Sharon Kendrick Collection. Sharon Kendrick

me...’

      She saw immediately what he meant, and it made her feel strangely shy to be confronted by the very obvious signs of how much he wanted to make love. She found that her fingers had started to falter, and that her cheeks had become stained with a mixture of desire and embarrassment.

      She looked down to find that the black leather of his jeans was stretched almost indecently over his arousal, and she suddenly felt an overwhelming need to have him deep inside her.

      She felt her body stir into life with the soft, silken rush of desire—instinctively reacting to him in a way she had been half afraid she might have forgotten for ever. But oh, thank heavens, she hadn’t.

      She felt tears prick the backs of her eyes and found her body trembling uncontrollably, and Cormack must have felt it too, for he halted the slow caress of his lips around the curved line of her jaw to look down at her questioningly.

      ‘What is it, sweetheart? Are those tears I can see?’

      She turned her head away. ‘No,’ she managed, on a broken little gulp.

      He turned her head back very firmly. ‘Yes,’ he contradicted her. ‘And what are they for?’

      ‘You’ll laugh...’

      But he shook his head unhesitatingly. ‘Oh, no, I won’t,’ he told her grimly. ‘Believe me when I tell you that I’ve never felt less like laughing in my life.’

      Did that mean he wasn’t enjoying himself? Triss found herself wondering nervously, in spite of her emotional state. Wouldn’t it be terrible if he decided to stop?

      ‘Tell me, Triss,’ he urged softly. ‘Please.’

      ‘It sounds so stupid to say it...’

      ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

      ‘It’s just that this—this feels like the first time all over again,’ she admitted helplessly, and then could have kicked herself for leaving herself so raw and exposed. ‘For me, anyway!’ she finished, with a small sniff of defiance.

      ‘For me too,’ he told her gently, his gaze very steady.

      She shook her head from side to side. ‘You’re just saying that!’ she objected. ‘You’ve had so many women, Cormack, that you probably can’t even remember what the first time was like!’

      ‘Yes.’ He frowned down at her and his mouth thinned into a critical line. ‘You always did have a rather over-active imagination where my sex life was concerned.’

      ‘But you’re surely not denying—?’

      ‘That I’ve had other lovers apart from you, Triss? Oh, no, sweetheart, I’m not denying that. How could I? But the reality is a lot duller than you might think. Or do you imagine that I experience the same kind of mind-blowing reaction to every woman as I do to you? Well? Do you?’

      Triss shrugged restlessly, the directness of his gaze allowing her to acknowledge that in bed, at least, what they had shared had been unique. ‘No,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I guess not.’

      ‘And I certainly have not been responsible for the endless list of conquests which you seem to have attributed to me!’ he finished softly, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners in that heart-stoppingly cute way which Triss had always found utterly irresistible. ‘Do you understand that, Triss?’ he quizzed softly.

      At that precise moment, Triss felt that she had been lured so far into his web of enchantment that all she could do was nod dumbly.

      ‘So...’ He kissed the tip of her nose, but she could see the strain of longing which showed on his face. ‘Are we going to ruin this by dragging up boring and familiar old arguments?’ he queried softly. ‘Or are we going to make love?’

      It had always been the same. On the one hand Triss was appalled by the outspoken way he came out with things like that...

      And on the other?

      On the other she thought he was nothing short of wonderful. Still, she realised despairingly. After all this time, the effect he had on her eclipsed just about every other feeling.

      Cormack was a man of action. He saw. He asked. He wanted. He took.

      And sometimes she took too.

      She opened her eyes very wide; their faces were only inches apart. ‘We’re going to make love,’ she told him.

      ‘Well, thank God for that,’ he murmured.

      Was that triumph she read in the light which flared briefly from the narrowed blue eyes? Suddenly Triss didn’t care. She needed Cormack now as never before, to fill this great emptiness inside her.

      And afterwards?

      Afterwards didn’t matter. She would accept the pain if she could just taste the pleasure one last time.

      ‘Cormack—’ she said, but she could hear the tremor in her voice and she recognised how tense she still was.

      ‘Shh,’ he soothed, and gathered her in his arms—not to begin removing her clothes, as she might have expected, but instead to lay her head against his chest, and to stroke her hair in that rhythmical way of old.

      It was both comforting and sensual, and Triss felt all the tension slowly leaving her body. ‘Does it feel strange?’ she ventured.

      ‘What?’ His voice was deep and reflective. ‘Having you in my arms again?’

      Triss bit her lip as she told herself firmly not to start wishing that things were different—they weren’t, and that was a fact of life. ‘You stroking my hair—only there’s hardly any hair to stroke!’

      She could hear the gentle amusement which softened his voice. ‘It’s interesting,’ he mused. ‘I can feel the shape of your head—and it’s a very beautifully shaped head, I might add.’

      ‘Is it?’ she asked, ridiculously pleased.

      ‘Mmm. Nearly as beautiful as your back.’ He moved his hands down to illustrate the point, and the strong fingers began to caress and massage her back through the linen of her dress.

      Triss wriggled into the warmth of him, aware that her body was beginning to react to him again. Cormack was very astute, she acknowledged—not for the first time. He had instinctively sensed her apprehension. And he was a master at slowing the pace right down when he needed to.

      At least, she had no other lover to compare him with, but her instinct told her that no one could better Cormack Casey when it came to making love.

      She had no idea how long they lay there, but she could pinpoint exactly the moment when she began to want him to do something more than just idly stroke at her back like that—much as she liked it. She began to move restlessly against him, but he did not take up her invitation.

      Boldly she raised her head and began to seek the smooth curve of his jaw with her mouth, momentarily stilling as she felt the first rough graze of his chin.

      ‘You need a shave,’ she murmured automatically.

      ‘I had a shave first thing. And don’t pretend, Triss. You like to feel my face rasping roughly against you, don’t you? You like it best when it scrapes that silken skin hidden at the tops of your long legs. That exquisite contrast between your soft femininity and my—’

      ‘Hard masculinity?’ she interrupted, and let her hand brush fleetingly against the rock-like throb of his desire, thrilled to see his eyes close immediately in almost pained rapture.

      ‘Triss!’ he gasped.

      ‘Mmm?’ she purred.

      He had clearly decided that he had exercised enough restraint, for he simply knelt up on the bed, peeled his grey cashmere sweater over his head and flung it carelessly over his shoulder like a seasoned stripper, treating Triss to the first glimpse of his magnificent bare torso.

      Now