The Savage Heart by Diana Palmer Page A

move and come to rest on her face, his fingers touching as if their tips might see her expression. His thumb caressed the contours of her lower lip. She was hypnotized. His thumb slipped to the crease between her lips, continuing its rhythmic stroking. She was breathless.
    She gasped as he gently pried her lips apart, his head dipped lower, and his mouth replaced his thumb with a gentle suction that set her heart pounding. His hand smoothed her cheek, her neck, lightly caressing the soft skin. When she sagged against him, soft and compliant, his mouth became more insistent, tenderly exploring, coaxing, provoking.
    Something very strange was happening, Tess realized. She was entranced. Her knees felt too weak to support her. Her small hand clung high on his sleeve. She felt him shift her so that she was lifted even closer to him, her arm going naturally around his neck.
    He moved just enough to find the support of the porch rail. He leaned against it, adjusting Tess’s body until she was suddenly between his legs in an intimacy that shocked her with its newness.
    She moaned, afraid of these hot, drugging sensations that were being born in her. Matt’s mouth was making her senseless. She couldn’t bear the thought of letting it part from hers, so when he began to lift his head, she followed his mouth, her body trembling as she stretched it against his.
    She needed…something. Something more. Her arms tightened around his neck, and she moaned again, a little sob of noise that seemed to cause an explosion of feeling in Matt. His arms contracted bruisingly and his mouth opened. She felt his tongue probing inside her lips, and she let him invade that warm darkness, more demanding now. She was shaking all over as if with a fever. She shuddered with the force of these new feelings, and involuntarily she moved her body against Matt’s in an instinct that brought a similar movement from him.
    One of his arms still held her securely while his hard mouth devoured hers, but the free hand was against her side, under her jacket. It moved up and up and she stiffened, though not with fear. She gasped and twisted herbody so that his searching fingers could find what they were seeking: the soft, exquisite smoothness of her breast under the jacket, under the blouse, right above her corset in its brief muslin cover….
    Footsteps inside the house forced them to spring apart. Matt pulled her farther into the shadows. Two residents walked past the glass-paned front door into the parlor.
    Matt was holding Tess against him, struggling to slow his breathing. She was all but collapsed in his arms, her body softly trembling with the newness of passion.
    His hand pressed her cheek against his shirt beneath his open jacket. She could feel the beating of his heart.
    His fingers smoothed against her cheek, her throat. It took all his remaining control to keep from letting them slide back to the softness of her breast.
    She was overexcited. And she was confused. She felt wonderful. She felt strange, as though a different woman inhabited her body. Tears coursed down her cheeks. Suddenly all her profound new feelings of wonder and surprise and embarrassment coalesced into a violent sensation of shame. She’d encouraged Matt, provoked Matt, led him to these intimacies that he detested…at least with her. She tried to stifle a sob, but failed.
    His hand pressed her face closer to his chest. “Shhh,” he whispered. “Don’t cry.”
    â€œI’m so ashamed,” she muttered.
    His lips touched her eyelids. “Stop listening to your Victorian upbringing. You’re a modern woman. Haven’t you told me so a dozen times?”
    â€œNot modern enough.” She sniffed.
    He chuckled deep in his throat. “Coward,” he taunted softly. “Are you really naive enough to believe that good girls and boys don’t do this?”
    She stiffened a little. “They don’t. And I’m not. Good,