Kezia wrenched her mouth away and cupped Christian's face in both hands, breathing hard, intensely aware of the fine scattering of hair on his chest tickling her sensitized skin. "If we do this," she said fiercely, "it's goodbye. Promise me."
Christian turned his head to kiss her palm and a sensual shiver worked its way up her arm and through her body. She dragged his head forward again. "Promise me!"
In the moonlight, his eyes were a shadowy, unreadable gray. "If you want it to be goodbye, it will be goodbye," he said finally.
She nodded, knowing this was insanity yet unable to send him away with anything less than passion.
But the mood had grown somber. In silence Christian caught her hand, led her through the garden and into the empty hotel, flicking on only enough switches to light their way and retrieve condoms. Upstairs, in her room, he released his hold and pulled back the drapes.
So much of the time he wore a mask of lazy affability, a wry grin that said he knew he was too handsome for his own-and any woman's-good. But the moonlight stripped all that away. She saw the strength of character evident in the set of his jaw, the shadows in those startling eyes. His victories had been hard won.
And, she thought, tomorrow I'll square off against reality. Tonight is a dream and who has power over their dreams?
Christian's face was grave as he came back to her, grave as he removed his remaining clothes, and Kezia swallowed her panic. No, don't take us seriously. Mustering her best Mae West voice, she drawled, "I guess we'll have our one wild night after all."
"One wild night it is, then." His voice gave no hint of disappointment as he drew her down to the bed, onto the expanse of white like a fall of virgin snow in the moonlight. He rolled onto his back with Kezia on top of him and unfastened her bra with one expert hand.
With the other he tangled his fingers in her long, silky hair, fitted his mouth to hers and let his tongue make deep, sultry promises of how he intended to love her.
She yielded with such sweet softness that he went as hard as the teenager he'd once been with her. As close to exploding under the same rush of uncontrollable lust.
Her hand reached down to touch him and he caught it, breaking the kiss. "If you want this to last," he suggested in someone else's voice, "let me do the touching."
Holding her unfastened bra in place, Kezia sat up and Christian groaned as her lush firm bottom, bare under the red silk dress, pressed against his erection.
Equally distracting was the spill of ripe breasts above the white lace and the glimpse of taut nipple. Just when he thought nothing about this could get any harder, it did.
He watched her eyes widen as she felt his intense physical reaction, then darken with an elemental need that he leaped to assuage. Kezia glided against him and he suffered her slippery readiness.
With her lids heavy with passion, her skin lightly abraded from his stubble and her mouth swollen from his kisses, she was impossible to resist.
"No." He ground out the word. "Not yet."
Kezia leaned forward and her bra fell in a lacy heap. "We've wasted enough time," she said in a husky whisper. Her hair tickled as she brushed her lips across his. "I want you now."
For answer, Christian caught her other wrist and pulled her up and forward until her breasts hung above his face. Then he made love to them until her breath came so fast that each nipple rose and fell against his teasing tongue.
He freed her hands so that his could stroke and fondle. So that he could reach between her smooth legs astride him.
Kezia spread them wider and, unable to resist the invitation, he slid farther down the bed and under her dress. Ignoring her gasp of protest, he used his mouth and fingers to pleasure her.
She tensed, resisting the intimacy, but Christian persisted until she let him take her beyond all restraint. When at last she cried her release, he reveled in the rhythmic spasms against his finger inside her, in the wetness against his mouth.
He turned his head and kissed the softness of her inner thigh, glorying in the scent of her woman's heat mingled with the starched silk dress. He had always loved to corrupt Kezia, seduce her into abandoning herself to the passionate nature her conservative up-bringing would have her reject.
This woman who was-in all the ways that mattered-incorruptible.
Gently, Christian rolled Kezia's languid form over to her back and began to kiss his way up her sweet curves on a voyage of rediscovery. Her hands tangled lazily in his hair, stopping him each time he reached an erogenous zone-her navel, the fourth rib, the underside of one creamy breast. He felt all the primal possessiveness of a man reclaiming his birthright.
Except she wasn't his to keep.
His tongue circled her nipples, peaked and moist from his earlier attention, but it was her mouth he lingered on, losing himself in her taste and texture.
In the aftermath of her orgasm, her response was indolent and inviting, and made Christian want her so badly he could only roll on a condom, nudge her legs apart and thrust into her swollen wetness.
He stilled, closing his eyes against a sensation almost intolerable in its intensity. As he struggled for self-control he felt the butterfly softness of a kiss on his closed eyelids. It had the reverence of love.
Intrigued, his lids flew open and Kezia hastily lowered hers. He moved inside her, slowly out, slowly in, stopping well short of full penetration, forcing Kezia to lift her gaze to his. Even in the moonlight her pupils flared with a hunger so raw it fanned his white-hot.
His jaw dropped on a groan and she took advantage, plundering his mouth as he'd so often plundered hers, until neither of them cared what happened tomorrow, only what was about to happen now. Right now.
With a sob, Kezia lifted her hips to his and Christian bore down like a man possessed. Up she lifted again, inviting even more of him, and he drove so deep inside her he knew he was lost forever with no hope of return.
He still loved her.
God help him, he loved this woman who wanted him to let her go. She lifted her hips again-provocative, demanding-and Christian gave her everything he was capable of, all of his body, most of his guarded heart, none of his soul.
Dimly he heard Kezia cry out and he exploded inside her, lost and found, emptied and renewed.
When he came to himself again he was lying with his full weight sprawled across her, their heartbeats slamming into each other.
Christian rolled to one side. "Did I hurt you?" She could only shake her head, but her eyes told a different story. "I did hurt you."
"I knew this would make it harder to let you go."
He tightened his arms around her. "You have as much of my heart as I can give anybody," he said fiercely. "Why can't that be enough?"
"I love you." Her whisper vibrated with intensity and he gathered her even closer, weak with relief. After a moment Kezia loosened his hold and slid up the bed until her face was level with his.
In the moonlight her eyes were luminous and wise but the sadness in them impaled him with dread. "I love you, but I'm thirty-two years old and I know myself better than I did fourteen years ago. I need this community and this community needs me."
"We'll split our time between here and Auckland." He was suddenly in the most important negotiation of his life.
She kissed him yearningly and he knew they could make it work. But she pulled back. Her gaze, unflinchingly honest, seemed to search his soul, and Christian fought the urge to break eye contact.
"I would compromise a lot to keep you in my life," she said quietly, "but I won't compromise this. I need a man who trusts me with his weaknesses as well as his strengths. No more half measures." Despite himself, Christian blinked first. "And I need a man who wants children as much as I do." Kezia paused, waiting, but he couldn't speak past the lump in his throat.
Her voice was strained as she continued. "I've wasted a lot of years sabotaging relationships because I so badly wanted to be with you. I still do."
Her fingers touched his face. "But if you can't be that man, then keep your promise and leave tomorrow because I've run out of strength to send you away." Her next words came as a whisper but they struck Christian like a powerful blow. "Love me that much, at least."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IF ONLY SHE hadn't said that. Love me that much, at least. The risk-taker in Christian wanted to say, "Yes, I can be that man for you." But her honesty compelled his.