Sweet Anger(21)

Jerking off his glasses and dropping them to the floor, he knelt beside her. “Kari? Kari?” His voice was laced with apprehension. God, what had he done to her?

“Please wake up,” he whispered. He touched her cheek. It was cool. He laid his palm on it and stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry for everything.”

Her chest was barely lifting and falling with her light respiration. With fumbling fingers, he began unfastening the buttons of her jacket. When they were all undone, he levered her up. She sagged against his chest like a rag doll.

He peeled the jacket off and heedlessly tossed it aside. Then he held her against him, tight against him, possessively and protectively against him, rubbing her back, trying to massage her into consciousness.

Her hair had come down with his fingers entwined in it. He pressed his face into the blond mass and breathed the flowery scent he had always imagined would perfume it. His mouth came maddeningly close to her ear. Gradually he lowered her back to the cracked leather cushions.

His eyes were busy surveyors of her face, watching for signs that she was coming around. She lay as still as death. Her breathing was shallow.

Tugging on his lower lip with his teeth, he indecisively considered the bow beneath her chin. His hands began to perspire. He would catch hell from her if she woke up and her blouse—

But she had fainted and showed no signs of waking up. He caught the ends of the tie between his fingers and pulled until the bow fell away. Then he unlooped it from around her neck. The pulse in her throat was weak. He could see its meager fluttering in the small triangle at the base of her neck.

Of their own accord, his hands went to the first button. They were pearl buttons that slipped easily from the holes. Still it was no easy task. His hands were trembling. He only unfastened three buttons, then adjusted the blouse so her throat and upper chest were exposed to air. She didn’t stir.

She hadn’t planned on taking off the suit jacket. That he knew. Otherwise she would have worn a brassiere, and one less sheer than the camisole with the cobweb-fine lace. It was about as substantial a garment as smoke.

He tried not to let his brain register anything, but it was photographing and filing as rapidly as his eyes were scanning. He was human, wasn’t he? And male. And what heterosexual human male wouldn’t look, wouldn’t gaze at the dusky shadows her nipples made beneath the two layers of soft, sheer fabric?

God, she was beautiful.

He closed his eyes for a moment to ward off the shaft of desire that speared through him. When he opened his eyes again, they fell on that dent at the base of her throat and this time he didn’t see a pulse at all. Or didn’t he want to? Was he looking for an excuse to lay his hand over her heart?

In any event, that was what he did, gently at first, just enough to make the silky fabrics of the two garments slide together and bring his palm fully over the small mound. Soft, full, warm. Woman flesh. Her flesh. Filling his hand.

She whimpered. The sound tore through him like a bolt of lightning. He lifted his face over hers. “Shhh. It’s all right, Kari.” He stroked her hair. “I never wanted you to be hurt. I swear I didn’t. Forgive me.”

He lifted her against him and again pressed his face into her neck. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

When she first began to come to, she felt better than she had in a long time. She was being held in strong arms and the protection they offered was sublime. Warm, tender lips were moving up her neck, around her ear, along her jaw to the corner of her mouth, where they laid a gentle kiss.

Oh, that felt good. She turned toward the masculine face; beard-rough, smelling of cologne and shaving soap and male skin. Her lips located his and pressed against them.

He reacted instantly by tensing and pulling away. Was he going to leave her again? No! her mind screamed. She wound her arms around his neck. She wanted to be held against this large, hard body. Its strength made her feel safe. Go on touching me; kiss me, she wanted to cry out. But somehow her brain wasn’t able to communicate the command to her voice.

Finally the lips returned. They stayed and moved over hers with tender rubbing motions. They whispered loving words, soothing, comforting words. Moaning, she opened her mouth. The wet velvet thrust of his tongue parted her lips wider until it was nestled deep inside her mouth, where it prowled hungrily.

Strange. Thomas had never kissed her this way before. Never with this degree of wantonness. She felt this kiss all over her body. In her breasts, which tightened and tingled and strained against the powerful chest. And in her womanhood, where one hot curling sensation followed another until she thought she might explode with pleasure. Or pain. She ached to be pressed there, stroked, filled.