He was leaning over her, unfastening the row of tiny buttons fastening her T-shirt, laying her body bare to the evening sun and to the touch of his hands and his lips.
She shuddered wildly, her lips pressed tightly together as she struggled to suppress her emotions. The touch of his lips was so familiar, so…so tender…so…so adoring.
Her hands came up, clasping the back of his head, her body arching in fierce response as his hands cupped her bare breasts and his lips tasted her sun-warmed skin.
‘You’re so beautiful…so perfect.’
The humble, marvelling tone of his voice made her throat close with emotion, the sight of his dark head against her breast heart-stoppingly poignant. She was a woman now, not a girl, and for twenty years she had scarcely given her body a thought in the sexual sense, and yet now, suddenly, she found she was afraid almost, conscious of the difference physically between a woman of twenty and a woman of thirty-eight. But Lewis’s body had changed as well, and to her eyes for the better.
He kissed the hollow between her breasts, his tongue stroking her skin, and then the slope of her breast itself, his kisses delicate, gentle as though he was afraid of hurting her.
When he withdrew from her, carefully covering her exposed breasts with her T-shirt, her feelings must have shown in her eyes because suddenly his own changed, darkening, glittering almost, his voice rough as he told her, ‘It isn’t that I don’t want to. It’s just that I’m afraid…afraid that once I have you in my mouth, that once I…I’m afraid of losing my self-control…of hurting you…rushing you. I’ve dreamed of this for such a long, long time…wanted you…ached for you—’ He saw that she was crying and stopped, demanding abruptly, ‘What is it…what have I said? If you want me to stop…’
Logic told her that that was exactly what she should say she did want, but she refused to listen. He was sitting up now, watching her anxiously, his eyes shadowed, his body tense.
She sat up too, shaking her head, knowing that there was no way she could say to him what was in her heart, no way she could simply tell him how much she loved and wanted him…no way she dared risk spoiling the magical wonder of what was happening with clumsy explanations and questions.
She wasn’t a girl any longer, ruled by the expectations of an outside society. She was a woman, and free to make her own decisions. Giving in to her love for Lewis now, showing him how much she wanted and needed him would hurt…need concern no one other than herself.
Before she could lose her courage she reached for him, her fingers trembling as she unfastened the buttons on his shirt.
For a moment he didn’t move, but then when he realised what she was doing he started to help her, wrenching the shirt off with the cuff buttons still fastened so that he had to yank hard on the sleeves, causing the cuff buttons to fly off, making Lacey laugh, her laughter half nervous tension, half shock at the sensation that shot through her stomach at the sight of his bare torso.
It was ridiculous that the sight of a man’s bare chest should affect her like this, making her hands tremble as she touched him, causing her to…
She touched his throat with her lips, hesitantly at first, her touch uncertain as she tensed herself against his physical reaction.
A vein throbbed in his neck. She touched it with her fingertips, measuring the furious race of his pulse. Beneath her other hand his body hair felt warm and damp, his nipple a hard point against her palm. Slowly her kisses became less hesitant, more certain, more eager.
She heard him moan, the sound thrilling her; felt the warmth of his hands against her bare back, felt the deliciously wanton friction of his body hair against her breasts as he gathered her against him, his lips against her ear as he warned her shakily, ‘Lacey, don’t. Please don’t do this, unless you mean it, unless you want me as much as I want you.’
Reluctantly she lifted her lips from his throat, her eyes slumbrous, her expression soft with love and need.
‘Isn’t it obvious that I…that I want you?’ she asked him tremulously, looking down at their bodies, at the taut erect points of her nipples.
His gaze followed hers. She felt him catch his breath and saw the deep flush of colour run up under his skin.
His hands cupped her breasts as he whispered her name, his head dipping down over her body.
At first the warm suckle of his mouth was restrained, controlled, but even so a thousand memories came flooding back, her body responding both to them and to him, her back arching,
her fingers digging into his shoulders, a tiny sob of desire muffled in her throat, her body shaking with the emotions inside her.
It broke through his self-control, the sudden hard, urgent pressure of his mouth causing her to whimper softly and cling to him, forbidden words of plea and praise flooding from her as she arched and twisted against him, her senses overwhelmed by the pleasure he was giving her.
Even the fierce rake of his teeth, as his own control was swept away, was a sharply fierce sensual pleasure, an erotic underlining of the completeness of his desire for her.
Her jeans and the rest of his clothes were somehow removed, urgency overtaking finesse, so that the sensation of skin against skin when they were finally free of them was so acutely heightened—for her at least—that Lacey actually felt her response to it deep within her body, a familiar tensing of certain muscles, a familiar awareness that just a kiss, a touch would be enough.
As she tensed Lewis looked at her, tensing too, demanding huskily, ‘What is it? If you’ve changed your mind, if you want to stop…’
She shook her head, unable to speak, instead taking his hand and placing it against her body so that he would know for himself how much she wanted him.
Delicate colour fluctuated under her skin as she did so, and saw the aroused awareness come into his eyes.
Perhaps her younger self might never have done such a thing, might never have been the one to indicate her wants or needs, but she could hardly pretend now that she did not want him, and his own arousal was, after all, obvious for them both to see.
She remembered how once, at first, she had found the sight of his naked body unnerving…not frightening, perhaps, but neither had she felt completely comfortable with his nudity. But now she welcomed the freedom he was giving her to look at him, to watch and touch him and watch him as she did so, her senses measuring his erotic reaction to each caress.