Nora Roberts - The Fall Of Shane Mackade

"You damned near killed me." He jerked up her chin and plundered, shooting vicious spurts of fire into every cell of her body. "You know how much I wanted you? Get the picture?"

He gave her one, a very vivid one of hard, impatient lips, rough, ready hands, a body that was tight with tension and steaming with heat. She fought for breath, fought to stay upright as what was left of her mind went to mush.

She was melting against him again, soft, fragrant wax. His blood pumped in response to those soft, sexy sounds she made in her throat. Eager, helpless sounds that turned frustrated lust into a rage of desperate need.

"That's it," he muttered, and swung her up in his arms.

With a jolt of panic, she pushed a hand against his chest. "Wait."

"The hell I will." His eyes flashed at hers, all but searing her. "You'd better say no, loud and clear, and say it fast, Rebecca. Tell me you don't want me, don't want this. And make damn sure you mean it."

Under her palm she felt the furious beating of his heart, and her hand trembled. She'd thought it was fear, but it wasn't. Oh, no, it wasn't fear. It was longing.

"I can't." She let out a whoosh of breath. "I wouldn't mean it."

Triumph suited him. "I know."

She wanted to remember everything, to seal somehow every moment, every sound, every taste, into her mind and heart. She wanted to be able to recapture this incredible feeling of being carried in strong arms, of being wanted, and wanted with such ferocity, by a beautiful man. Of being sampled every few steps by skilled and hungry lips.

She didn't care if he was gentle or rough, patient or frenzied. As long as he didn't stop wanting her.

Then he paused on the stairs, his mouth swooping down on hers in a way that made any thought of the future float away to make room for the all-encompassing present.

On a moan of sheer delight, she wrapped her arms around him and let her own greedy mouth savor the taste of his face, his neck. The tangy flavor of him poured into her until her head swarmed with sound, revolved with half-formed images. The sheer force of her appetite made her shudder. This, she thought, dizzily, was only the beginning.

It no longer surprised her to find that her fingers were fighting with the buttons of his shirt. She wanted to feel him, touch him, everywhere, all at once.

He was out of breath and laughing by the time he made it to his own bedroom. "This is a lot like last night." He tumbled to the bed with her. On top of her. "Only better."

"Can't you get this thing off?" She was laughing, too, hadn't realized it was possible when desire was squeezing every throbbing inch of her body with sweaty fists.

"Yours is easier." With one expert stroke, he parted her robe. She was milk-pale, narrow of torso. With a low animal sound, he took her breast in his mouth.

The shock of it screamed through her, incited an avalanche of new and unexplored sensations. Even as she struggled to clear her mind to record them, the hands that had been busy on his shirt dropped away to grip frantically at the neat spread beneath.

Each tug, each nip, of his clever and hungry mouth shot arrows of golden heat straight to her center. Each arrow erupted into a dozen more flame-tipped missiles that streaked under her skin, over it, with dizzying speed.

How could anyone survive these sensations? she wondered. How could anyone live without them?

He had her naked in seconds, and feasted on her.

There was panic now—panic at the thought that it was possible to die from pleasure. Her skin was hot and damp, quivering at each pass and stroke of those big, callused hands. Tossed by a tidal wave, she rolled over the bed with him, desperate to keep up.

He couldn't get enough. All that baby-smooth skin, those long, narrow bones, the small, apple-firm breasts. He could smell her shower on her, and simple soap had never been so arousing. He thought he could eat her alive, bite by ravenous bite.

She was writhing under him, wrestling over him, her hands fast and frantic. Those wonderful eyes, the eyes he could never quite seem to get out of his head, were dark as whiskey now, and vividly intense. Everywhere he touched, she responded as though she'd never been touched before. Shuddering, arching, flowing. A purr, a moan, a gasp.

No woman he'd ever known had ever made him feel so powerful, so free, so needy.

"Damn it." Dizzy with desire, he sat up to drag at his boots. She reared up, wrapping that wonderful naked body around his, making his vision waver as she raced hurried kisses over his neck and shoulder.

"Hurry." She pulled up his undershirt and ravished his back. "Oh, I love your body. I just... Mmm..." She slid her breasts over the flesh she'd exposed and drove them both mad.

With an oath, he flipped her over into his lap. His mouth found hers waiting and avid. Her need, as wild as his, poured into him like a shot of raw whiskey.

To please them both, he cupped her, and she was hot and wet. He felt her body stiffen, tasted the warm rush of impact as her breath caught and expelled. She went wild, nails scraping, hips pumping, dazzling him with her unrestricted greed for pleasure.

"I've got to be inside you." His voice was harsh, his body frantic. Near violence, he shoved her back on the bed, yanked at his jeans. He couldn't remember his hands ever fumbling before, but they did now, in his outrageous and overwhelming rush to possess. "I want to fill you. I want to watch you take me."

"Hurry." Her hands were already gripping his hips. Oh, to feel like that again, to know he would send her flying again. "I can't stand it." She arched up to welcome.

He drove inside her, in one hard stroke. And froze. Shock, disbelief, terror, tangled with desperation when she cried out, when he felt himself ram mercilessly through her virginity. The muscles in his arms quivered from the strain, and his eyes, half-blind, locked frantically on hers.

"Rebecca. God. Don't move."

"What?" She was lost, delirious. Oh, the extraordinary feel of him inside her, inside her body, filling her with the sheer glory of invasion. "What?"

"For God's sake, don't move." He said it through gritted teeth as he fumbled for control. His body quivered on the tether he yanked ruthlessly to hold it in place. Sweet God, she was so hot, and tight, and wet.

"I'm not going to hurt you anymore." He couldn't get his breath, simply couldn't pull in enough air. "Just give me a minute."

"What?" she said again. With a primal instinct, she locked her legs around him and rose up.

"Don't-"

The animal took over, clawed aside everything but the urgent need to mate, and leaped free. Helpless to resist, he took her, plunging in deep, driving her to match his frenzied pace until the world seemed to contract to nothing but two bodies, linked. The hard slap of flesh on flesh, the explosive burst of air expelling from labored lungs, the musky smells of sweat and sex, and that glorious sensation of slicked bodies sliding. The dark pleasure swamped him, emptied him.

Weak, he collapsed on her and tried to gather his scattered wits. "I'm sorry" was all he could manage, and that was no more than a whisper. He had to move, knew he had to move, but he simply couldn't. No experience in his life had ever sapped him like this.

He told himself it was because she had been innocent and the guilt was draining him.

She was shuddering beneath him, quick, violent shudders that damned him. He was mortally afraid she was crying.

"Rebecca, you should have told me." There had to be some way he could soothe her, but this was simply beyond his experience.

"Told you?" she repeated, in a voice almost too faint to hear.

"I wouldn't have pushed you. I wouldn't have-Hell, I probably would have." He found the strength to ease back and look at her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted as the breath raced through them. "I hurt you. I must have hurt you."

Her eyes opened then. The gold was hardly more than a thin ring around the pupils. Shock, he thought, cursing himself again. But, to his confusion, those swollen lips curved.

"No, you didn't. It felt wonderful. I feel wonderful."

"But..."

"Does it always feel like that?" She let out a long, satisfied sigh. "So overwhelming, so...huge, as if nothing could stop you from getting from one incredible moment to the next. It's so..." She sighed again. "Primitive."

"I— No— Yes." What the hell was he supposed to say to that? To her? "I can't think straight yet."

Hearing that made her smile deepen. "I wasn't sure I'd be any good at it, but I was. Wasn't I?"

"You..." What the devil was going on? She wasn't crying, she wasn't upset at all. She looked like a cat who'd just dined on a platoon of canaries. More for his own benefit than for hers, he spoke slowly, carefully. "Rebecca, you'd never been with a man before."

"I wasn't particularly interested in a man before." She found the strength and started to lift her arms to circle him. Then her smile faded. "I wasn't good at it? I did something wrong? You're not feeling the way I'm feeling?"

"You destroyed me." Shane rolled off her to lie on his back and scrub his hands over his face. "I had no control. Even when I realized, I couldn't stop. I should have been able to stop."

"I'm sorry if I didn't do everything right." Stiff now with embarrassment, she sat up. "It was my first time, and I'd think you'd have some patience."

He swore at her and snagged her arm before she could climb regally from the bed. "Look at me. At me," he repeated, until her sulky eyes met his. "I'm not going to give you a damn grade, but I'll teil you this. I want you. Right now I want you again so much I could swallow you whole. It doesn't even seem to matter that I feel guilty that I was rough. If I'd known, I would have been gentle. I would have taken some care. I would have tried."