Silk and Secrets(119)

He had met Juliet in a waltz, a formal dance with conversation above and yearning below, and even then they had had an instinctive understanding of each other's rhythms. Now they had come full circle, and in the dark heat of a Central Asian night they shadowed each other in a pas de deux of desire.

As Ross yielded to the music, he found himself executing steps he had never consciously learned. Soon they were improvising patterns of increasing complexity, their motions so perfectly attuned that they might have been controlled by one mind, not two.

Steps quickened and gestures became more dramatic as they separated to the full length of the silken tie that bound them, then spun together again, close enough to feel their mutual heat but never quite touching.

Borne by a whirlwind of passion, they soared higher and higher, knowing that soon they would take flight, for they were linked by an intricate web of passion, conflict, and caring as tangible as the fabric stretched between them. Ross's gaze caught Juliet's in a wordless invitation to come closer, but she swung away again. He pulled on the veil to draw her back. "Not so far, my houri."

He raised his arm and she pirouetted beneath, her flying hair a molten shower of red and gold and amber. "A houri is not so easily captured, O master," she said in a throaty voice.

The tempo of the music increased, throbbing and pounding around and through them in an utterly pagan rite of fertility that could have only one possible conclusion. Suddenly impatient, Ross gave a sharp tug on the silk to bring her into his arms. "But capture you I will."

Juliet pivoted in a tight circle, her hair whipping across his face before her back came to rest snugly against the front of his body, heating him from chest to thighs. She smelled of roses and spice and woman.

His breath harsh with urgency, Ross dropped the twisted fabric that had joined them. Then he slid his hands under the whisper-light silk that floated over her torso so he could savor the sleek, yielding female flesh beneath.

Once he touched her, it was impossible to stop. His questing hands glided from tapering waist to taut stomach, hungry for the irresistible eroticism of her supple skin.

After tracing around her navel with his middle finger, he stroked the underside of her breasts with his thumbs, then kissed her ear through the fine-spun strands of her hair. When she quivered in response, he raised his hands and captured the soft, fluid curves of her breasts.

The nipples hardened beneath his palms and she gave a long, breathless moan. She leaned back into his embrace and rolled her buttocks against his groin, deliberately finding and inflaming his arousal.

He gasped and lowered one hand to her hip, slipping under the silken veils, skimming the surface of her abdomen, through softly textured hair, until his fingers found the moist, swollen folds below. She shivered and made a small delicious sound deep in her throat as her head fell back against his cheek. For a long suspended moment they stayed locked in sensual abandon.

Suddenly Juliet spun away, the eternal temptress. As she slid from his embrace, Ross caught a handful of veils. They came away in his grasp and drifted to the floor as silent as eiderdown, baring most of her long, lovely body.

She laughed and seized the edges of his cotton shirt. "Two can play at that game." She tore down, rending the garment to the hem, then tugged it off, nipping his upper arm with her teeth as the shirt came away.

The bite was the final spark that kindled the passion that had been building between them. Ross swept Juliet into his arms and onto the bed, following her down and trapping her writhing body with his. As his open mouth found her breast, she fought him like a feral creature that could be possessed only through conquest.

They mated like panthers, with teeth and nails and thrashing limbs. It was the last and fiercest phase of their primal dance, possible only because underneath their wildness was absolute trust in each other. When Juliet worked her arms free and began clawing at his chest, Ross captured her wrists and pinned them to the bed with his left hand while he spread her legs with his thighs and opened his strained trousers with his right hand.

For Juliet, the game ended when Ross entered her with one powerful thrust, sliding hot and hard into her eager body. This was not simple play but the most profound reality she had ever known, the physical expression of all the tormenting emotions that bound them. She bit his shoulder, tasting salt against her tongue, wanting to merge with him so completely that they would truly be one flesh.

Explosion might have been almost instantaneous, but Ross would not allow that. Instead, with diabolical skill he raised her to a pitch of unbearable need until her whole body burned with white heat. The words she had feared came without her volition as she cried out, "Ah, God, Ross, I love you so."