Mountain Man by Diana Palmer Page B

was in agony trying to hold back enough to keep from frightening her.
    “Sweet,” he whispered against her lips. “You’re so sweet.”
    He had a lover’s voice, she thought, very deep and seductive. She loved to hear him talk anytime, but particularly like this, in hushed whispers. She put her hands against him and felt them tingle where they touched the thick hair that covered him. It was wiry against her palms, deliciously abrasive when she began to draw them over his broad chest, disturbing the muscles so that they rippled under her fingers.
    His breath caught. He stopped and suddenly moved back. His eyes held hers, searching them. “I want more than this,” he said tautly.
    She couldn’t look away. “How … how much more?”
    His eyes went to her pajama jacket. “Nothing terribly indiscreet,” he said quietly. His hands followedhis gaze. He hooked his index finger into the V neckline of her pajamas and tugged her toward him. “Don’t panic, okay? I promise I won’t let it go too far.”
    She wanted to protest. But her eyes went down to his lean fingers working the buttons with such deftness, and she couldn’t look away. He undid them slowly, and then drew the fabric back from her high, pink breasts with a leisurely expertise that hypnotized her.
    Then his gaze was on her, looking at her with blatant possession. Winthrop was a man with an eye for beauty, and the expression in his dark eyes told her that he found her beautiful. Her nipples went hard under his scrutiny, and she was embarrassed and tried to cover them. But he stopped her, shaking his head gently.
    “It isn’t sordid or shameful to let me see you,” he said quietly, his voice very slow and deep. “God never made anything more beautiful than a woman’s breasts.”
    Her breath stopped in her throat at his words. She looked up at him, her gaze sharing secrets with him. Then he smiled, and it was like the sun coming out.
    He touched her cheek, gently tracing it. “Come here and let me hold you, Nicole,” he breathed, drawing her. “Feel my body and let me feel yours. Let me teach you how beautiful it can be to touch skin against skin.”
    She let him draw her close, feeling the sting of tears as she went into his arms. Her eyes closed at the first contact with his warm, hard body, and she cried out as her nipples stabbed into his skin, burying themselves in the damp, abrasive mat of hair that covered the hard muscles. “Winthrop,” she murmured.
    “Yes.” His hands spread against her silken back, under the pajama top. He drew her very close, closing his own eyes as her soft body melted into him. He was aroused, and she knew it. He felt her stiffen as her legs came into contact with his.
    “Don’t flinch away from me,” he murmured at her temple, coaxing her back against him. “This is natural, too, and good and sweet and right between a man and a woman. Don’t be afraid of it.”
    “It’s so intimate,” she whispered shakily against his warm, broad chest. His skin tasted of cologne and soap. Masculine smells. Good smells.
    “Intimate,” he agreed at her ear. “Yes, it’s that. It’s exquisitely sweet, having you close to me this way.” His arms tightened and trembled a little. So did his tall, fit body. “Nicky,” he breathed on a groan, bending his head over her. He began to rock her, fostering a new kind of intimacy between them, one that should have shocked her but was strangely familiar now. She clung to him, letting him hold her, yielding to his strength.
    “Your leg …” she said a long minute later.
    “What leg?” he murmured.
    She drew in a long breath, and he shuddered as he felt her breasts swell against his skin.
    “It’s scary, isn’t it?” she whispered. “Holding each other like this.”
    “Scary enough,” he agreed on a bitter laugh. “You can’t possibly imagine the thoughts going through my mind.”
    “I’ll bet I can, too,” she said. She nuzzled her cheek against him, loving the rough