Hidden Riches

his gut. But he continued to play her lips delicately, letting the moment spin out.
    “You’re shaking,” he murmured, trailing his lips down her jawline, sliding his tongue over warm, smooth skin, wallowing in the flavor of flesh.
    “That’s you.”
    “You could be right.” He brought his mouth back to hers, deepening the kiss until pleasure swam giddily in her head. Now there were sighs, and breathless murmurs, the hard thud of racing hearts.
    “Let me turn down the bed,” she whispered. But when she turned, shifted aside, he drew her back against him,nuzzling his lips at the nape of her neck.
    “That can wait.”
    His hands were spread over her midsection where the pressure was coiled taut as a rattler. “I don’t think I can.”
    “It’s not going to be quick.” He slid his hands up her sides, down again. “It’s not going to be easy.”
    “Jed—” His name ended on a moan. His hands were over her breasts now, caressing, thumbs skimming, circling lightly over the peaks while his tongue did outrageous things to the back of her ear. Eyes closed, she relinquished any thought of control and arched back against him.
    He used his teeth now, satisfying his own primitive need for the taste of flesh while he undid the tiny buttons that ranged from her throat to the juncture of her thighs. Her breathing slowed, deepened, like a woman in a trance. The side of his thumb barely brushed her skin as he moved with tormenting laziness from button to button.
    “I’ve had all night to wonder.” He spoke softly, close to her ear, and fought to keep his hands from taking too greedily. “All night to imagine what was under here.”
    Slowly, he spread the material open, skimmed his fingers down her center. There was nothing but woman.
    “Sweet Christ.” He buried his face in her hair as desire ripped through him. Her skin was hot and soft, the muscles quivering helplessly under his hands. Each tremor rippled from her into him as they stood pressed close in the lamplight.
    He hadn’t known a need could be so outrageous, or the desire to give and take so brutally keen, like a blade honed and waiting for its mark. He only knew he wanted every inch of her and the satisfaction of having her crave every bit as desperately as he.
    Dreamlike, she lifted an arm, hooked it around his neck. It was almost like floating, she thought. And the air was polished like silver. Then he would touch again, and that softly glowing air took on an edge, like a sword turned in the sun.
    Her eyes half closed, she leaned back against him, absorbing both the pride and the wonder as his hands roamed over her skin. She turned her head so that her mouth could find his again. Her lips clung, wet and hungry, urging him to take more. She could no longer pinpoint the focus of pleasure. There were too many sensations sprinting and careening through her. His mouth, yes, there was pleasure in that, the firm pressure of lips, the scrape of teeth, the tangle of tongues.
    There was more in the rock-hard press of his body against hers, the faint tremors that whispered of a violence held rigidly under control. The heat that shimmered around him that spoke of dark and desperate needs.
    And there were his hands. God, his hands that stroked and molded and possessed, just a few degrees shy of rough until she was afraid she would lose all sense of self and beg for more.
    Her breath came in whimpers, in low, throaty groans, and her body pressed back against his, rocking in a quickening rhythm that demanded. To please her, and himself, he ran his hand down the center of her body until he cupped her. She was already damp and heated. With fingertips only he sent her hurtling over the edge. Her body went rigid, arched back against him. She cried out as the fast, hard orgasm rammed her. When her legs buckled, he slipped deeper into her, groaning as she gasped out in stunned delight.
    “More?”
    Her head reeled. To keep her balance she locked her other arm around him. “Yes.”
    He drove her up again, arousal spurting inside him each time she moaned out his name. He understood a man could be drunk and on the edge of control without sampling a swallow of liquor. And that a woman could slip into the blood like a drug. As the greed welled inside him, he spun her around to drag the snug material over her shoulders.
    There was a fierceness on his face, a violence in his eyes that should have frightened her. Though her heart gave awild leap, it had nothing to do with