Merlyn's Magic. Кэрол Мортимер

stepping into my darkness.’ He placed her gently on the carpeted floor, away from the shattered glass, but close enough for them to feel the fire's flames against their nakedness. ‘I want to burn in your fire for just a short while.’ He buried his face against the brightness of her hair. ‘Warm me, Merlyn. Make me feel you!'

      The wanting she had experienced when she first met him hadn't lessened, and yet as she smoothed the tousled hair back from his brow and opened her mouth to his, it was compassion that warmed her. She wanted to ease his pain, even if it meant experiencing pain of her own.

      Their mouths moved moistly together, learning, seeking, possessing, the fierce thrusts of Rand's tongue giving her a pleasure she had never dreamt of. Rand had forgotten his living nightmare now as he lost himself to the magic of her body, caressing and knowing every inch of her, one of his hands protectively cupping the downy softness that shielded her womanhood. At the same time his head moved down her body until his mouth closed moistly over the turgid peak of one nipple.

      Merlyn arched her back pleadingly as his mouth released her to trail moistly down the curve of her breast, gasping her ecstasy as he claimed the other pouting nipple.

      Every inch of her trembled with need and, although he had been the one to plead with her, he was now the master, had become the conqueror without receiving the smallest resistance.

      But Merlyn needed to touch him too, her hands sliding down the dampness of his back to his buttocks, her nails scraping lightly across his taut skin, feeling the quiver of his flesh beneath her caresses, knowing how to please him instinctively.

      She moved determinedly, the aggressor now as Rand lay beneath her, controlling his entry as she moved on top of him, feeling the hard swell of him slowly move inside her, hoping he would put this delay down to an effort on her part to prolong his pleasure. His head was thrown back, his jaw clenched as she lifted herself up before lowering herself for a second time.

      ‘Now, Merlyn,’ he gasped his need. ‘Don't play any more, take all of me!'

      She was trying to. God, she was trying to! But she had never been with a man before tonight!

      Rand felt like velvet against her, and she knew her body cried out for him, but the barrier of her virginity had to be overcome first, and it was proving more difficult than she had imagined. The books described it as a sharp pain and then, if your lover was considerate enough, the pleasure began. She didn't remember any of them saying it was like this.

      Desperation had replaced passion as she once again lowered herself on to Rand, frustration making her sob as the barrier once again stopped his full entry. She wanted this man, needed him inside her as much as he needed to be there, and yet—She bit into her lip until she tasted her own blood in her mouth as Rand lost patience with what he thought was her game and took matters into his own hands, grasping her hips to guide her down on to him, filling her, engorging her.

      After the pain came the most incredible feelings, as if Rand filled every space inside her. She felt overwhelmed, as if she belonged to this man, as if she would always be a part of him now. The tears that ran down her cheeks now were of happiness.

      And then the pleasure began, Rand showing her how to move above him to give them both the maximum fulfilment, his eyes gleaming their satisfaction as she gasped weakly at this assault on her aroused senses.

      The pressure building within her made her feel like crying and laughing simultaneously, the tumult rising inside her thrilling and frightening her at the same time. What was it going to be like, this physical satisfaction singing along her veins and clamouring for release?

      And then she knew. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before.

      Warmth, and aching, and fire burst free from the core of their joined bodies, Rand's teeth rough against her breast as he lost control in the river of her convulsions, his hands clenched into her buttocks as he quivered again and again inside her in his own spasmodic release.

      They had reached their pleasure in unison, and even in her ignorance Merlyn knew how unique that was in a relationship of familiarity let alone during a first encounter.

      Her lips were moistly open, her breathing ragged, as she languorously kissed every inch of his face, from the dampness of his forehead, the tautness of his cheeks, to the pliancy of his mouth. They had shared something so beautiful Merlyn never wanted this moment of closeness to end.

      And then she realised that Rand no longer seemed aware of her at all, that he wasn't even looking at her any more but at the fireplace—at the half-burnt photograph of his dead wife. There was a dull, lifeless expression in his eyes that told Merlyn none of his thoughts.

      But she didn't need to know them, had known when she offered herself that she had just been fulfilling a need for him. It wasn't his fault that she had broken the rules and felt as if she never wanted to be parted from him again!

      He turned back to her with darkened eyes, frowning heavily. ‘Did I do that to you?’ He gently touched the swollen tenderness of her bottom lip where she had bitten into it at the moment of his possession.

      She ran her tongue along the jagged soreness. The bleeding seemed to have stopped now, most of the blood having fallen on Rand's shoulder. ‘No, I did,’ she dismissed, wondering how on earth she was supposed to untangle their bodies without embarrassing both of them.

      Compassion softened the harshness of his face. ‘I never meant for that to happen, you know.'

      Of course she knew! ‘Neither did I,’ she said huskily. ‘But it's done now.'

      ‘Yes,’ he rasped.

      She swallowed hard. ‘I think I'd better go back to my room.'

      ‘Yes.'

      Tears filled her eyes as he made no effort to release her. ‘Now,’ Merlyn urged desperately.

      His gaze held hers as he slowly turned her on her side away from the fire so that she lay beside him, darkness enfolding her as his broad shoulders blocked out most of the glow given off by the flames. ‘I'm sorry,’ he said suddenly.

      She drew in a ragged breath, feeling bereft now that his body was no longer joined to hers. ‘I came to you,’ she reminded him.

      ‘Because you pitied me—–'

      ‘No!'

      He swung away from her to stand up and cross the room to once again stare broodingly into the fire. ‘It's the usual reaction when you find a man crying in front of you like a child!'

      ‘Rand—–'

      ‘Go back to your room—please,’ he encouraged with a harshness that brooked no argument.

      She hadn't been able to help him at all. All she had been able to do was give him a few moments of forgetfulness in her arms and then more pain. He felt as if he had betrayed his wife; he didn't need to tell her that, she just knew.

      Merlyn's bedroom looked just as she had left it, the bedside lamp still on, the bedclothes thrown back where she had hurried to see what was happening. But she had changed. Since her disillusionment with Mark she had avoided any real closeness to men. She went out with them, she had a good time, but at the end of the day she always went home alone. God knows she had had her chances for it not to be that way, Christopher Drake only the last in a long line of men who wanted her to share their bed. But she had never found any difficulty in resisting those physical entanglements that in the end brought nothing but heartache.

      Until Rand Carmichael. But she had felt no hesitation as she went to him, had felt that it was meant to be, as if she had known that from the moment she first saw him. Could it be that she had been so deeply involved with her research of Suzie Forrester these past months that for a brief time she had thought she was her? But that was ridiculous. Wasn't it …?

      * * *

      Merlyn was already in the lounge when Rand came downstairs the next morning. She had found the broken glass gone from the hearth, the room looking innocent of the stormy lovemaking it had