Outlaw Derek by Kay Hooper Page B

his heart.
    Shannon was hardly aware they’d moved. She was vaguely conscious of the bed behind her, but could only gaze up at his taut, handsome face and marvel at her own feelings. These strange new feelings that had brought her alive. “I want you,” she said wonderingly.
    Derek caught his breath and went still for a moment, then rapidly discarded his shirt and kicked off the soft-soled moccasins he always wore. “I’m glad,” he said with rough-edged gentleness. “Because I want you, too, honey.”
    Shannon’s gaze went over his body, curiously half-primitive clad only in jeans, and the wonder in her grew. He was so beautiful, so stunningly male. So perfect. The thick mat of hair on his broad chest was gold-tipped, both soft and rough to her touch, arrowing down his hard stomach and disappearing beneath the waistbandof his jeans. Muscles rippled with every movement, catching the light, and the sheer power of him was a palpable force that stirred her senses wildly.
    And the warmth of him … the wonderful, seductive warmth of him. She went into his arms as though drawn by a lodestar, wanting him, needing him and the warmth he’d created in them both. Impatient, she wanted the barriers gone, wanted to feel him against her. She lifted her face to meet the heat of his kiss, barely able to hold herself away from him long enough to allow him the room to unfasten her silken pajama top. She shrugged out of the top and instantly pressed against him, gasping at the intimate contact as the tips of her breasts turned to fire, seduced by her own body’s response to the hardness of his. Her hands found the ridged firmness of his stomach, and she felt muscles contract beneath her touch.
    “Nobody told me,” she said shakily as helifted his head and looked down at her with his dark, hot eyes. “Nobody told me it felt like this.”
    Derek wanted to tell her that, in his experience, it didn’t feel like this. Not like this. Nothing had ever felt like this. For the first time, he truly understood why Kelsey, one of the strongest men he’d ever known, had all but come apart in the turbulence of love and need. Derek knew what it felt like now, and he wondered on some distant level of his mind if he would be able to survive this intact. Something shuddered inside him. He didn’t think he would.
    He had already lost something, given it to her. Or perhaps she had stolen it, taken it from him in her innocent need. It was gone, hers, and he’d never get it back again.
    “Derek—?”
    He realized he’d gone very still, and wondered if the sudden ferocity he felt showed on his face. His eyes searched her lovely, awakened face, gazed in fascination at the pulse beating rapidly in her throat, and then lowered to the pale goldmounds of her breasts. “You’re beautiful, Shannon,” he murmured tautly. “Lord, you’re so beautiful.” His hands found the waistband of her pajama bottoms, and he began drawing them downward as he bent his head and kissed her shoulder.
    One of Shannon’s hands left his stomach, capturing his left wrist with jerky quickness as she caught her breath suddenly and stiffened.
    Derek raised his head and looked into amber eyes that skittered nervously away from his intent gaze for the first time. And he knew, even before the whispered words escaped her.
    “The light … turn it off, please, Derek. I don’t want you to see—the accident … there were operations, and I don’t want you to see.” Her eyes were changing, darkening, a new kind of awareness bringing a sanity that was cold and afraid.
    The lamplight from the lower level was barely enough to illuminate the bed and them. Barely enough. But enough for her to be afraid of whathe’d see. Derek knew that it could end right here. She could stop him now, and would, given only a moment in his own hesitation to think. But if it ended here and now, he knew it would be over for good. Because Shannon would always remember the moment it ended. And