Enamored. Diana Palmer

hands on his chest, his back, in her soft cries and moans as he moved his mouth up to hers finally and covered her soft lips, pressing them open in a kiss that defied restraint.

      She arched against him, glorying in the feel of skin against wet skin, her bareness under his, the hardness of his muscles gently crushing her breasts. Her nails dug helplessly into his back while she felt the hunger in the smoke-scented warmth of his open mouth on hers, and she moaned tenderly when she felt the probing of his tongue.

      He was whispering something in husky Spanish, his mouth insistent, his hands suddenly equally insistent with other fastenings, hard and swift and sure.

      She started to protest, but he brushed his mouth over hers. His body was shuddering with desire, and he sat up, his eyes fiercely possessive as he began to remove the rest of her clothing.

      “Shhh,” he whispered when she started to speak. “Let me tell you how it will be. My body and yours,” he breathed, “with the rain around us, the jungle beneath us. The sweet fusion of male and female here, in the Mayan memory. Like the first man and woman on earth, with only the jungle to hear your cries and the aching pleasure of my skin against yours, my hands holding you to me as we drown in the fulfillment of our desire for each other.”

      The soft deepness of his voice drugged her. Yes, she wanted that. She wanted him. She arched as his hands slid down her yielding body, his lips softly touching her in ways she’d never dreamed of. The scent of the palm leaves and the musty, damp smell of the ruins in the rain combined with the excitement of Diego’s feverish lovemaking.

      She watched him undress, her shyness buried in the fierce need for fulfillment, her eyes worshiping his lean, fit body as he lay down beside her. He let her look at him, taking quiet pride in his maleness. He coaxed her to touch him, to explore the hard warmth of his body while he whispered to her and kissed her and traced her skin with exquisite expertise, all restraint, all reason burned away in the fires of passion.

      She gave everything he asked, yielded to him completely. At the final moment, when there was no turning back, she looked up at him with absolute trust, absorbing the sudden intrusion of his powerful body with only a small gasp of pain, lost in the tender smile of pride he gave at her courage.

      “Virgin,” he whispered, his eyes bright and black as they held hers. He began to move, very slowly, his body trembling with his enforced restraint. “And so we join, and you are wholly mine. Mi mujer. My woman.”

      She caught her breath at the sensations he was causing, her eyes moving and then darting away, her face surprised and loving and hungry all at the same time, her eyes full of wonder as they lifted back to his.

      “Hold me,” he whispered. “Hold tight, because soon you will begin to feel the whip of passion and you will need my strength. Hold fast, querida, hold fast to me, give me all that you are, all that you have…adorada,” he gasped as his movements increased with shocking effect. “Melissa mía!”

      She couldn’t even look at him. Her body was climbing to incredible heights, tautening until the muscles seemed in danger of snapping. She cried out something, but he groaned and clasped her, and all too soon she was reaching for something that had disappeared even as she sought to touch it.

      She wept, frustrated and aching and not even able to explain why.

      He kissed her face tenderly, his hands framing it, his eyes soft, wondering. “You did not feel it?” he whispered, making her look at him.

      “It was so close,” she whispered back, her eyes frantic. “I almost…oh!”

      He smiled with aching tenderness, his body moving slowly, his head lifting to watch her face. “Ah, yes,” he whispered. “Here. And here…gently, querida. Come up and kiss me, and let your body match my rhythm. Yes, querida, yes, like that, like—” His jaw clenched. He shouldn’t be able to feel it again so quickly. He watched her face, felt her body spiraling toward fulfillment. Even as she cried out with it and whispered to him he was in his own hot, black oblivion, and this time it took forever to fall back to earth in her arms.

      They lay together in the soft darkness with the rain pelting around them, sated, exquisitely fatigued, her shirt and his pulled over them for a damp blanket. He bent to kiss her lazily from time to time, his lips soft and slow, his smile gentle. For just a few minutes there was no past, no future, no threat of retribution, no piper to pay.

      Melissa was shocked by what had happened, so in love with him that it had seemed the most natural thing on earth at the time to let him love her. But as her reason came back, she became afraid and apprehensive. What was he thinking, lying so quietly beside her? Was he sorry or glad, did he blame her? She started to ask him.

      And then reality burst in on them in the cruelest way of all. Horses’ hooves and loud voices had been drowned out by the thunder and the rain, but suddenly a small group of men was inside the ruin, and at the head of them was Melissa’s father.

      He stopped dead, staring at the trail of clothing and the two people, obviously lovers, so scantily covered by two shirts.

      “Damn you, Laremos!” Edward Sterling burst out. “Damn you, what have you done?”