Man of the Hour: Night Of Love

“That I’m sorry you never made love to me,” she said without thinking.

The car swerved and his face tautened. He never looked at her. “Don’t do that.”

She drew in a slow breath, tracing patterns in the upholstery. “Aren’t you, really?”

“You might have been addictive. I don’t like addiction.”

“That’s why you smoke,” she agreed, staring pointedly at the glowing cigarette in his lean, dark hand.

He did glance at her then, to glare. “I’m not addicted to nicotine. I can quit anytime I feel like it.”

“What’s wrong with right now?”

His dark eyes narrowed.

“What’s wrong? Are you afraid you can’t do without it?” she coaxed.

He pressed the power window switch, then threw the cigarette out when there was an opening. The window went back up again.

Meg grinned at him. “You’ll be shaking in seconds,” she predicted. “Combing the floor for old cigarette butts with a speck of tobacco left in them. Begging stubs from strangers.”

“Unwise, Meg.”

“What is? Taunting you?”

“I might decide to find another way to occupy my hands,” he said suggestively.

She threw her arms out to the sides and closed her eyes. “Go ahead!” she invited theatrically. “Ravish me!”

The car slammed to a halt and Meg’s eyes opened as wide as cups. She stared at him, horrified.

He lifted an eyebrow as her arms clutched her breasts and a blush flamed on her face.

“Why, Meg, is anything wrong?” he asked pleasantly. “I just stopped to let the ambulance by.”

“What amb—”

Sirens and flashing red lights swept past them and vanished quickly into the distance. Meg felt like sinking through the floorboard with embarrassment.

Steven’s eyes narrowed just a little. He looped one long arm over the back of her seat and studied her in the darkened car.

“All bluff, aren’t you?” he chided. “Didn’t I warn you that playing games with me would get you into trouble?”

“Yes,” she said. “But you’ve done nicely without me for four years.”

He didn’t answer. His hand lowered to her throat and he toyed with a wisp of her hair that had come loose from her bun, teasing her skin until her pulse began to race and her body grew hot in the tense silence.

“Steven, don’t,” she whispered huskily, staying his hand.

“Let me excite you, Meg,” he replied quietly. He moved closer, easing her hand aside. His mouth poised over hers and he began all over again, teasing, touching, just at her throat while his coffee-scented breath came into her mouth and made her body ache. “It was like this the first night I took you out. Do you remember?” His voice was a deep, soft caress, and his hand made her shiver with its tender tracing. “I parked the car in your own driveway after we’d had dinner. I touched you, just like this, while we talked. You were more impulsive then, much less inhibited. Do you remember what you did, Meg?”

She was finding it difficult to talk and breathe at the same time. “I was very…young,” she said, defending herself.

“You were hungry.” His lips parted and brushed her mouth open, softly nibbling at it until he heard the sound she made deep in her throat. “You unbuttoned my shirt and slid your hand inside it, right down to my waist.”

She shivered, remembering what that had triggered. His mouth had hit hers like a tidal wave, with a groan that echoed in the silence of the car. He’d lifted her, turned her, and his hand had gone down inside the low bodice of her black dress to cup her naked breast. She’d come to her senses all too soon, fighting the intimacy. He’d stopped at once, and he’d smiled down at her as she lay panting in his arms, on fire with the first total desire she’d ever felt in her life. He’d known. Then, and now…

“You were so innocent,” he said quietly, remembering. “You had no idea why I reacted so violently to such a little caress. It was like the first time I let you feel me against you when I was fully aroused. You were shocked and frightened.”

“My parents never told me anything, and my girlfriends were just as stupid as I was, they made sure of it,” she said hesitantly. “All the reading in the world doesn’t prepare you for what happens, for what you feel when a man touches you intimately.”

His hand smoothed over the shoulder of her black dress, back to the zipper. Slowly, gently, he eased it down, controlling her panicked movement with careless ease.

“It’s been four years and you want it,” he said. “You want me.”

She couldn’t believe that she was allowing him to do this! She felt like a zombie as he eased the fabric below the soft, lacy cup of her strapless bra and looked at her. His big, lean hand, darkly tanned, stroked her collarbone and down, smoothing over the swell of her breasts while he looked at her in the semidarkness.

His mouth touched her forehead. His breath was a little unsteady. So was hers.

“Let me unhook it, Meg. I want you in my mouth.”

This had always been his sharpest weapon, this way of talking to her that made her body burn with dark, wicked desires. Her forehead rested against his chin while his fingers quickly disposed of three small hooks. She felt the cool air on her body even as he moved her back and looked down, his posture suddenly stiff and poised, controlled.

“My God.” It was reverent, the way he spoke, the way he looked at her. His hands contracted on her shoulders as if he were afraid that she might vanish.

“I let you look at me…that last night,” she whispered unsteadily. “And you went to her!”

“No. No,” he whispered, bending his head. “No, Meg!”

His mouth fastened on her taut nipple and he groaned as he lifted her, turned her, suckling her in a silence that blazed with tension and promise.

Her fingers gripped his thick hair and held on while his mouth gave her the most intense pleasure she’d ever known. He’d tried to kiss her this way that long-ago night and she’d fought him. It had been too much for her already overloaded senses and, coupled with his raging arousal and the sudden determination of his weight on her body, she’d panicked. But she was older now, with four years of abstinence to heighten her need, strip her nerves raw. She was starved for him.

His mouth fed on her while his fingers traced around the firm softness he was enjoying. She felt his tongue, his teeth, the slow suction that seemed to draw the heart right out of her body. She shuddered, helpless, anguished, as the ardent pressure of his mouth only made the hunger grow.

He felt her tremble and slowly lifted his head.

“Noo…!” She choked, clutching at him, trying to draw his mouth back to her body. “Steve…please…please!”

He drew her face into his throat and held her, his arms punishing, his breath as ragged as her own.

“Please!” she sobbed, clinging.

“Here…!” He fought the buttons of his shirt open and dragged her inside it, pressing her close to him, so that her bare breasts were rubbing against the thick hair on his chest, teasing his tense muscles. “Meg,” he breathed tenderly. “Oh, Meg, Meg…!” His hands found their way around her, sweeping down her bare back in long, hungry caresses that made the intimacy even more dangerous, more threatening.

Her mouth pressed soft kisses into his throat, his neck, his collarbone, and she felt the need like a knife.

He turned her head and kissed her again, a long, slow, deep kiss that never seemed to end while around them the night darkened and the wind blew.