Man of the Hour by Diana Palmer Page B

eyes flew open. She cried out at the flash of hot pain. He held her still, breathing roughly. His face was rigid, his teeth clenched, his breathing audible through his nose. He looked into her wide, frightened eyes and held them as he pulled her slowly down on him again.
    “Don’t be afraid, Meg,” he whispered deeply. “It’s only going to hurt for a few seconds.”
    “But…Steve…” She gasped, trying to find the words to protest what was happening.
    “Let me love you,” he said unsteadily. His hands tugged her over him and he shivered. His face was tormented, his eyes like silver fires. “God, baby…let me. Let me!” He ground out the words.
    She knew that it would be impossible for him to stop. She loved him. That was all that really mattered now. She gave in, yielding to the pain, her hands taut on his shoulders. Her hold on him tightened and she flinched.
    “Just a…little further. Oh, Meg,” he growled, shivering as he completed the motion and felt her all around him. His eyes closed and he shivered. Then they opened again and searched hers as he repeated the slow, deliberate movement of his hips until his possession of her was complete and the lines of strain left her face. Then he rested, his body intimately joined to hers, and gently pushed her disheveled hair back from her face.
    She swallowed. There was awe in her eyes now, along with lingering pain and doubt and shock.
    “I’ve waited so long, Meg,” he said unsteadily. “I’ve waited all my life for this. For you.”
    Her fingers trembled on his shirtfront. “Steve, you’re…part of me,” she burst out.
    Color burned along his high cheekbones. “Yes.” He moved, as if to emphasize it, and she blushed. “Unfasten my shirt, Meg. Let me feel your breasts against my skin while we love.”
    While we love . She must be insane, she thought. But she was too involved to stop, to pull back. She was in thrall to him. Her hands fumbled with his tie, his jacket, his shirt. She fumbled, but finally she stripped it all off him.
    Her hands speared through the thick mat of hair that covered him from collarbone to below his lean waist. She looked down and stared helplessly, her body trembling. His powerful handslifted her up just a little, smiling even through his need at the expression on her face.
    “Steve…”
    He tilted her face and brought his mouth down on her lips with exquisite tenderness as he began to guide her hips again. This time there was no pain at all. There was a faint pleasure that began to grow, to swell, to encompass her. She gasped and her nails bit into his shoulders.
    “Like this?” he whispered, and moved again.
    She sobbed into his shoulder, her mouth open against his neck, clinging to him as he increased the rhythm and pressure of his body. His hand clenched in the hair at her nape and he caught his breath, shivering.
    “Relax, now,” he said, sliding a hand under her thigh to pull her to him roughly. “Yes…!”
    His image began to blur in her open, startled eyes as the pleasure became suddenly violent, insistent. She felt herself tense as he lifted to her as they knelt so intimately together, shivering with every movement, reaching for something she couldn’t quite grasp. Her strength gave out, but his was unfailing, endless.
    “Help me,” she whispered brokenly.
    “Tell me how it feels, Meg,” he whispered back, his voice rough, deep as he pushed up insistently. “Tell me!”
    “It’s so sweet…I can’t…bear…it!” She wept.
    “Neither can I.” His hands tightened on her thighs almost to bruising pain and he lost control. “Meg…. Meg….!”
    She felt him go rigid just before her mind was submerged ina heated rush of pleasure. It was a kind of pain, she thought blindly. A kind of sweet, unbearable pain that hit her like a lightning bolt, lifting her in his arms, making her cry out with the anguish it kindled. She didn’t know if she could bear it and stay alive.
    Steven’s heart was beating. She