After the Music by Diana Palmer

her by the arms and held her in front of him. "Where's my brother?"
    "He gave the roan its head. He'll be right back," she insisted.
    "Not for a little while, Sabina," he whispered, leaning toward her. "Kiss me. I went to bed aching for you; I woke up hurting....Kiss me, damn you!"
    His mouth pressed into hers, and none of the teasing foreplay of the night before was left between them. He lifted her against his lean, powerful body and his arms swallowed her while his mouth taught her new lessons in the art of intimacy. Suddenly, she felt his body harden against her, enticing her. Protesting, she twisted and his hand swept down to the base of her spine to hold her still, even as a groan burst from his lips.
    He lifted his head, and his eyes frightened her with their wild glitter.
    "Don't move against me that way," he whispered hoarsely. "It arouses me unbearably."
    She blushed, but he bent his head again, and his mouth stifled the words she was about to utter.
    Her fingers let go of his shirt to slide under it. She sighed as she felt the curly hair covering his muscles, and her fingers tangled in it. She felt his body tauten even more and sensed that he was reacting to the gentle movement of her hands. Her education in sensual things was sadly behind that of most people; there'd been no one to ask except girlfriends, and most of them knew as little as she did.
    "Sabina, for God's sake, don't, baby," he whispered, stilling her hands. He drew away slightly, looking more formidable than ever, his eyes glazed, his face taut.
    She slid her hands out from under his shirt, shaken by the fierce ardor she'd provoked, and by her headlong response to it.
    She could hardly breathe and Thorn's heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. He laughed softly, strangely, and his chest rose and fell in irregular jerks. "You burn me up," he said huskily. "The smell of you, the feel of you...It's been years since I felt like this."
    His words were flattering, but she was getting nervous. They were in a deserted place, where no one would look for them, and Al wouldn't be back for hours. There was a wildness in Thorn that she hadn't expected at the beginning, a reckless passion that matched her own free spirit.
    "Thorn," she whispered.
    His mouth took the whisper and inhaled it, opening her soft lips to a deep, slow, probing kiss. His hands slid down her sides to her hips and drew them lazily against his in easy, dragging movements. She was so lost in the warm teasing of his mouth that she didn't protest this time. His body and its responses and demands were becoming familiar now. He was like a part of her already.
    "I've never made love standing up," he whispered in a voice that was deep and a little unsteady. "You make me wonder how it would be."
    A tiny wild sound escaped from her throat, and he smiled against her lips. "I want you," he growled softly. His hands slid to the backs of her thighs and lifted and pressed until she thought she'd go crazy with the sweet, piercing pleasure. He laughed again, roughly. "I want you. I want to lay you down in the grass and let my body melt into yours. But that would be playing right into your hands, wouldn't it, witch woman? You'd love that, making me lose my head with you. You'd hold it over me like a scimitar...."
    "Thorn!" she exclaimed, dragging her mouth from his. "I'm not like that, I'm not!" Her drowsy eyes sought his and she searched their cool blue depths slowly, remembering all at once what Al had said over the breakfast table about the blonde who'd betrayed Thorn. Her fingers lifted to his mouth, touching it gently, liking the hard warmth of it. "She was crazy, wanting money instead of you...."
    His eyes flashed. The whispered words seemed to anger him. He caught her long hair and jerked her face up to his. "She was a tease, too," he said curtly. "A woman with an eye to the main chance.
    The words came out like an insult, and she knew that whatever had been growing between them had wilted. "You're