Diamond Spur. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ and she was out of her depth with him.

      He seemed to know that. His lean hands came up to frame her face and he bent again. “Open your mouth this time,” he breathed as his lips nudged hers apart. “Deep kisses are an acquired taste, but I think I can make you want mine.”

      She moaned at the way he said it, at the velvet of his deep voice, at the aching hunger his caressing lips aroused in her body. She let him push her lips apart with his, admitting the slow, tender penetration of his tongue. She felt his tongue touching hers, fencing with it, and her body began to tremble.

      One of Jason’s hands went behind her head, to support it. The other traced her cheek, her soft throat while he deepened the kiss. His mouth was expert. Warm and hard and knowing, and she could hear his rough breathing mingled with hers in the silence of the porch. Instinctively she tried to move closer to him, wanting his strength to support her sudden weakness.

      His mouth lifted a second later, pressing roughly against the side of her neck. He slid his arms around her and enveloped her against him, but when she pressed even closer and felt the sudden changed contours of his body, he gently eased his hips back to prevent the contact.

      She wanted to ask him if it embarrassed him to have her know he was aroused, but she was too shy to put it into words. She’d heard girls at school talk about men getting this way. She knew what caused it, and her head swam to think that, at her age, she could have that effect on Jason.

      He was having his own effect on her as well. She couldn’t seem to stop trembling, and his arms tightened, shifting her soft breasts against his hard chest. She could feel the muscle right through the soft material of her blouse. He had to know that she wasn’t wearing a bra by now, and that made her nervous. She tugged gently against his hard arms, but he wouldn’t let go.

      “Don’t fight me,” he murmured at her ear as his head lifted. “I won’t take advantage of it.”

      “Of...what?” she faltered, trying to save her pride.

      “Of the fact that you’re bare under that blouse, Kate,” he said. He lifted his head and looked down at her with an odd kind of patient indulgence, but there was a glitter in his dark eyes that made her heart skip beats. “That I can feel how soft you are, lying on my chest.”

      Her face went blood red. She dropped her eyes to the steady rise and fall of his chest. She felt inadequate. Years too young.

      “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he murmured. He scowled, gently tracing her mouth with a lean forefinger, feeling its instant shy response. “I told you I was in a strange mood. I should have sent you on home before this happened.”

      “Are you sorry that it did?” she asked shyly, and her eyes were wide and soft and still hungry when they met his.

      “Are you hell-bent on becoming famous?” he countered.

      “I just want to see how far I can go,” she told him. “No, I don’t want to be famous. I just want to use my talent.”

      “New York is a long way from Texas.”

      “So you keep telling me. Jason, I won’t change.”

      “You will,” he said quietly. He studied her young face quietly. “But I’m not going to have you seduced by some Ivy Leaguer with a line a mile long. I don’t want you treated like an appetizer.”

      “You’re very possessive lately,” she said, but it flattered her that he cared, that he didn’t want anything to happen to her.

      “Of course I’m possessive. I owe you my life a time or two.” He sighed roughly. “I don’t want a man to...hurt you,” he said finally, and his dark eyes were troubled. “Inevitably, if you move in those circles, you’re going to meet some experienced men, and you won’t know how to handle them. You could get drunk one time too many in the wrong company, or you could be flattered too much by a man’s attentions. And the first time, if a man isn’t damned gentle....” He stopped, frowning as he searched for the right words. “I don’t want you used.”

      She smiled, because she knew what he was trying to say. It delighted her that he had trouble saying it when most men were permissive and worldly and blunt. He wasn’t a virgin, she was sure, but he wasn’t all that experienced, either. She dropped her eyes to his chest. “I promise I won’t jump into bed with the first man who asks me, Jason.” She stared at his chest. “Anyway, I don’t like it when men touch me. Except that I’ve always wondered what it would be like...if you did.”

      He felt the ground go out from under him. Until the past two days he’d never thought of Kate as a woman, and now he couldn’t think of her any other way. Her mouth was sweet and responsive and he wanted it again. He wanted to put his hands under that silky blouse and touch her bare breasts, to see if they were really as soft as they felt lying against his chest. He wanted to drag her hips back against his and make her feel the strength of the arousal he hadn’t wanted her to know about.

      “Don’t make jokes,” he said tersely.

      Her face felt warm, but it wasn’t the time for subterfuge. “I’m not,” she said honestly. “If I ever...well, if I wanted anyone, I mean...” She was as bad as he was about this, she thought, almost laughing at her own inefficiency. “I can’t imagine being that intimate with someone I’ve only just met,” she murmured. “It would have to be someone I knew very well.”

      “Like me?” he prompted quietly.

      Her body tingled. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Yes.”

      “If I’d let you,” he said after a minute, trying to lessen some of the tension that was building between them and playing hell with his good intentions, not to mention his agonized body.

      She glanced up to find a faint, rather forced amusement in those dark eyes. “Oh, so it’s that way, is it?” she took him up, delighted at the new familiarity they were sharing so unexpectedly. “I’d have to seduce you, I gather?”

      “Damned straight,” he returned. “I’m not one of those fast city boys. You won’t get me into bed without a fight.”

      She laughed, her eyes sparkling, her face radiant. “Well, I never.”

      “I know,” he mused.

      She hit his chest with a small, playful fist. “Tease.”

      “Flirt.”

      She stared up at him with pleasure and adoration written all over her. “If you’re going to play hard to get, I’ll just go home.”

      “That might be wise,” he sighed. He dragged a cigarette from his pocket with fingers he had to force to be steady, and lit it. “You’re getting me all stirred up.”

      Her eyebrows lifted. “Well, you started it.”

      “I guess I did.” He touched her cheek gently. “Are you sorry?”

      She shook her head. “If we’re making confessions, I’ve wondered for a long time what it would feel like if you kissed me.”

      His chest swelled. “I’ve wondered the same thing about you, just lately.”

      She smiled with СКАЧАТЬ