September Morning by Diana Palmer Page B

hurt you,” he said softly.
    “I know.” She lifted her fingers to his hard, chiseled mouth and traced it gently. “I've never kissed a man lying down.”
    “Haven't you?” He smiled as he lifted himself to ease his formidable torso down onto her, so that they were thigh to thigh, hip to hip, breast to breast. She gasped at the intimate contact and her fingers dug into the rippling muscles of his shoulders.
    His fingers cupped her face as he bent. “Am I too heavy, Kate?” he whispered against her soft mouth.
    She flushed at the question, but she didn't look away. “No,” she managed shakily.
    He brushed his mouth across hers. “Pull your sweater up,” he whispered.
    “Blake…”
    He kissed her closed eyelids. “You want it as much as I do,” he breathed. “Pull it up, Kate…then help me pull up my shirt.”
    She looked into his eyes, trembling. She wanted him until she ached from head to toe, but he was suggesting an intimacy she'd never experienced before, and once it happened, there wouldn't be any going back.
    “It's…I mean, I've never…” she stammered.
    His thumbs brushed against the corners of her mouth while his tongue lightly traced the trembling line of her lips.
    “Don't you want to feel me against you like that, Kate?” he whispered sensuously. “With nothing between us?”
    She gasped against his invading mouth. Her eyes closed tightly. “Yes,” she ground out, and even her voice trembled. “Oh, Blake, yes, yes…!”
    “Help me,” he whispered huskily.
    With trembling fingers, she lifted the hem of his yellow knit shirt and eased it up over the warm, hard muscles under their mat of crisp black hair, and her fingers savored the sensuous contact with him, while her heart pounded out a mad rhythm.
    His mouth coaxed hers open, tasting it, gentling it, his fingers tenderly caressing her face.
    “Now yours, love,” he whispered softly. “There's nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all, I won't hurt you, I won't force you. Now, Kate…”
    She looked into his darkening eyes while she slid the soft sweater up over her taut breasts and with a shuddering pleasure, she felt him ease down again until her taut nipples vanished into the dark pelt over his chest. She felt his body against hers in a contact that made magic in her mind and she gasped.
    “My God, isn't it delicious?” he whispered tautly, shifting his powerful torso slowly, sensuously, across her breasts in the utter silence of the gazebo.
    Her fingers hesitated on his hard collarbone, lightly touching him, feeling him. Her eyes widened as the intimacy sent her pulse racing, as her breath caught in her throat.
    “You're…so warm,” she whispered.
    “A man being burned alive does feel warm,” he replied half-humorously. He moved then, holding her eyes while his body eased completely onto hers.
    “It's all right,” he breathed, calming her as she stiffened involuntarily at the greater intimacy with his body. His hands stroked her hair lightly, his forearms taking the bulk of his weight. He studied her closely. “Now I can feel you completely,” he whispered, “and you can feel me. We can't hide anything from each other when we touch like this, can we, Kate? You know without words how much I want you, don't you?”
    She flushed wildly as the exact meaning of his words got through to her, and she noticed for the first time all the differences between his body and hers.
    Pleasure surged up in her like spring sap in a young tree as she sensed her own awakening to emotions and sensations that had lain dormant inside her, waiting for a catalyst.
    Her fingers touched his face, his mouth, his arrogant nose, his thick dark brows, and when she breathed, she was made even more aware of the warmth and weight of his hair-roughened chest against the sensitive warmth of her bareness.
    The weight of him crushed her yielding body down into the soft cushions and her arms went up to hold him even closer as he bent to take her mouth under