Carole Mortimer Romance Collection. Carole Mortimer

she answered without hesitation, knowing that she didn’t. How could she possibly love James when Lyon overshadowed him in every way? She had known that when she’d looked at the two men together earlier. Thank God she had never married James; and she had never thought she would ever say that!

      ‘Then what is it?’ He frowned. ‘Did I hurt you?’ He touched her lips with gentle fingertips, lips that were slightly swollen from his earlier kisses. ‘God, I did,’ he groaned in realisation of the damage his savagery had done. ‘I never meant to hurt you, Silke.’ He shook his head.

      He was going to hurt her in a way he didn’t even realise, couldn’t be allowed to realise. ‘It doesn’t matter, Lyon,’ she told him huskily, shaken by the gentleness of his touch against her mouth. God, don’t let him be gentle now, not when she was already feeling so vulnerable towards him.

      His expression darkened. ‘Of course it damn well—’ He broke off, drawing in a ragged breath, both hands cupping each side of her face now as he wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumb-tips. ‘I’ve never made a woman cry before,’ he said gruffly.

      Not to his knowledge, perhaps, but Silke was sure that not all the women that had entered and then left his life had done so with their heart intact. She couldn’t be the only one who had wanted to know, and love, the man behind the cynical mask.

      It was madness. This was Lyon Buchanan, the man totally opposed to her mother marrying his uncle, a man who had only contempt for her too, and not only as ‘Satin’s’ daughter. But as she looked up at him all she could see was Lyon, the man she was falling in love with. The man she so wanted to kiss her again, but this time not with anger...

      ‘Never,’ he repeated huskily, a perplexed look on his face.

      Silke was powerless to move as his head lowered, his mouth claiming hers, not roughly this time, but with the same gentleness as his fingertips had touched only seconds earlier. And Silke was lost...

      The kiss of searching gentleness went on and on, never-ending to Silke, her hands first clinging to the broadness of his shoulders, and then moving caressingly across his back before becoming entangled in the curling thickness of the hair at his nape. Lyon groaned deep in his throat at the intimacy as Silke’s fingertips brushed against the sensitive skin there as she held him to her.

      His mouth instantly became more demanding, the tip of his tongue moving lightly against her inner lip. Silke’s mouth tingled from the caress, pressing more closely against him as that tongue invaded her mouth, invaded her, engaging in a duel with hers, a duel only one of them could win. And as Lyon lightly cupped one of her breasts with his hand Silke knew which one of them it was going to be...

      His thumb moved lightly over the fabric of her dress, finding the nipple that pouted there, sensations warming the whole of her body as he began a rhythmic caress that made her ache with need.

      And still his mouth possessed hers, his tongue telling her of his own need, the hardness of his thighs pressed against her, the muscles rippling across his back as her hands moved beneath his jacket to caress him through the silk of his shirt.

      His mouth was against her neck now, kissing the pulsing column down to the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat, his breath hot against her burning flesh. And still he continued to caress her breast. Silke arched against him, totally lost to all reason, all sense but Lyon’s touch and the feel of his hands against her body.

      ‘God, I want you!’ he suddenly groaned raggedly. ‘I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone or anything in my life before!’ He raised his head to look down at her with eyes dark with passion. ‘Silke...?’

      She knew what he was asking—and he didn’t need to; her own need of him must be so obvious to him! But they were who they were, and—

      ‘No,’ he bit out firmly as he saw the hesitation in her eyes. ‘We knew this would happen from the moment we first met. We both knew it.’

      Had she? She had been very aware of him then, but as a man filled with anger, not—

      ‘Silke...!’ he groaned again, his mouth nibbling at hers now, barely touching, asking, cajoling, tempting...!

      She couldn’t think any more, didn’t want to, only wanted this man, and the pleasure his caresses and kisses promised, wanted that with a hunger she hadn’t known existed within her.

      ‘Yes, Lyon,’ she breathed against his mouth. ‘God, yes!’

      He swung her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all—which to him she probably didn’t!—carrying her through the open doorway of her bedroom, laying her tenderly down on the bed, removing her clothes with the gentleness she had found so surprising in him after his initial savagery, until Silke lay naked before him, unashamedly so, the creamy softness of her body smooth and unblemished, breasts pert, her stomach slenderly lovely, hips curved and inviting.

      ‘You are beautiful,’ Lyon murmured raggedly. ‘Absolutely lovely!’

      She knelt on the bed, revelling in the pleasure of helping him undress. She had known his body had to be as beautiful as those hands she found so fascinating, and was not disappointed when he stood unclothed beside her, dark hair covering that muscled chest on its path down to his thighs, not an ounce of superfluous flesh anywhere, his stomach taut, his need of her evident in his nakedness.

      Nothing mattered to either of them now but pleasuring each other. And Lyon gave Silke pleasure as she had never known before, time after time, until she quivered with her need for his full possession, so desperately wanted him inside her, where she knew instinctively he belonged.

      ‘Touch me, Silke,’ he encouraged achingly. ‘Help me. Guide me.’

      He felt like velvet, and as he shuddered beneath her touch she knew they both wanted that velvet hardness inside her, sheathed inside her silky warmth, giving them both even more pleasure, pleasure undreamt of. And so she did as he asked, guiding him, groaning her protest as he would have stopped at the barrier that suddenly halted his progress.

      ‘Silke?’ He looked down at her with stunned disbelief.

      ‘Don’t go, Lyon,’ she pleaded as he would have pulled away from her.

      He shook his head. ‘But you’re a—’

      ‘Not any more.’ She took the initiative, arching up against him, looking up into his eyes as he breached that barrier, knowing only a brief moment of pain, and then that overwhelming pleasure returned as Lyon joined totally with her.

      ‘You—oh, God...!’ He ceased even trying to remain controlled as their bodies moved instinctively together in total harmony, bending his head so that his lips could claim a pouting breast.

      And at the first touch of his mouth against her hardened nipple Silke felt the shudderings of an ecstasy she had never known before, wave after wave of pleasure taking her away from any reality but Lyon and their mutual lovemaking. Because Lyon was just as out of control as she was, tried desperately to be gentle still, but finally gave in to the primitive urge that was even stronger than he was, his mouth claiming hers even as he moved rhythmically inside her. And Silke knew that earth-shattering ecstasy once more before Lyon groaned his own pleasure, filling her, engulfing her.

      * * *

      Silke had often wondered how she would feel after making love for the first time. And now she knew. Awkward. Embarrassed. Apprehensive... Maybe if it hadn’t been Lyon who had made love to her she wouldn’t have felt any of those things, certainly not the latter. But it was Lyon, a man she really hadn’t known for very long, a man whom she loved but who didn’t love her. A man who had been shocked by her virginity...

      She had loved James, but, as they had always known they were going to marry, the question of their becoming lovers before that marriage hadn’t really arisen. She had often asked herself, after James had gone off and married someone else, whether their lack of a physical relationship might have contributed to his going. Maybe it had. Although she doubted she would have known