Penny Jordan Collection(46)

                With a small moan she wrenched herself away from him, her whole body trembling as she looked into his eyes and told him, begged him, ‘Ran... Not here... I want... Take me to bed...’ she whispered, her face flaming with the directness of her own request. But there was pride in her eyes, not shame, as she looked at him. Why should she feel ashamed of loving him so much? After all, he was the one who had kissed her...held her...

                ‘Sylvie...’

                The unexpected harshness in Ran’s voice unnerved her a little, but she refused to pay any heed to it. Instead she walked up to him and, holding his eyes, very deliberately reached out and touched his body, intimately, there, just where she could see the way his arousal, his erection, was straining against his jeans.

                She felt his reaction jolt right through him, as though her touch had burned him, but the drift of her fingertips had been as light as the wings of a butterfly.

                ‘You want me, Ran,’ she whispered shakily, ‘and I want you...’

                And then, without waiting for his response, she turned her back on him and walked very slowly and very deliberately to her bedroom door.

                Once there she turned round and looked at him gravely.

                He was still standing where she had left him, his face unfamiliarly pale, his eyes blazing with...

                Quickly she looked away and then, before her courage could desert her, she tugged open the buttons of her borrowed shirt and shrugged it off.

                Standing still and naked in full view of Ran whilst he watched her in silence was probably the hardest thing she had ever had to do, she acknowledged, but, somehow, doing it made her feel strong and brave and very, very womanly.

                There was an odd glittering brilliance in Ran’s eyes, and her stomach muscles tensed as she saw the way his jaw tightened as he looked away from her.

                ‘Ran...’ she commanded softly.

                ‘Sylvie, for God’s sake...’

                Ignoring the tough grimness in his voice, she turned her back and walked fully into her small bedroom. Seconds later he had followed her there, slamming the bedroom door shut as he bent to retrieve her discarded shirt.

                ‘Here. Put it back on,’ he ordered curtly.

                Sylvie looked at him.

                He was standing just over an arm’s length away from her and she could see that despite the hardness of his jaw his body was still aroused.

                Uncertainly she licked her lips, tiny flames of excited nervousness flicking along her spine as she saw the way his glance followed her involuntary movement.

                ‘You put it on for me, Ran,’ she whispered provocatively, taking a step towards him, and then another, and then, before she could stop herself, she discovered that she was the one looking at his mouth, and then at just where...

                She heard him groan, saw out of the corner of her eye Alex’s shirt as he hurled it away and then, blissfully, she was in his arms, her naked body pressed close against his fully dressed one as he covered her face, her throat, her mouth with hot, fevered kisses.

                In his arms Sylvie shivered in mute delight. Every nerve-ending in her body was singing in joy and triumph.

                ‘Oh Ran... Ran...’ She whispered his name ecstatically as she wrapped her arms around him. ‘I want you so much... I love you so much...’ she told him, but she doubted he heard the words because they were silenced before she could properly form them as he continued to kiss her.