Only 05 - Autumn Lover

bodice. While he worked over the buttons, his mouth joined with hers in an elemental intimacy that was as new to him as it was to her.
    When the final button came undone, the fragrance of rosemary swirled up from her heated skin.
    It was like breathing fire.
    The sound Hunter made was of a man in torment. He wanted to kiss the nipples that had risen so swiftly at his touch, but he couldn’t force himself to end the wild mating of his mouth with Elyssa’s.
    Distantly Elyssa understood that her dress was undone, her chemise was in disarray, and Hunter’s hands were caressing her bare breasts.
    She didn’t care about her nakedness. All she wanted was to have the aching in her body be answered by Hunter’s soothing, inciting, consuming caresses.
    Hunter tore his mouth from Elyssa’s and lifted her swiftly. The fragrance of rosemary was all around his face. He breathed it in, worshipped it, and suckled a soft breast whose nipple drew up hard against his tongue.
    The coolness of moonlight and night against Elyssa’s heated skin was like a benediction to her.
    And Hunter’s mouth was a sultry paradise.
    Wildfire raced through Elyssa, shaking her, burning her. Every breath she took was a hungry sound, a sensuous whimper, a husky demand.
    Hunter felt the night turning to fire around him. Hewanted nothing more in life than to release his restraint and sink into the heart of wildfire and beyond, into a burning land he had never known before, yet had hungered for all of his life.
    He knew with utter certainty that such a world was here, finally, within reach. Within his arms. Burning.
    For him .
    And Hunter was on fire for her in a way far more dangerous than anything he had felt with Belinda.
    The knowledge was like being dropped into ice water.
    With a savage curse Hunter set Elyssa back on her feet. She stumbled and clung more tightly to him. He dragged her arms from around his neck and set her at arm’s length.
    “Hunter?”
    Elyssa’s dazed, husky voice undermined his determination. The sight of her creamy breasts and taut, hungry nipples nearly undid him.
    The realization that he was so much within Elyssa’s sensual grasp brought control to Hunter as nothing else could have.
    “ Damnation .”
    Self-discipline returned to Hunter in an icy rush. Along with it came scorn—at himself for his lack of self-control, at Elyssa for tempting him so mercilessly, and at his own body for being so easily and totally aroused by a little flirt.
    When Hunter reached for Elyssa once more, she put her arms around his neck and lifted her face for one of the hot, drugging kisses she had just learned to lose herself in.
    Hunter turned his face aside and removed Elyssa’s arms from around his neck.
    “That’s enough,” he said roughly.
    Elyssa started to speak. No words came.
    “Button up your dress before someone comes out of the bunkhouse,” Hunter said.
    Confused, off balance, uncertain, Elyssa just looked at Hunter. In the moonlight his eyes were as clear and cold as a winter sky.
    “I don’t understand,” she whispered.
    With an impatient curse, Hunter straightened Elyssa’s chemise over her breasts. The brush of her taut nipples against his fingers made her breath break.
    “H-Hunter?”
    Elyssa’s husky whisper tempted Hunter beyond endurance, as did her satin skin and hard-tipped breasts. With abrupt motions he began fastening her bodice.
    “Fun’s over,” he said curtly. “I’m through fooling around in the moonlight with an experienced little flirt.”
    “I’m not a—”
    “The hell you aren’t,” Hunter interrupted roughly. “You like getting all hot and bothered and having your breasts kissed. No innocent girl would have let me do that.”
    The flush that suffused Elyssa’s cheeks was visible even in moonlight. She looked down at her bodice. The sight of Hunter’s long fingers buttoning her back into her dress sent an odd weakness through her bones.
    “I’ve never done this,” Elyssa said huskily. “You’re the first. Surely you know that!”
    “Don’t bother with all the lies about how I’m different from the others. I’m not a boy. I don’t need lies to feel important.”
    Confusion, frustration, and flat-out irritation replaced desire in Elyssa. She put her hands on her hips.
    “Why won’t you listen to me?” she demanded.
    “Keep your voice down unless you want to put on a show for the bunkhouse.”
    “You’re acting like I’m the one who started all this,” Elyssa