Best Of Nora Roberts Books 1-6. Nora Roberts

that she lose any part of what she was to suit that.

      His shoulders were firm. Not so broad they would overwhelm her, but wide enough to offer security when she needed it. She brushed her lips over them. There were muscles in his arms, but subtle, not something he’d flex to show her his superiority, but there to protect if she chose to be protected. She ran her fingers over them. His hands were clever, elegantly masculine. They wouldn’t hold her back from the places she had to go, but they would be there, held out, when she returned. She pressed her mouth to one, then the other.

      No one had ever loved him just like this—patiently, devotedly. He wanted nothing more than to go on feeling those long, slow strokes of her fingers, those moist, lingering traces of her lips. He felt each in every pore. A total experience. He could see the glossy black fall of her hair as it tumbled over his skin and hear the murmur of her approval as she touched him.

      The house was quiet again, but for the low, simmering sound of the music. The quilt was soft under his back. The light was dim and gentle—the best light for lovers. And while he lay, she loved him until he was buried under layer upon layer of pleasure. This he would give back to her.

      He could touch the silk, and her flesh, knowing that both were exquisite. He could taste her lips and know that he’d never go hungry as long as she was there. When he heard her sigh, he knew he’d be content with no other sound. The need for him was in her eyes, clouding them, so that he knew he could live with little else as long as he could see her face.

      Patience began to fade in each of them. He could feel her body spring to frantic life wherever he touched. He could feel his own strain from the need only she brought to him. Desperate, urgent, exclusive. If he’d had only a day left to live, he’d have spent every moment of it there, with Kirby in his arms.

      She smelled of wood smoke and musky flowers, of woman and of sex, ripe and ready. If he’d had the power, he’d have frozen time just then, as she loomed above him in the moonlight, eyes dark with need, skin flashing against silk.

      Then he drew the silk up and over her head so that he could see her as he swore no man would ever see her again. Her hair tumbled down, streaking night against her flesh. Naked and eager, she was every primitive fantasy, every midnight dream. Everything.

      Her lips were parted as the breath hurried between them. Passion swamped her so that she shuddered and rushed to take what she needed from him—for him. Everything. Everything and more. With a low sound of triumph, Kirby took him inside her and led the way. Fast, furious.

      Her body urged her on relentlessly while her mind exploded with images. Such color, such sound. Such frenzy. Arched back, she moved like lightning, hardly aware of how tightly his hands gripped her hips. But she heard him say her name. She felt him fill her.

      The first crest swamped her, shocking her system then thrusting her along to more, and more and more. There was nothing she couldn’t have and nothing she wouldn’t give. Senseless, she let herself go.

      With his hands on her, with the taste of her still on his lips, Adam felt his system shudder on the edge of release. For a moment, only a moment, he held back. He could see her above him, poised like a goddess, flesh damp and glowing, hair streaming back as she lifted her hands to it in ecstasy. This he would remember always.

      The moon was no longer full, but its light was soft and white. They were still on top of the quilt, tangled close as their breathing settled. As she lay over him, Adam thought of everything Fairchild had said. And everything he could and couldn’t do about it.

      Slowly their systems settled, but he could find none of the answers he needed so badly. What answers would there be based on lies and half-truths?

      Time. Perhaps time was all he had now. But how much or how little was no longer up to him. With a sigh, he shifted and ran a hand down her back.

      Kirby rose on an elbow. Her eyes were no longer clouded, but saucy and clear. She smiled, touched a fingertip to her own lips and then to his. “Next time you’re in town, cowboy,” she drawled as she tossed her hair over her shoulder, “don’t forget to ask for Lulu.”

      She’d expected him to grin, but he grabbed her hair and held her just as she was. There was no humor in his eyes, but the intensity she’d seen when he held a paint-brush. His muscles had tensed, she could feel it.

      “Adam?”

      “No, don’t.” He forced his hand to relax, then stroked her cheek. It wouldn’t be spoiled by the wrong word, the wrong move. “I want to remember you just like this. Fresh from loving, with moonlight on your hair.”

      He was afraid, unreasonably, that he’d never see her like that again—with that half smile inches away from his face. He’d never feel the warmth of her flesh spread over his with nothing, nothing to separate them.

      The panic came fast and was very real. Unable to stop it, Adam pulled her against him and held her as if he’d never let her go.

      Chapter 10

      After thirty minutes of posing, Kirby ordered herself not to be impatient. She’d agreed to give Adam two hours, and a bargain was a bargain. She didn’t want to think about the time she had left to stand idle, so instead tried to concentrate on her plans for sculpting once her obligation was over. Her Anger was nearly finished.

      But the sun seemed too warm and too bright. Every so often her mind would go oddly blank until she pulled herself back just to remember where she was.

      “Kirby.” Adam called her name for the third time and watched as she blinked and focused on him. “Could you wait until the session’s over before you take a nap?”

      “Sorry.” With an effort, she cleared her head and smiled at him. “I was thinking of something else.”

      “Don’t think at all if it puts you to sleep,” he muttered, and slashed scarlet across the canvas. It was right, so right. Nothing he’d ever done had been as right as this painting. The need to finish it was becoming obsessive. “Tilt your head to the right again. You keep breaking the pose.”

      “Slave driver.” But she obeyed and tried to concentrate.

      “Cracking the whip’s the only way to work with you.” With care, he began to perfect the folds in the skirt of her dress. He wanted them soft, flowing, but clearly defined. “You’d better get used to posing for me. I’ve already several other studies in mind that I’ll start after we’re married.”

      Giddiness washed over her. She felt it in waves—physical, emotional—she couldn’t tell one from the other. Without thinking, she dropped her arms.

      “Damn it, Kirby.” He started to swear at her again when he saw how wide and dark her eyes were. “What is it?”

      “I hadn’t thought…I didn’t realize that you…” Lifting a hand to her spinning head, she walked around the room. The bracelets slid down to her elbow with a musical jingle. “I need a minute,” she murmured. Should she feel as though someone had cut off her air? As if her head was three feet above her shoulders?

      Adam watched her for a moment. She didn’t seem quite steady, he realized. And there was an unnaturally high color in her cheeks. Standing, he took her hand and held her still. “Are you ill?”

      “No.” She shook her head. She was never ill, Kirby reminded herself. Just a bit tired—and, perhaps for the first time in her life, completely overwhelmed. She took a deep breath, telling herself she’d be all right in a moment. “I didn’t know you wanted to marry me, Adam.”

      Was that it? he wondered as he ran the back of his hand over her cheek. Shouldn’t she have known? And yet, he remembered, everything had happened so fast. “I love you.” It was simple for him. Love led to marriage and marriage to family. But how could he have forgotten Kirby wasn’t an ordinary woman and was anything but simple? “You accused me of being conventional,” he reminded her, and ran his hands down her hair to her shoulders. “Marriage is a very conventional institution.” And one she