Page 33 of Snow Kisses

He didn’t answer her. He took a long draw from the cigarette and exhaled through pursed lips. “Nightmares fading away, honey?” he asked.

She managed a faint smile. “All but gone, in fact.” She shrugged, applying more liniment. “It was so hellish at the time. But looking back, I was lucky. Really lucky. All he did was push me around a little before the bystanders chased him off. It was the idea of what could have happened that was so scary. Gosh, men are strong, Cade.”

“Some men,” he agreed. He glanced at her.

She looked down as he looked up, and her eyes drowned in his dark, intense stare. Her hands stilled on his arm, and time seemed to go into a standstill around them. She was remembering another night, another time, when she’d lain on this very bed in his arms and experienced her first intimacy with a man. But Cade had changed since then. The easygoing, humorous man she’d once known had been replaced by a far more mature man, a harder man. He’d never been easy to read, but now nothing showed in his expression.

He reached out without warning and caught her around the waist, pulling her down on the bed beside him.

“Cade!” she gasped, too shocked to struggle.

He rolled over on his side and one bare arm arched across her body to hold her there while he leaned on an elbow and watched the expressions cross her face. Her eyes dropped to his chest, and she wanted to touch him so desperately that she closed them to resist the impulse.

“Afraid?” he asked softly.

Her fingers touched his hard face, sensitive to the rough texture of it where he needed a shave, to the feel of his cool, thick hair against them. “I’m with you now. I’m safe.”

“Not so safe,” he said with a faint smile. “But protected, for what it’s worth. Suppose I kiss you half to death and then I can grab a bite to eat and go back out.”

“Suppose you just kiss me half to death and forget about going back out?” she asked, tingling all over as she waited to feel that hard, warm mouth over hers.

“Because,” he breathed, fitting his lips slowly, sensitively to hers, “as sure as God made little green apples, Calla’s going to be knocking at that door any minute to make sure you’re safe. And once I’m fed, she’ll want to make sure that I’m too tired to find my way to you.”

“Calla wouldn’t…”

He kissed her slowly, softly. “Calla would. She’s not blind. She sees the way I look at you.”

Her heart was racing. “How do you look at me?” she asked.

His mouth smiled mockingly against hers. “Haven’tyou noticed? Hush. I seem to have waited half my life to get you in bed with me like this….”

She felt his lips nibbling at hers, nudging at them with exquisite slowness, and she relaxed, letting her fingers curl into the hair at his nape.

His tongue teased its way into her mouth and she gasped sharply at the sudden intimacy, even as she felt his body moving sensuously against hers. His mouth softened and became coaxing with expert sureness as his chest scraped abrasively, teasingly across her breasts until the tips hardened. She moaned softly and he lifted his dark head to look into her eyes, searching them quickly. “Was that fear or pleasure?” he whispered.

Her lips parted involuntarily. One slender hand moved from the back of his head down over his chest and stroked him, smoothing the curling dark hair over the warm muscles. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said in a breathless whisper, searching his dark eyes.

“I could make you afraid, though, couldn’t I, Abby?” he asked, as if it mattered. “You’re still very vulnerable.”

“You make me sound like a terrified virgin,” she replied.

His warm fingers stroked the long, pale hair back from her flushed face. “I’m doing my damndest to remember that you are one,” he said softly. “It’s hard for a man to make love like this, Abby. To remember not to kiss too hard, not to touch too intimately….”

Her eyes betrayed the surprise she felt at what he was confessing. “Have you been deliberately holding backall this time?” she asked, searching his eyes. “Because you thought you might frighten me?”

He drew in a deep breath, and she felt his chest expand against her breasts. “I couldn’t bear to hurt you,” he said. His voice was like velvet, deep and dark and softly textured. “I’ve treated you like porcelain since you’ve been here. I’ve damned near worked myself into an early grave to keep away…and tonight, I caved in. I kept remembering how you were this morning, how you begged for my mouth….” His eyes closed, his face tautened. “Oh, God, Abby, what am I going to do about you?” he groaned.

She couldn’t even speak. He looked so incredibly vulnerable, as if he were at the end of some imaginary rope. Her fingers stroked his broad shoulders, loving the very texture of his skin. She loved everything about him, every line and curve of him.

“You said this morning,” she reminded him softly, “that a few kisses wouldn’t hurt either one of us. Didn’t you?”

His eyes opened, and they were like black fires. “And that’s the whole problem, little one. I want more than a few kisses.”

Her eyes fell to his chiseled mouth and she felt her body begin to tremble. “Cade…I don’t mind if you touch me,” she whispered.

His face moved against hers, his breath sighing out heavily at her ear. “That could be dangerous.”

With a surge of fearlessness, she caught one of the hands beside her on the bed and lifted it in hers. Before her courage gave out completely, she took it toher T-shirt and eased it hesitantly over the soft curve of her breast.

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