The Australian. Diana Palmer

as he kissed her for the first time, tenderly, coaxingly, letting her feel the very texture of his lips before he showed her that he needed more than this.

      His breath seemed shaky as his mouth bit at hers. She kept her eyes tightly closed, hoping that if it was a dream, she could die before she woke. The silence around them was deafening, and she felt afire with awakening emotions.

      Her hands suddenly clawed into the thick muscles of his upper arms, and she stiffened even more as his mouth began to invade hers. She hoped he wasn’t going to waste her last few minutes with him by being gentle.

      His head lifted then and his mouth waited, poised over hers. His breath sighed out against her moist lips. “I can make you hungrier than this,” he said huskily. “I can burn you up.”

      His eyes frightened her a little, but she was too consumed by longing to care. She pressed closer against his tight hard body and stood on tiptoe.

      “Oh, John, kiss me hard!” she pleaded, clinging. “Kiss me hard and slow and pretend you want me!”

      “Pretend!” he bit off. His mouth swooped down. He could feel the hunger building in her young body, feel the first faint stirring of response in the tender lips accepting his. Ravenously he opened his mouth and bit at hers, not wanting to frighten her, but needing more than the trembling uncertainty of her closed mouth. After a minute, she seemed to like the tender probing of his tongue. Involuntarily her lips relaxed and began to part shyly.

      “Yes,” he prodded roughly. “Yes, that’s what I want. Open your mouth slowly; let me taste it with my tongue...”

      It was wildly erotic. Priss had seen men and women kiss that way in movies, with their mouths open, their bodies crushed together, but she’d never known how wildly arousing it was. She moaned against John’s demanding mouth, because the sensations he was making her feel were new and overwhelming.

      “Frightened?” he whispered.

      Her eyes drifted open, wide and drowsy and dazed. “No,” she moaned. “Oh, no, not of you; not ever of you,” she whispered shakily. “No matter what you do to me!”

      “You don’t know what I could do to you,” he warned gruffly. He studied her face for a long moment. His hands smoothed down her back, bringing her closer to his shuddering chest. One of them edged between their bodies and traced a line between her waist and the soft underside of one breast. She trembled again, her fingers digging into him.

      “Steady on,” he breathed gently, watching her face as his fingers began to trace her breast, watching her eyes widen with pleasure.

      She made a wild sweet sound and buried her face against his chest, clinging to him.

      “I need this,” he said, sounding shaken. “God help me, I have to!”

      She felt his mouth searching for hers, and she turned her head a fraction of an inch to meet it.

      “Keep your eyes open,” he breathed as he took it, ardently, roughly, and his eyes stared into hers. His hand moved at the same time, and he saw her pupils dilate until her eyes were black as he cupped her soft breast in his big hand and felt the nipple go hard in his palm.

      She moaned, feeling her body move helplessly against his, feeling her body provoke him, beg for his touch.

      He lifted his mouth. “It’s passion,” he whispered. “Don’t be ashamed of it. I need you as much as you need me. I won’t compromise you—not in any way.”

      As he spoke, he bent, lifting her clear off the floor, his eyes glazed with emotion. “Where are your parents?” he asked softly as he carried her into her bedroom.

      “In...in town, to have...to have the car...fixed,” she told him. Her voice was so shaky, it was hard to talk. “John,” she moaned.

      “Shhh,” he whispered. His lips brushed her eyelids closed. “It’s going to be exquisitely tender. I just want a taste of you.”

      “I’ve never...” she began.

      “I know.”

      He laid her down beside the open suitcase on the bed and slid alongside her. His mouth touched her face softly, lovingly, brushing every flushed inch of it, teasing her mouth. She felt his knuckles on her soft flesh as they slid beneath the bodice of her dress, and her eyes opened, because what he was teaching her was so beautiful, she wanted to remember him like this all her life. Even if it was only pity he felt for her, she’d live on these few minutes until she died.

      “I’m only going to touch you,” he said gently. “Here,” he whispered, tracing the slope of her breast where it was covered by the lacy wisp of her bra. “And here.” They moved under the lace, to the hard pulsing tip that screamed her helpless reaction to him.

      “Oh,” she moaned, shocked, arching to his hand.

      “New sensations?” he responded, savoring the feel of her, bursting with the triumphant knowledge that no other man had touched her. “I feel new sensations, too, Priss. You’re a virgin, and all your first times are happening with me. I feel humble knowing that.”

      She stared into his eyes. “I wanted you...so much,” she confessed brokenly.

      His eyes smiled. “Did you? And now that you have me?”

      Her lips parted. “I don’t know what to do,” she said simply.

      “Do you want me to teach you?” His voice was all dark velvet, seducing her, and he smiled as his big hands found the buttons of her dress and lazily eased them open down the front.

      “Yes,” she entreated. “But...” Her courage failed as the last button came undone, and the full force of what she was letting him do washed over her in waves.

      He shook his head, pressing a gentle finger against her protesting lips. “No,” he said. “I don’t want this to happen with some college boy, out of curiosity. Let me be the first.”

      Her body trembled. But she loved him almost beyond bearing, and she wanted his eyes on her. Only his. No other man’s, ever.

      His hands moved again, unfastening the bra. There was a second when she almost jerked away from him, but he controlled the instinctive withdrawal, pulling her face into his throat, making her close her eyes while he eased the garments down to her waist. She felt the cool air on her skin and his warm rough hands against her bare back, and her heart went crazy in her body.

      “Now,” he breathed, with his open mouth against her forehead. “Now let me look at you. Lie down, Priscilla, and let me see what you’ve shown no other man.”

      With breathless tenderness, he eased her back onto the coverlet and slowly his eyes feasted on her soft pink breasts with their hardened, uptilted tips. She flushed.

      But after the first few agonizing seconds of embarrassment, she began to relax, to take pleasure from the appreciation she read in his intent gaze. Her body seemed to like it even more. It began to move in jerky sensuous motions on the mattress and lifted toward him without her consent.

      “Do you want my hands?” he asked, lifting his eyes to hers.

      She tingled all over, her breath catching in her throat at the deep, fervent note in his voice. His sophistication made her innocence more obvious than ever.

      He sat up and one big hand smoothed across her flat stomach, across the bulge of the clothing at her waist. Lightly, slowly, holding her eyes, he touched the hard peaks of her breasts and watched her shudder.

      “Your breasts are like honey,” he said. “You’re like honey. So sweet, you make me drunk.” He bent, with his eyes on her bareness. “I want to take you in my mouth,” he breathed. “Are you going to let me?”

      She groaned helplessly, and her body arched again, inviting him.

      “Priss,” he whispered, sliding his hands slowly under her back. “Priss, come here.”

      He