumultuous spray. “And don’t intimate that I’ve thrown myself at you because