Darling Enemy by Diana Palmer

“Not half intimate enough. I like it like this, Teddi...” He caught her cheeks and teased her lips with his until they parted hungrily. His tongue shot past them, and she clutched him as he taught her things she’d never known about the way people kissed. He didn’t just use his lips; she felt the gentle thrust of his tongue, the nibbling pressure of lips and teeth as he tormented her until she thought she’d go mad.
    “Please, King,” she whispered brokenly, her nails biting into his back, her eyes riveted to his mouth. “Please, please...!”
    “No holding back this time,” he growled as his mouth took hers fully. “Kiss me.”
    And she kissed him back as hungrily as a new wife, as passionately as a woman who’d just found the love of her life. With a sense of awe, she felt the full weight of his body settling over hers until they were locked together, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, and she clung as the unfamiliar contact burned the most exquisite sensations into her reeling mind.
    “King,” she whispered into his devouring mouth.
    “Darling,” he whispered back on a hard groan, shifting as he felt the soft, involuntary movement of her young body, surprising a sweet little cry from her throat.
    She felt herself trembling. Incredibly, so was he, and even as she felt her body yielding everything he was demanding, he suddenly stiffened and, with a muffled curse, rolled away from her. He lay breathing roughly on his back, one knee drawn up between them, his forearms over his face.
    “King...?” she asked, concerned at the rigidity of his big body.
    “Go walk around for a minute, love,” he said in a taut, aching tone, “and give me a little while to lie here and curse my own stupidity. Go on,” he added when she hesitated.
    She got up shakily and walked over to the bank of the river, watching it run lazily between the banks while her heartbeat slowly calmed. Her back against a tree at the edge, she tore off a bit of bark and sailed it down into the water, her eyes drifting from the majestic pines to the mountains beyond.
    She felt rather than saw him behind her a little bit later, and she dropped her eyes to the ground.
    “Embarrassed?” he asked gently as he lit a cigarette.
    “A little,” she admitted quietly. “I...didn’t know, you see.”
    He laughed softly, drawing her close beside him with a protective arm around her shoulders. “We’re both human,” he murmured. “And together, we’re volatile. I should have expected it.”
    She looked up at him shyly. “I wasn’t teasing...”
    “Don’t you think I know that?” His eyes searched hers quietly. “It was beautiful. Not some sordid roll in the hay, not lust. I’ve never been that gentle with a woman in my life—or that intent on pleasing one. You’re...very special, little one,” he added, frowning. “You make me vulnerable in ways I couldn’t have imagined.”
    She dropped her eyes to his chest, drinking in the sound of his deep, tender voice, the words that revealed he had some kind of feeling for her, after all.
    “I thought it was the other way around,” she whispered.
    His mouth brushed against her forehead. “You can’t imagine what it did to me,” he breathed, “touching you that way, knowing that no other man ever had.” He caught his breath and hugged her close for an instant before he let her go and moved away to retrieve his hat from the ground, where it had fallen an eternity ago.
    “As much as I hate the thought,” he said, “I’m a working man. And to make it all worse, I’ve got that bloody accountant coming this afternoon.” His eyes darted to catch hers and he looked faintly irritated. “There’s something you need to know about him before he gets here.”
    “What?” she asked, smiling.
    He stared at her, captivated by the radiance of her face. “No,” he said. “Not yet. I’ll tell you later. Come on, tiger, let’s go home.”
    The ride back was quiet, and Teddi didn’t