For someone as nimble as Rosalind it was a matter of seconds to kick off her sandals and swing herself over the sturdy wooden rail. The computer disk between her teeth, she edged along the narrow wooden parapet until she was on the other side of the screen and clambered back over the rail.
The sliding door moved silently on its smooth track and Rosalind uttered a smothered giggle of nervous fright as the filmy white curtain suddenly billowed out of the widened gap to wrap itself around her. She fought her way free only to stub her toe on the raised track and stumble into the room with a whispered curse.
She would make a hopeless cat burglar, she thought, realising that she had dropped the precious disk and would have to waste time fumbling around on the floor in the darkness. She put out a hand and knocked it against the back of a cane chair. If only she could turn on a light...
The light clicked on beside the bed and she found herself staring at Luke, who was rumple-haired and crumple-eyed as he pushed himself upright, the sheet slithering down his bare chest to settle around his waist.
‘Roz?’
‘Luke!’ she said faintly, shocked by the sight of him. He had been here all along! Sleeping, for God’s sake, while she had been miserably pacing her chalet, agonising over his whereabouts! She put her hand up to her frantically beating heart, wondering how she was going to explain her presence in his bedroom.
It seemed that an explanation was not required. A beatific expression stole into his sleep-darkened eyes.
‘Rosalind, you came!’ He pushed back the bedclothes and rose to greet her, splendidly naked.
‘I knew you would,’ he said warmly, strolling towards her, his mouth curving in delighted welcome. ‘I knew you’d change your mind and come to me...’
Not only naked, but also magnificently aroused and completely unselfconscious about it, thought Rosalind hazily as she watched his graceful stride eat up the distance between them. Poetry in motion...every muscle moving in well-oiled symmetry under his burnished skin, the smooth hairlessness of his chest, belly and legs accentuating the thick, dark brown cloud of curly hair at the juncture of his thighs.
With difficulty Rosalind tore her eyes away from the fluid ripple of his thighs and met his gaze, suddenly understanding the reason for his total lack of shyness.
He wasn’t quite aware, she realised as he blinked lazily at her, his naked arms sliding around her waist as he bent his head to seek a leisurely kiss. His eyes still had that distant, dream-dark look and his mouth was tenderly whimsical as it nuzzled her startled lips apart. His eyelids fluttered shut again. Aside from the rigid thrust of masculinity nudging against her thighs he was utterly relaxed, and his warm body seemed to envelop hers like a butter-soft glove, absorbing her into his languorous dream-world.
‘Touch me,’ he invited, his tongue slipping inside her mouth and rubbing sensuously against hers. ‘Everywhere, all over; I need to feel you all over me...wanting me...loving me...’
His flat hand slid up and down her silk-covered back, massaging her against his chest, his other hand finding hers and drawing it down between their bodies, pushing her fingers into the soft nest of hair. He groaned, racked by shudders as he curled her pliant fingers firmly around him, shaping her to his need, arching his back as he thrust graphically into her soft grasp. ‘Oh, God, yes...like that...you know I love it when you touch me like that...’
Rosalind went liquid with pleasure. Luke might have gone to bed wanting to hate her but he obviously hadn’t succeeded. She must have disturbed him in the middle-of an intensely erotic dream—a dream about her...
In Luke’s subconscious they were already lovers and now, if she didn’t stop him, he was going to turn that dream into reality.
But she didn’t want to stop him. She had forgotten the computer disk lying half-hidden under the bed. She no longer cared why she had come, only that she was here and that Luke, in his half-waking state, was open to her in a way he had never been before, expressing his deepest, most intimate needs with a frankness that was usually censored by his extreme reserve.
He was strong in his desire, yet vulnerable in a way that moved her to the depths of her being. Tenderness mingled with passion and she felt a surge of the old recklessness. In his dream Luke spoke of loving, not sex. In his dream he needed her, trusted her, believed that she would never disappoint him...
Rosalind wanted to share his dream. For however brief a time she too wanted to be free of the shackles of doubt, free to need and to trust and believe that love could conquer all. Whatever unwelcome knowledge lurked ahead, at least she could make of this consummation an untainted memory to hold in her heart...
Her hand moved on him and he moaned excitingly into her mouth. She eased their bodies closer together, the slow rotation of her hips replacing her stroking fingers as she caressed her hand back up his chest and over the strong column of his throat, sliding her arms over his shoulders and going on tiptoe to deepen the long, voluptuous kiss.
Her passionate response snapped him to full awareness. His mouth stilled and his eyes flew open, his hands pausing in their restless exploration, one splayed between her shoulderblades, the other shaped to the base of her spine.
His mouth lifted far enough for him to murmur a surprised question that wasn’t really a question. ‘Roz...?’
‘Who else?’ She pulled his head back down and flicked her tongue along his parted lips, savouring his delicious surprise as he struggled to comprehend that the woman he held was not the armful of dreams he had confidently embraced.
His gush of breath was warm and spicy, filling her senses with
delight. ‘I—What...what are you doing here?’
‘Making love to you,’ she vowed, tilting her head back so that she could see his face. Dark colour ran up under his skin, and his eyes flamed with a scorching hunger as his lips moved soundlessly.
‘No...’ She pressed a thumb to the soft curve of his lower lip, stilling the formation of another question. ‘It doesn’t matter how, or why...’
Confusion swirled in the smouldering heat of his gaze. ‘But—earlier—you said—’
‘Do you want to talk, or make love?’ She cut him off huskily, impatient for the violent pleasure she knew he would give her, not wanting her gloriously reckless mood dissipated by cautious reminders.
His teeth nipped at her thumb, his mouth closing over it to suckle it briefly before releasing the moistened tip. ‘Can’t we do both?’