The Dance
“Diane.”
Her heart thudded hard in her breast. She knew immediately who addressed her. Since Ruby’s collaring he seemed ever at Diane’s elbow whether it be at the grocers, at AJ and Ruby’s, at the theater. Donnal.
It was pointless, she admitted to herself. His interest could only be transitory for despite the fact thatshe foundhim fascinating –from his sable thick hair and laughing, coffee-dark eyes to the breadth of his shoulders- she knew it would not be possible to hold him.
Shorter than Donnal by 5-6 inches, she had green eyes and straight brown hair cut short. But her figure…Diane despaired over her figure. Gravity and time had done unspeakable things and though she now spent religious hours in the gym, it was slow work, discouraging work.
Plastering a smile on her face though she had rarely felt less joyful, Diane spun on her heel. Donnal stood close, much closer than she had anticipated but she refused to step back. With a tilt of her chin, she looked into his amused gaze.
“Donnal, we hafta stop meeting like this.” She injected wry humor into her voice.
“Say the word, then.” Something quick and hot flashed in his eyes that had Diane swallowing hard, her grin wavering. “Name the day, Diane-love.”
Temper and hurt stole her grin. It was cruel of him to tease her in this way.
“What if the word is ‘never’?”
“Say it,” all humor evaporated as he invited her flatly, “look me in the eye, say that word and I will go.”
And he would, too. She read it clearly in his face, his stance. If she said the word, he would leave her alone for good. Intolerable thought.
“Saturday.” It popped out against her better judgment and she blinked in surprise.
“Done.” He said with a grin and pinched her chin between his fingers. “Courage, pet, it will be alright.”
“What am I? A cat?”
His right eyebrow shot up and his eyes sparkled with wicked humor. “Shall I stroke you and find out?”
She backed up this time, laughing and not incidentally pulling her chin from his grasp. “I scratch,” she warned.
“Promise?”
“Serve you right if I did.” Diane shifted uneasily, convinced that he knew to a hair’s breadth his effect on her.
“Saturday, 1PM. I’ll pick you up.” He laughed and departed.
A moth, she thought despairingly as she watched him leave, she was a moth to his flame and not a cat at all.
By Saturday, she had changed her mind; shewas a cat. Anticipation turned her cat-twitchy. She paced catlike. Diane acknowledged ruefully when she caught herself hyperventilating that Donnal affected her as no other man.
He was Dangerous, with a capital “D.” She rolled her eyes and took herself to task for thinking in capital letters.
It was her doom, Diane decided grimly moments later as she breathed into a paper bag, to be at her worst whenever Donnal showed up. She winced inwardly as he parked his car and sauntered up the walk to her house, pausing at the bottom of her porch steps to absorb the scene before him.
Item: woman of indeterminate years dressed in indigo cotton walking shorts and pale blue sleeveless blouse sitting on the top step.
Item: small brown paper bag clutched in her left hand.
Item: woman breathes into said paper bag while glaring defiantly at the man grinning appreciatively at her.
“Stressful morning, little cat?”
“You’re early,” she accused, lowering the sack.
He came up the steps chuckling and sat next to her. Diane’s heart rate spiked and she hastily resumed breathing into the bag. God! She could feel his heat seeping into her; she could smell the seductive combination of soap, fresh clothes, shaving lotion and his clean skin. She thought it was the sexiest scent ever.
“Trembling? For me?”
Until he pointed it out, Diane had not realized that she was shaking like a feather in the wind. She half hoped that Donnal would think her such a basket case he would give up his pursuit as a bad job.
“Actually,” she lifted her face from the bag to retort, “I just saw my latest power bill.”
“Know what you mean,” he said without missing a beat, “I think it’s time utility companies paidus to take the power off their hands, don’t you?”
As he spoke, Donnal slid his arm around her shoulders and urged her to lean against him in an easy intimacy that Diane resisted. She opened her mouth to tell him she had changed her mind about the date.
“You’ll try to back out now, hmmm?”
She snapped her mouth shut with such force that her teeth clicked audibly. Hehad to be guessing! The thought that he might know her so well after so short a time appalled her.
“Bugger,” she said.
Donnal threw back his head and laughed. His laughter was purely male, rich and infectious, and it drew the corners of her lips upward in a reluctant grin. She liked the way his amusement resonated in his chest and the way his arm tightened automatically around her as though he wanted her closer, to join in his mirth.
“Why are you doing this?” It popped out unbidden.
“You know why,” he retorted and then sighed, “and you are going to fight me every inch of the way, aren’t you?”
“I can’t let you win.”
“And I cannot let you lose.” Tenderness laced his voice and he nuzzled her silky dark hair. “Don’t worry, little cat. I love a good battle.”
Ifthat was supposed to reassure her, it failed miserably. She buried her face in the bag and inhaled deeply.
Donnal drove her to his farm for an afternoon picnic. AJ and Ruby had already arrived. While the two men fired up the grill, Diane joined her friend in the kitchen. She put together a salad while Ruby laced marinated pork onto bamboo skewers.
After a few moments’ companionable small talk, Diane took a deep breath and asked, “Ruby, are you ever afraid of AJ?”
Ruby looked up from her task and regarded her friend a long, thoughtful moment. “I think it’s impossible for fear and deep trust to co-exist. I trust AJ with my life.”
“Even when he hurts you?”
“AJ is more careful with me than you know,” she said mildly. “Why don’t you ask me the real question, Diane?”
Diane blushed and muttered, “I thought I had.”
“You don’t fear Donnal, my friend. You fear the way he makes you feel. You are afraid to trust him because deep down, you are afraid you will be hurt. What you want to know is whether Donnal is worthy of your trust.”
Ruby, Diane acknowledged with a certain grim amusement, was bang on the mark.
“Is Donnal trustworthy?”
Ruby washed her hands and gave her friend a warm hug.
“I find him so. And I will tell you this: AJ says he has never seen his brother more single-minded or more determined to succeed.”
Diane’s heart thumped painfully in her breast as she sighed. “I’m not sure I wanted to know that.”
Ruby chuckled and squeezed her affectionately once more. “Anyway, what’s the worst that could happen?” she asked as she returned to skewering pork.
“That I take the risk, fall in love with Donnal and he leaves me.”
“Really?” Ruby piled the pork skewers onto a platter and went to the door leading to an outside deck. “I would have said that the worst would be to not take the chance and in consequence, miss finding the love of your life.”
“Oh, I get it,” Diane snorted and, carrying her bowl of salad, followed Ruby out the door. “Better to be sorry than safe, huh? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Ruby chuckled. “Better to take a chance than to hide from life,” she amended.
AJ took the platter and set it on the table near the grill.
“Who’s hiding then?” he asked Ruby with a grin, brushing his knuckles along her cheek in an affectionate caress. She smiled up at him and for the first time Diane understood – really understood – what Ruby meant. Adoration and absolute trust glowed in her friend’s face as she gazed at AJ.
“Just girl talk.”
Diane was not surprised to find Donnal’s gaze on her when her eyes flicked his way. The similarities and the contrasts between the brothers as they stood side-by-side caught her attention at once.
Their shared blood was evident in the line of jaw and shape of head. They echoed each other, too, in their stance – a kind of loose limbed alertness – and in the way amusement tilted each head in the same way so that laughter crinkled the corners of their eyes before moving down to curve their lips.
The contrasts between them seemed therefore more pronounced, as though thrown into relief by their close resemblance.
AJ shaped his conversation with his hands, punctuated with a gesture, a flick of his wrist, a slash of his fingers. His hands were rarely still. As often as not, one or both hands rested on Ruby.
With a pang, Diane realized that AJ used such touches to reassure her friend as well as to remind her of his control. He had big hands. In fact everything about him was big. She had once told Ruby that AJ was the prototypical dominant male but in truth, his size intimidated her.
Donnal, on the other hand, was built on less massive lines and stood a half-foot shorter than AJ’s six foot four inches. There was an ease in the way Donnal held himself, a bone-deep comfort in his own skin that said he knew exactly who he was. This man not only knew his own strengths and weaknesses, but accepted them unapologetically.
His air of barely suppressed amusement grated on her nerves, put up her back. It was as though Donnal found everyday life diverting, a personal entertainment, a source of never-ending merriment. In a flash of insight, Diane realized that part of his ready amusement stemmed from a clear-eyed ability to see the strengths and weaknesses of others along with their self-deceptions.
Diane sighed in embarrassed recollection of just how much she had unwittingly amused him earlier that very day.
“A penny,” Donnal said, “for your thoughts.”
Not bloody likely! Diane sought purely to distract him. “AJ’s so much taller—“
AJ raised a brow and smirked at his brother.
“AJ got the tall genes,” Donnal drawled, “I got the smart ones.”
Diane grinned despite herself as AJ snorted and rolled his eyes.
It was only later, as they were eating, that realization hit Diane so hard she froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. The sheer depth of Donnal’s planning took her breath away. What -on the face of it- appeared to be an innocent afternoon get-together with friends and family was in reality something else altogether.
In point of fact, it was a carefully calculated exposure to dominance and submission. She had no doubt it was deliberate. And it had worked too,dammit! Diane had watched Ruby and by association, AJ, rather closely over the course of the afternoon. It was clear that Ruby’s unswerving focus was AJ. While she laughed and chatted with everyone, she always,always kept a part of her attention on AJ and anticipated his needs.
So natural was Ruby in her care of AJ that it was seamless: refilling his glass before it was quite empty, fetching a towel so he could dry his hands, offering him a second helping of salad. In a gesture Diane was convinced Ruby had no idea how often she made, her friend ran her fingers over the black and silver collar she wore. Diane also observed AJ stroke his thumb along the metal once or twice and had seen Ruby’s softly glowing pride in his possessive display.
One could argue for mental telepathy, watching them. With a pang she realized that the shared glances and intimate smiles between AJ and Ruby demonstrated a mutual radar, only Diane was pretty sure, that they called it ‘love.’
As she carefully returned her fork to her plate, Diane mentally saluted Donnal’s cleverness. She wanted what Ruby and AJ had. She longed for it and feared it, too. Ruby gave herself completely to AJ, gloried in her submission and reveled in his dominance. It was clearly to AJ’s benefit. But what of Ruby?
Such absolute surrender, the mere thought of trusting another person that much, flatly scared the bejeezus out of Diane. She was NOT Ruby. If that’s what Donnal wanted from her, they were both doomed to disappointment. Of course, Diane grudgingly admitted, AJ obviously adored Ruby. It would be thrilling to be adored, wouldn’t it?
It was inevitable, she supposed, raising her eyes, that his gaze rested unsmilingly on her. Donnal had his own kind of radar where she was concerned and that, more than anything else she had learned today, filled her with trepidation.
He saw and understood in a blink her newly acquired knowledge, her awareness of his purpose and his eyes flooded with heat. Her chin went up and she gave him the barest contrary shake of her head. She could not be Ruby and refused to try.
Diane groaned inwardly when his response was a slow sexy grin. Too late she remembered that Donnal liked a challenge.
In the car on the way home from Donnal’s, Ruby said, “You were correct, Sir. Dianedid try to deflect Donnal. She used humor and indifference and physical distance. But he only let her go so far before he…”
“Retrieved her.” AJ interjected with a grin. “I noticed that, too.”
“Then he kept his hands on her…usually at least one hand on her lower back. She doesn’t know that it’s a claiming gesture.”
“She knows.” AJ countered. Ruby tilted her head in thought.
“He’s accustoming her to his touch, isn’t he, Sir?”
AJ nodded and slid his fingers through her silky soft hair. “Skittish creatures, submissives.”
The Risk
“Now what?” Diane asked somewhat belligerently as AJ’s car disappeared down the drive.
Donnal leaned back against the deck railing, his feet crossed at the ankles and hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. He wore a black T-shirt that should have been X-rated simply for the fact that the way it stretched over his chest made her mouth water and short-circuited her circulatory system.
His dark gaze rested on her in a steady male assessment that jerked her heart hard and gave birth to a rising carnal panic.
“Come here.”
She put up her chin. “I am not your dog.”
His right brow flicked up and the humor that flooded his gaze did nothing to reassure and everything to ratchet up her female panic.
Slowly, he removed his hands from his pockets and straightened. She could have run, should have run, but ruefully admitted to too much reckless bravado to do it. Donnal caught her arms just above the elbow and tugged her close, until her hands splayed across his scrumptious chest and she blinked up at him.
“I don’t want a dog.” he assured her, lacing his hands in the small of her back and trapping her against his heat, pulling her between his legs. It was not a fair tactic, when being this close to him fanned her need to yowl at the moon, or failing that, melt into a puddle.
She reacted viscerally to him. Female to his male. Scared witless, she could only stand in his embrace holding her breath as his mouth came closer and closer. He put his lips against her ear and told her in a laughter-laced whisper,
“I want a cat.”
Then he bit her earlobe. Hard. Enough to make her yelp and wrench back, knocked out of her mesmerized fascination by the shock of his teeth.
“You want a Ruby!” Diane flung at him, straining to break his hold.
“Ruby is just right for my brother and all wrong for me.” He held her with an ease that turned her panic to fury.
“You want me to submit!”
“Of course, and you will, you know. That’s why you’re half panicked. It will be ok, Diane. I won’t hurt you.”
His tone made her think of crooning, a slow, deep, male kind of purr that shivered up her back making it hard to swallow, to breathe. Bloody hell, the man could make a fortune if he bottled that tone and sold it as‘Imminent Sin.’
When he dipped his head to taste and nibble at her neck, Diane groaned with the pleasure, her anger dissolving into carnal bliss. She wanted this, wanted him. Even knowing it couldn’t last, she wanted the memory of it. In that moment, she decided to have an affair, to accept what he wanted to give, to guard her heart and sleep with him. Hopefully within the next ten minutes if not sooner.
Donnal stroked his thumb over her jaw and smiled at her, his self-assurance such that she experienced an entirely contrary feminine desire to shake him, to surprise him.
“Sweet cat,” he said as he kissed his way along her jaw, “purr for me.”
She turned her head and nipped at him. When he reared back in surprise, she broke free leapt the two steps off the deck to the ground and grinned as he stood there rubbing his neck.
“I’d rather bite.”
Diane was very sure, as she watched the purely male heat flood through Donnal, that she had made a tactical error. Backing away with her hands up before her, palms out in a universal gesture of ‘slow down, wait a minute,’ her smile wavered.
Donnal took a step towards her, then another, his eyes locked on hers and his movement fluid, deliberate. He let her see her fate...the male determination to possess, to take, to hold. She gave a squeak of pure feminine terror, turned and fled.
As she ran through the orchard where Ruby had received her collar, Diane forgot all about her decision to offer her body to Donnal for a night to remember. She forgot about her attraction. She forgot where the car was. She forgot her own name. So deep was her panic and desire to flee that male claim, she forgot everything but the need to run.
After a few moments of blurred rushing terror, she caught her toe on a tree root and sprawled headlong in the grass at the orchard’s edge. The shock of falling kick-started her higher brain function.This is bloody ridiculous! Diane thought as she rolled onto her back and sought to calm her racing heart by taking a mental inventory.
Elbows - check Hands - she sniffed the strong odor of grass scent and didn’t bother to look. Grass stained. Knees - stinging, grass stained too, no doubt. Feet -
“Are you all right?” Donnal interrupted her inventory and she looked up.
Although his tone was one of concern, his mouth displayed what she considered to be a deplorable tendency to curve in the beginnings of a smile as he stood looking down at her disheveled form. The jerk.
She glared at him.
“Chuffing wonderful!” She spat, fisting her hands in the tall grass.
The jerk chuckled. Mortified, she squeezed her eyes shut.Dammit, she groaned inwardly and struggled hard to hold onto her anger and embarrassment. Something about Donnal’s laughter disarmed her every time.
“Come on,” he said.
She cracked an eye open and saw an outstretched hand.
“Let’s clean you up a bit.”
Diane glanced suspiciously into his face, assessing his determined innocence for a long moment before giving a philosophical shrug. ‘Elegance’ had never been her middle name.So sue me, she thought and took his hand.
Donnal drew her upright with a smooth, steady pull that gave her delicious shivers at the display of controlled strength. Once she was upright, he retained her hand and started off, pulling her along willy nilly.
“Where are we going?”
For the first time, she noticed that a barn stood on the edge of the clearing.
“First Aid.”
“I’ll want to see your Red Cross card.”
His fingers tightened on hers and he threw her a laughing look over his shoulder as he unlocked the barn’s side door.
“It’s in avery safe place.”
“I’ll bet.” she muttered and stepped through the door into the darkened interior of the barn.
It didn’t smell like a barn, was her first thought. No dusty hay smell. No pungent animal smell. Then Donnal flipped the light switch and tugged her towards a long wooden counter set with a deep stone sink.
“Here.” He put his hands on her waist and lifted her onto the counter. While she sat gasping at the ease with which he had lifted her, Donnal turned the water on and hunted through drawers until he came up with a clean cloth.
“This looks like a regular kitchen.”
“That’s because it is.”
He washed her scraped knees with the soapy cloth and paid no attention to her indrawn, hissing breath when he pressed a kiss near each scrape.
“How come you have a kitchen in your barn?”
“Because it’s not a barn. Hands.”
Dutifully, she presented her hands and watched as he cleaned them with the same quick, thorough efficiency he had used on her knees. He kissed each bruised palm, too.
“It looks like a barn.”
“It’s not.” As he dried off her knees and hands, he added. “Any other scrapes? Bumps? Bruises?”
She shook her head ‘no’ at each question then caught her breath as he placed a hand on either side of her and leaned closer.
“I’m afraid I must insist on a complete exam.”
“You must?”
“Red Cross requirement. Never let an injured person leave the area without a thorough examination.”
He had thick, dark, unruly hair, she noticed apropos of nothing, then his mouth covered hers and she forgot everything except the need to be closer. The man was delicious, his mouth hot and dominating as it plundered hers, his tongue a teasing enticement.
“Mmmmm.” he hummed an approval when he lifted his head to draw her deeper into his arms.
Diane discovered that he stood between her parted thighs with one arm around her back and a hand cupping her chin, holding her just so. With a delighted murmur, she wrapped her legs around his waist.
“Undamaged flexibility,” Donnal observed approvingly and kissed her again.
When he slid both hands under her bottom, her *warning - brain impairment* light went on. Diane resolutely switched it off and lost herself in the undiluted joy of thrusting her hands through his thick hair while kissing him with an avid hunger that should have surprised her.
He tasted good. He tasted bloody wonderful. Everything about him was just right...his scent, the heat of his hands kneading her ass, even his size. Just right.
It occurred to her, after a millennium or three, that they were moving. She tightened her legs around him. Please let there be a bed, she prayed. Donnal moved his mouth to nibble and suck on her neck and the zing of pure lust that shot through Diane had her abruptly amending her prayer to: Bugger the bed, please let there be sex in the next 60 seconds!
“You’re purring,” he chuckled.
She blinked, trying to focus, trying to think. Not an easy task when one’s neurons are scrambled. Donnal had paused in a doorway and when she glimpsed the big bed in the room beyond, Diane sent a silent prayer of thanks to the powers that be.
“Once we enter this room–“
“Less talk, more sex.” Diane interrupted, tugging at his hair in an effort to bring his mouth back within range.
His laugh rumbled deep in his chest and he gave her a fierce, hot kiss.
“Agreed. We will talk later, little cat.”
Three long strides brought them to the bed. Donnal let her slide down the length of him until she stood on her own, but he kept his mouth on hers. Branded by his heat, claimed by his touch, Diane murmured a curse as she tried to get closer, thrusting her hands beneath his t-shirt. She needed to be against his skin, against that delicious male heat, she needed it more than she could remember needing anything.
“Easy,” he said softly, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Donnal removed his t-shirt and then caught her close in a strong hug. She purred her approval and flexed her fingers into the skin over his ribs. God, he felt good! All male heat, rough satin, resilient flesh. His chest was covered with dark curling hair that narrowed into the perfect arrow pointing the way to the snap of his jeans.
She sank her teeth lightly around his nipple and sighed as it hardened in her mouth. His sharply indrawn breath delighted her and she fumbled at the fastening of his jeans.
“Hungry, aren’t you?” he got out, in a kind of breathless chuckle as he caught her wrists in his hands. “No. That is for later.”
Diane groaned in frustrated lust then he pushed open her blouse and slid his hands across her ribs. Shivers of desire rolled through her. She sought his mouth with an unfathomable desperation.
Donnal obliged her, taking her tongue into his mouth, sucking it gently. He undressed her as they kissed, curbing her needy haste with firmness. Before she quite knew how it happened, but delighted all the same, she found herself reclining completely naked on the bed, while Donnal smiled down at her with male anticipation.
When she lifted her foot to slide it down his leg, Diane was shocked to find he still wore his jeans. But when she would have relieved him of the last of his clothes, Donnal forestalled her by capturing her wrists and holding them above her head.
He grinned at her. She twisted a little, nibbled on her lip, considered a knee to his groin but reasoned that would defeat the purpose and anyway, he was looking as though he halfway expected such a move from her and damned if she would give him the satisfaction of being predictable.
“What?” she grumped at last, as he continued to simply watch her.
Her body was tight with need, she could feel a wave of moisture sneak outwards from her sex in preparation. Dammit. She could smell herself. And still, Donnal just knelt there, using his body to control hers.
“I want to look at you.”
She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. “Look later, ok? I’m wet enough to float a boat.“
He gave a sharp crack of laughter and then captured her mouth in a swift hot kiss. Her arousal, which had threatened to morph into embarrassment, returned hotter and more insistent than ever.
“Grumpy cat,” he murmured with a chuckle, “we have hours.”
Diane tried to reclaim the use of her hands. “You might have hours, but I–“ she broke off and winced inwardly at the almost-admission of need.
He shifted a little and she reopened her eyes. Donnal was making a slow visual inventory of her. Embarrassment clutched at her throat. His gaze had weight, she thought, as she watched it travel down her body. She could feel it. When he paused at her breasts, her nipples responded by tightening. He glanced up at her face through his lashes and very deliberately licked his lips.
Diane wriggled and made a noise, then cleared her throat and demanded, “Are you going to fuck me or simply ogle me to death?”
His brows flew up and his amusement deepened. “Is it possible to be ogled to death?”
“I’m in flames here.”
He leaned over her and licked her right nipple. “Hot, needy little cat. You are delicious.”
She growled her frustration and tried - really tried- to free her wrists from his grasp. The ease with which he curbed the attempt exasperated her.
“Donnal?”
“Yes?” he didn’t look up from his perusal of her naked squirming body.
“Donnal, dammit!” Surely that moaning, whimpering, female-in-heat wail had not come from her!
He shifted again, sent her a beatific smile and released her wrists. Sitting back on his heels between her splayed thighs, Donnal stroked his hands down her body in a long slow caress from her shoulders to her knees. So absorbed in the task, as though it was vitally important that he learn the shape, the texture, and the scent of her, that for a fanciful moment Diane thought he imprinted her somewhere on his back brain.
Then, disgusted with her infatuated fantasies, she brought a hand down to catch a handful of his thick dark hair. Again, Donnal captured her wrist and pulled her hand away.
“I want to explore you, Diane.”
“If I can explore you.”
“That will come later.”
“But...you want me to just lay here while you...while you—“
“Ogle. And touch, and taste, and pleasure you. Yes. Exactly.”
One word resonated in flaming letters in her enfeebled brain: ‘pleasure.’
“Promise I get to return the favor?”
“Unquestionably.”
With a groan, Diane lay back down, fisted her hands in the coverlet and muttered, “Ready.”
Donnal laughed even as he stroked his hand up her inner thigh. “More than ready, if I am any judge.”
She threw an arm over her eyes, hot with embarrassment and lust. Donnal. Dammit.
“Sweet, needy little cat.” he soothed, pressing kisses in a march up her thigh.
Diane sat up again and grabbed his head with both hands.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Donnal-dammit.”
“I want to taste you.”
Little trickling shivers of heated desire zinged up her spine to the base of her brain. “Get used to disappointment.” Her voice, thick with need, was less than forceful, more breathy. She winced inwardly at it.
He went completely still and quiet. His dark gaze was steady on her face, devoid of humor. Her teasing, laughing, almost-lover was gone. And in his place...in his place was a determined, relentless male.
“You don’t enjoy oral sex?” he asked in a flat voice that sent alarms shivering up her nerves.
“I do,” she admitted and looked away, squirming inwardly.
“You don’t like the idea of oral sex with me?”
“It’s not that, dammit.” feeling harassed and pushed and above all embarrassed, she looked away.
“Diane...”
“I need to...to use the bathroom!” she turned to glare at him then. Daring him to laugh, to make a flippant comment.
The depths of her relief, when Donnal relaxed and smiled at her, scared her. Was this what Ruby experienced with AJ? This profound desire to please and relief in finding humor where one might expect anger?
“Diane, let me wash you.”
“No.”
But he caught her against his naked chest and held her easily as she tried to escape the bed. The fight drained out of her like magic, as he held her skin-to-skin and their hearts beat an accelerated samba together.
He put his lips to her temple and whispered, “Diane, trust me. I won’t hurt you. I want to wash you, I want to taste you. I want to make love to you.”
She sighed and shivered. “Why?”
“Because I want you, silly cat.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.” He soothed a hand down her naked back, cupped her cheek. “I am going to wash you now, Diane. Then I am going to taste you, until you whimper in dazed pleasure.”
“You will kill me.” she sighed. Donnal stroked his thumb over her lips and smiled at her, the heat in his eyes an enticement.
“What a way to die, little cat.” He paused a moment, his gaze a considering, pondering one. Then he asked the question she had expected all along and her heart thumped painfully against her breast bone. “Will it be easier for you if I restrain you, Diane? Would you like me to tie your wrists?”
Later, it caused her all kinds of agonies that she answered as she did; that she gave so much away.
“Yes. It would be easier. But I can’t let you do that.”
He stared deeply into her eyes at that. He stared a long, long time - at least, it felt like an eon or two. Certainly long enough for her to blush all over her body and kick herself mentally for being such a fool.
Abruptly, Donnal bore her back onto the bed, trapping her with his body. He stretched her arms above her head and she began to struggle in earnest.
“Resistance is futile,” he whispered with affectionate humor against her hair as he clicked the restraints over her wrists and brought his hands down to capture her head between his palms. The breath froze in her lungs and her heart hammered triple time. Bloody hell, he’d done it! Desire, incipient panic, hot lust flamed all at once and clogged her throat.
“I won’t hurt you, little cat.”
Then he kissed her into senility, completely removing coherent thought or objection.
Where he got the warm, wet washcloth, Diane had no idea. He didn’t seem to leave the bed. Maybe his kisses had pushed her into another dimension where time moved differently. In any case, she flinched at the unexpected touch of the cloth stroking over her sex.
“Sshh, my cat,” he said as he proceeded to use the cloth to clean and explore her thoroughly.
The cloth was at once pleasant in its warmth and vaguely irritating in its nubby texture as Donnal drew it over her from clit to ass. When he spread her lips and washed them with careful, slow attention, she sucked in a stuttering breath. God. Who knew how erotic this cleaning thing could be?
He eased the cloth over her sensitive, quivering skin repeatedly. She made a half-strangled sound deep in her throat and heard the smile in his voice as he murmured, “Sweet, sexy little cat. You are lovely here.”
She rolled mental eyeballs and held her breath, desperate to know where he would touch her next and half-fearing she already knew. Hot wet heat from perineum to clit. Again. Again. Donnal-dammit! He was licking her!
Diane twisted, moaning, as Donnal used his tongue to send her into moaning, lusting, needy incoherence.
“This is a new cloth,” a confusing non-sequitur until something warm, wet, and nearly-rough texture eased inside her.
She wanted to raise her head and confirm with her eyes what her other senses were yelling; that Donnal was carefully inserting a warm, wet, washcloth in her sex. However, since he chose that moment to lick her clitoris, sending waves of jittering pleasure up her spine, Diane forgot all else.
He used his fingers to stroke and twist and otherwise explore her. He used his tongue with bone-melting effect. After a bit, he stopped pushing more of the cloth inside her and settled for thrusting his fingers deep as he held her clit between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. He hummed a dazzling vibrating counterpoint against her most sensitive flesh. He drove her arousal higher and higher until she bowed off the bed, her body taut and pulsing and searching.
“Please, please, please.” she chanted, not knowing whether she pleaded for release or cessation.
“Yes,” he said.
He sucked and nibbled at her lips, licked her whole length, pinched her clit between his fingers and settled to sucking it with varying intensity and speed. Diane shrieked and went over, pulling against her restraints and moaning in rhythm to her climax. As the waves of pleasure eased, Donnal slowly, steadily removed the washcloth from her sex and she jolted under a fresh wave of bliss.
“Donnaldonnaldonn-“ she babbled, unmade, undone, a mass of quivering nerve endings and female heat.
He was suddenly right there, mounting her, with his mouth over hers so he could swallow her dazed sounds of pleasure. As he thrust his body home in hers, he breathed softly into her mouth.
“I will be the breath in your lungs.”
Diane could not catch her breath as his body moved inside hers, the lovely friction sparking off nerve endings like fireworks. He nipped at the soft translucent skin of her inner elbow.
“I will be the blood in your veins.”
He caught her sweaty face between his hands and looked deeply into her eyes as he pressed his hips hard into hers. She blinked. She moaned. She rolled her hips to meet his ever-faster thrusts. She focused on his intent eyes. He let her see pleasure and warmth and glimmering affection in his eyes as he came.
“I will be the song in your heart.” He added, “For you are mine.”
This time, Diane’s climax peaked higher, locking her muscles and straining tendons in shivering paroxysms of release. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think; she could only feel. In her heart, she agreed. She was his. In her mind ...well, her mind was temporarily missing in action.
