'Have you changed your mind?' There was a thread of amusement in the voice that caressed her ear. He knew so much about women, he must know what she was feeling. 'If you have, tell me, this is supposed to be seduction, not rape.'
He turned her slowly around and she stared hard at the black tie, sensing rather than seeing his mouth curve.
'Shy, mistress? You wanted me to take the first step and I have. All you have to do is say yes.' His hand tipped her chin up and held it until her eyes lifted to meet his. What she saw there made her tremble anew. 'Say yes, Sarah,' he urged softly. 'Say yes. I won't hurt you. I promise.'
Without really being aware of it she allowed her body to sway, drawn by the magnet of his. Her voice held a question as well as an answer.
'Max? ... I. . .'
It was enough. One lean, dark hand slid around to the back of her head, gripping her firmly, pulling her forward. He bent and brushed his open mouth tantalisingly across hers, drawing back as she stirred and tensed like a warm, wild animal in his arms.
'Relax. Don't be frightened,' he soothed.
'I'm not, it's just . . .' Sarah gasped as he nuzzled her neck, finding with his tongue the throbbing pulse at the base of her throat. 'I don't remember—ever—feeling like this.' The words slowed and slurred as she threw back her head to allow his mouth access to the sensitive skin just under the curve of her jawline.
'You never have,' he muttered against her with sensuous satisfaction. 'Nor have I. We're a unique combination and the way we feel and fit together will be unique too'. I want to pleasure you and show you ways to pleasure me ... we have all the time in the world ... we can take it slowly, gently . . .'
He was keeping a tight rein on his passion and Sarah rebelled. She was a woman and wanted to be treated like one. She didn't want restraint, she wanted Max as she sensed he could be—fierce, passionate, volcanic— excitingly male. The driving need inside her would be content with nothing less.
She freed her hands, crushed between her body and his and held his head, stilling it. The hard shape of his skull in her hands was strangely affecting. Such fire and strength and intelligence inhabited that delicate structure. Such a man. Her eyes widened, showing him dilated pupils almost swallowing the violet-shadowed irises.
'Not too gentle, I hope.' Her bewitching dismay died under the ravishment of his lips. She made a soft, contented sound and his mouth hardened, deepening its erotic penetration. The darkness grew in around them, the orange pool of light like a glowing bubble of sexual tension enveloping them, isolating them.
Sarah stretched her arms and wound them around his neck, leaning into him on tip-toes, closing her eyes and drinking him like an intoxicating draught. She felt his hands move on her head, then the weight of her hair began to shift and she realised what he had done. Her head jerked back and he let her go, watching as she moved out of his arms and raised shaking hands to struggle with the unanchored pins.
'Let it down,' he ordered thickly. 'I want to see it down around you, I want to hold it in my hands.'
Impatiently she shook her head to release the knot and the heavy, luminous mass fell down. She heard a sharp hiss of indrawn breath as Max stared, following with his eyes the rich, rippling glow as it veiled the curves of her body. He had seen her with her hair down before, in the studio, but now he was looking at her as if he had never seen her before, the expression on his face fascinated, absorbed. For the first time in her life Sarah felt a true sense of feminine power.
As the seconds ticked by the tableau remained, Sarah as fascinated by Max as he was by her. He stood as if transfixed, feet slightly astride, hands hanging loosely at his sides, breathing slowly and deeply, eyes half-closed, face drawn tight, nostrils flared. He looked magnificent, savage, stripped of all that elegant charm that masked the elemental man. And in Sarah the elemental woman was fired in response.
Provocatively she turned her back on him, finding the last of the pins and drawing them out of her hair, placing them on the table beside the lamp. Then she began running her fingers through the tresses, pretending she had forgotten the man behind her.
He moved at last, with sudden violence, pulling her back against him so that she felt the hard muscularity, sliding his hands around her waist, splaying long fingers over her stomach as he buried his face in the scented curtain at her nape.
'I've run you to earth at last, little vixen,' he growled. 'There's no escaping me now; no laying of false trails or doubling back. Just you, and me, and this.' He moved his body deliberately against her so that its heat penetrated to her very bones, turned them soft with exquisite anticipation. She tried to twist around in his arms, but he wouldn't let her, hands tightening over her hip bones, tangling in the fine ends of her hair.
'Don't be so impatient,' he tantalised, a warm, exultant note of laughter in his voice. 'You must earn your satisfaction. I promise you, my wanton innocent, the pleasure will be all the more intense for it. Relax. Enjoy what I'm going to do to you.'
There was nothing she could do but obey, arching towards his hands with a sigh as they slid up to cup the aching fullness of her breasts, his thumbs brushing teasingly over the hardening tips. Her head fell back on to his shoulder, her safe, ordinary world exploding into a rapturous excitement of the senses beyond anything she had ever known. A stinging desire that streaked along her skin and nerves until her whole body was afire with it. At last, when she thought she could bear the slow, tormenting caresses no longer he turned her closely in his arms, the hardened contours of his body evidence of his own arousal.
He kissed her eyes and nose and mouth, and her hair where it waved thickly over her ears, and lifted his head to look at her dreamy face, touching her dark tresses.
'I know now why you keep it hidden. Like this it's too much of a temptation. Glorious, beautiful, infinitely sexy . . .' he said the words slowly, tasting them on his tongue, taking fistfuls of the softness and winding it loosely around his hands, drawing her mouth back to his. Her arms went around his waist under the jacket, locking him closer.
His hands stroked her hair and it clung, crackling, to him like a live thing. Sarah's mind blurred and tumbled weightlessly, the song of the crickets outs
ide merging to vibrate with the high, unending song of longing that Max was creating with his hands and mouth. Like a virtuoso with a beloved instrument, he handled her with consummate skill, touching the chords of forgotten notes, discovering new ones.
At some point her dress slithered into an insubstantial heap at their feet and Sarah shivered at the friction of his clothes on her heated skin.
'Still no compliments for me, darling vixen?' Max taunted softly, forcing her back over his arm so that the weight of her hair pulled her head back, but she could only moan helplessly, eyelids fluttering closed not wanting him to stop. Not wanting him to ever stop . . .
'It seems I shall have to use force . . .' and he took the bare sacrifice of her throat, trailing fire with his lips and tongue to the taut offering of her breasts. Tiny cries escaped her as he kissed the captured peaks, his mouth opening, moist, knowing, as he explored her arousal with a sensual expertise that had her twisting in voluptuous agony.
'Give in?' as his mouth returned to hers for the final onslaught.
'Yes . . . yes . . . yes to everything . . . please . . .' Sarah felt disorientated and clutched wildly at him as she felt herself whirling, falling, but he was only pushing her down to the soft white sheepskin rug beneath their feet.