throbbing
urgency was governing his body. The forces driving him tonight were too
elemental to allow for a leisurely, carefully charted act of desire.
Impatiently Julian fumbled in the darkness with the clasp of her jeans.
"Oh, Julian!"
He couldn't be sure if it was a cry of protest or resignation or desire. He
only knew he liked the sound of his name on her lips. With a quick,
stripping action he pulled the jeans down over her rounded hips, heedless
of her fingers as she struggled to slow him.
"Please, Julian, I… oh, please !"
He had found the secret, warm place between her legs and she
shuddered as he made the contact. Already he could feel her dampening at
his touch. She wanted him. Whatever else she said tonight, she couldn't
deny that she wanted him.
"Give me the words, ghost lady. Let me hear you say that you need me
tonight as much as I need you," he ordered, tracing an erotic design on the
most intimate spot on her body.
Convulsively her hands went around him, her nails adding small marks
to the collection of scars on his back. "I told you. You aren't the only one
who's had dreams, Julian. I've longed for you. You promised to come back
and you never did. You promised ."
He heard the accusation and the pain in her voice and couldn't
understand either one. But there was no way on earth he could fail to
understand the sensuous twisting of her body as she moved pleadingly
against him. His ghost lady was coming very much alive beneath his
hands.
When he pulled away to fumble rapidly with his own clothing Anne
murmured a protest. His shirt and jeans landed in a careless heap on the
floor alongside the soft leather boots he had been wearing, and then Julian
turned back to pin his phantom to the bed.
"There were times when I would have sold my soul to have you where
you are now," he grated. "I won't let you escape, now that I've got my
hands on you."
In the dark shadows he saw her lips part as if she were about to
contradict him. Julian sealed them with his own, simultaneously pushing
himself between her legs. The softness of her thighs around him was all he
had ever dreamed it would be. For a moment he held back, not yet certain
whether to believe.
"Closer, Anne," he commanded huskily. "Cling to me until I know you're
real."
"I keep telling you, Julian, I'm very, very real." She sighed into his
mouth and her arms tightened, pulling him to her.
He sensed the surrender in her and gloried in it. Head whirling with the
satisfaction of knowing she was giving herself to him at last, Julian rasped
her name and drove himself heavily into the snug, hot velvet of her.
"Anne, oh, my God, Anne… !"
No fantasy this, Julian thought dazedly. He could feel the instinctive
resistance of her body as it gradually accommodated itself to the fullness
of his manhood. There was an exciting, tantalizing tingle of pain as her
nails flexed on his shoulders. And the silky feel of her legs was exquisite
captivity. Nothing in his life had ever been so overwhelmingly real.
Frantically he forced himself to find the pace that would allow Anne to
stay with him as he sought the promised satisfaction. He realized dimly
that he had to make it good for her. In his fantasies he had always
promised himself he would make it right for Anne, hoping that the sensual
gratification would be an inducement to make her stay with him.
"Julian, darling Julian. Love me. Please, please love me…"
He was aware of the new tension in her, felt the gentle telltale shiver
that coursed through her, pulling him along in its wake and suddenly it
wasn't just his head that was spinning. It was the whole world.
"Anne!"
The cry was torn from him as his body exploded. Blazing satisfaction
surged in him, and he held the woman in his arms tighter than he'd ever
held on to anything or anyone in his life.
And then there was silence. Nothing but too much warmth and too
much silence. He should have put out the fire, Julian