You Belong to My Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

the summerhouse on the lower terrace of Longwood’s winter-browned lawn.
    There Clay guided Mary Ellen into the vine-covered, latticed gazebo and down onto one of the pair of matching white settees. He took the other directly across from her. For a time nothing happened. Nervous now that this opportunity had presented itself, Clay tried to work up his courage. His breath was coming fast, his palms perspiring despite the coldness of the February day.
    He said again, as if he needed to fully explain his ineptness, “Mary, I don’t know how to kiss. I’ve never kissed a girl.”
    She leaned forward on the settee, reached for his hand. “I’m glad,” she told him honestly. “Nobody ever kissed me. We can learn together. Can’t we?”
    “Yes,” he said, “we can. We will.”
    His heart hammering in his chest, Clay scooted forward to the edge of the white settee. Mary Ellen did the same. Their knees touched. Their faces were only inches apart. Mary Ellen held her breath when Clay’s cold, tanned hands gently framed her face. He looked into her eyes.
    Mary Ellen shivered, then said with childlike frankness, “I…I…don’t know where to put my hands, Clay.”
    He smiled at her. “Anywhere you want to, sweetheart.”
    She swallowed hard and tentatively placed her hands on Clay’s knees. Her sensitive fingertips felt the hardness of muscle and bone beneath the rough corduroy fabric of his trousers. Clay’s somber silver eyes turned warm and tender. He gently tilted Mary Ellen’s chin up, lowered his tanned face, and kissed her. Mary Ellen’s fingers tightened their grip on his knees when his mouth, smooth and warm and soft, touched her own trembling lips.
    It was a brief, totally innocent kiss. Two shy pairs of lips meeting, touching, retreating. But it was thrilling to the naive young pair engaging in the sweet, chaste kiss.
    When Clay’s lips left Mary Ellen’s, he pulled back a little, looked at her glowing young face, and was filled with so much love for her, he felt his heart would surely explode. He was suddenly very possessive, half jealous.
    He said, “Don’t ever kiss anybody else, Mary.”
    “I won’t,” she told him happily.
    “I couldn’t stand it if you did. You’re mine, for now and for always. You belong to my heart. No other lips must kiss you but mine, no other arms must hold you but mine. Do you understand?”
    “I do,” she murmured dreamily. “Oh, I do. Now, please, Clay. Kiss me again.”
    Their kisses, their touches, their need for each other, had changed dramatically since that cold winter day.
    Now Clay had passed his seventeenth birthday in May and Mary Ellen’s birthday was less than a week away. On Saturday, the twenty-seventh of June, she would turn sixteen.
    More than a year had gone by since that initial shy kiss in the summerhouse. Their kisses were now deeply stirring, so hot and intense that no matter how much they kissed and no matter how tightly they held each other, it wasn’t completely satisfying. Kissing was no longer enough.
    They loved each other.
    They wanted each other.
    Each time they were together their kisses grew more heated, more passionate, more dangerous. The deep yearning, the acute frustration, grew steadily for them both. But it was even worse for Clay than it was for Mary Ellen. He wanted her so badly that he could hardly bear it, yet he felt obligated to keep her safe, even from himself. He was older than she, and he was responsible for her. He had always taken care of her, kept her from harm. He promised himself he would not take advantage of her.
    But, Lord, he wanted her so much, it hurt!
    Clay wasn’t sure how much longer he could endure the pain. He couldn’t sleep for thinking about her. Night after night he tossed in his narrow bed, miserable, unable to rest, tortured by his all-consuming passion for Mary. He blamed himself, not Mary. And manfully he fought against the demons of his dark sexuality, which were compelling him ever nearer