The Reluctant Lark by Iris Johansen

you.”
    “Then why?” she asked bewilderedly.
    “I love you,” he said simply.
    Sheena could feel the blood drain from her face as her eyes widened with shock. “You couldn’t love me,” Sheena protested. “You don’t even know me.”
    “I know more about you than most men know about their wives on their golden wedding anniversaries,” he said. “And everything I know, I love. I know that there’s tenderness and mischief lying in wait beneath that solemn face you wear. I know you have a temper that makes you look like a stormy child on occasion. I know that you’re a passionate gypsy of a woman just waiting to come alive.”
    She stared as if mesmerized as he swiftly leaned forward and lifted her to the far side of the chaise longue. “Scoot over, love.” He slid up to rest his head on the back of the chair, his body turned facing her. The confines of the chaise longue brought them in sudden breathless proximity.
    He chuckled as his arms went around her and he pulled her into his embrace. “I forgot to tell you that this was another one of my fantasies,” he said. “That was why I made sure this chaise longue was very, very roomy.”
    His lips hovered for a teasing moment over her own before closing with a slow sensuousness that caused her to arch against him and to open her lips to the sweet invasion of his tongue. “That’s right, love, open to me. Let me come into every part of you. God, I want you!”
    His lips were taking her feverishly now, moving over the silky flesh of her throat with a hunger that was almost savage in its intensity. She arched her throat, as if to the kiss of the sun. Then she felt his hands at the tiny buttons on the bodice of the robe. He had already undone four of the buttons when she was moved to protest.
    She put a restraining hand on his busy fingers, and he looked up. “It’s all right, dove,” he said, smiling lovingly as he perceived the dazed confusion on her face. He gently moved her hand aside and continued to unbutton the robe.
    “Do you know that some desert tribesmen garb their brides in beautiful caftans with hundreds of buttons like these on their wedding nights? They say that each button is a step closer to paradise.” His hands had reached the buttons at her waist now. “I thought of that the day I bought the robe.”
    He pushed her a little away from him and looked down at her, his face taut and hungry with need. “I love you,” he said huskily. “Believe me when I say that I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.” His hands slowly spread the robe open, his eyes fixed on her small, perfectly formed breasts with their pink-tipped crowns. “I know that you don’t love me yet, but I can teach you. I think your body already loves me a little.”
    His head bent slowly, and his tongue teasingly encircled one taut nipple, which immediately hardened eagerly in response. “Oh, yes, your body loves me.” His hands cupped her breasts gently while his teeth and tongue tormented the swollen nipples until Sheena cried out and clutched his head closer to her breasts in an agony of frustration.
    He moved over her, one leg parting hers as his hands rhythmically squeezed her breasts and his tongue continued its play at her nipples. He slowly lowered his thighs so that she could feel his warm, hard arousal through the velvet of her robe. She gave a feverish gaspas his hips began a rhythmic thrusting movement that matched the tempo of his hands on her breasts.
    She was writhing beneath him now, making tiny mewing noises, her hands clutching helplessly at his brawny shoulders. She had never experienced such a fever as was flooding every limb in her body and centering in the fluid apex of her loins. “Rand,” she gasped, her head moving from side to side on the back of the chaise longue. “Rand.”
    His face above her was flushed and harsh with need, his eyes narrowed with tigerish pleasure as they watched each new sensation reflected in her face.
    Suddenly his hands