Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams by Christina Skye Page B

beneath the yearning swell of her breasts. His mouth was at her ear, low and hard and hungry. “I want to see you wrapped in moonlight, Kacey. In warm moonlight and cold shadows and nota stitch of anything else.” Each word was a fierce, erotic rasp, punctuated by the sleek velvet stroke of his tongue against her neck. “I want to hear you when I fit myself all the way inside your heat. I want it to be my name you whisper, my shoulders you dig your fingers into when you go spinning away into space. And, by God, it’ll be my body you want deep inside you when the pleasure shatters you into a thousand pieces.”
    One by one, the dark images triggered shock waves down Kacey’s spine. Too late, she realized he had freed her shirt from her jeans. Moving across her naked skin, his hard fingers subverted her last vestige of stubborn resistance.
    Dear God, why do I want those things, too? Gasping, Kacey tried to break free, realizing clearly that with this man things could never be halfway or halfhearted. Yes, this man would sweep inside and claim her very soul.
    And she would welcome his fierce claiming, which could bring her only searing pain and loneliness.
    For whatever was happening between them was too strange, too powerful to be real or lasting. “ No, Nicholas. This is all wrong!” Kacey caught back a moan. Her hand broke free and flattened against his chest. When she felt hot naked skin and crisp wiry hair beneath her fingers, a shudder stabbed through her.
    Nicholas smothered a curse. “You’re trying to tell me you don’t want this, Kacey?”
    â€œNo, I—I don’t!”
    A dark light flashed in his eyes and then disappeared. Kacey watched a hard line settle over his jaw.
    â€œThen you’ll have to prove it to me, because I’m afraid I just don’t believe you.”
    In taut silence, Nicholas’s silver gaze stripped her bare. He had to find out how far he could push her, and not just for the painting. He had already accepted the fact that there was more than the Whistler at stake here.
    â€œI don’t have to prove anything, damn it!”
    â€œTry to tell me you haven’t felt it too, Kacey. Tell me you haven’t had the crazy feeling that this has all happened before between us. You know exactly how it feels when I kiss you, when you wrap your sweet legs around me and take me all the way home inside you.”
    Kacey heard the desperation driving his words, since it mirrored her own. Her breath caught sharply. So he had felt the same thing she had. Something naked and visceral. Something terrifying familiar.
    She shivered as his warm breath teased her neck. She felt his body tense.
    She looked down to see his gaze smoldering across the closing of her shirt, where white cloth had parted to reveal one perfect, upthrust pink nipple.
    â€œGood sweet Jesus,” Nicholas muttered hoarsely. “You’re so beautiful that it hurts, Kacey Mallory.” Rough and heated, his gaze swept over her silken skin. Abruptly his voice dropped. “You have a birthmark on your right breast, just where the lace edge of your gown ends. It’s small and smoky and crescent-shaped. You’ve got another one—”
    Kacey’s breath caught. “How—”
    He went on hoarsely, as if she hadn’t spoken. “—at the base of your neck. You tuck your right hand beneath your chin when you sleep. You never use a pillow. And you always sleep without a stitch, just the way you were born, my sweet Kacey.” As he spoke, Nicholas made no move to touch her, only gaze down, his face dark with an endless, tormenting hunger.
    Kacey’s face turned white. How did this stranger know such things about her? “It’s—it’s another trick! You’re just—”
    A muscle flashed at Nicholas’s jaw, the only movement in his rigid body. “Is it, Kacey? Then tell me you haven’t the birthmarks where I