Miranda Lee - A Woman To Remember

Even so, he could not deny that she had come to that exhibition right and ready for a night of casual sex, dressed for the occasion and armed to the eyeteeth with the equipment necessary to reduce fools like him to instant mush.

Looking back, he could see that she’d also gone to great pains to protect her true identity—to cut down the risk of ever being caught out in her outrageous behaviour. She’d wanted a mad fling of some kind, but she hadn’t wanted any evidence of that mad fling left behind. The only part of the puzzle which remained was why she’d taken that appalling risk during the middle of the night.

It couldn’t have been deliberate, he decided, unless it had been part of some crazy fantasy she’d wanted to fulfil. He preferred to think that she’d simply been carried away—as he had been carried away.

It was one of the reasons why she haunted him. Because he’d never been carried away like that before. Or since...

‘I don’t even known your name,’ he said when he finally closed the hotel room door, neither of them having said a word as she had led him swiftly down two blocks and into the foyer of a small but surprisingly elegant hotel. Not at all the sort of place for a cheap rendezvous.

The lift-ride up to the third floor had been tense, the presence of another man in the lift stifling any conversation or physical contact. Luke had hardly been aware of his surroundings as he’d eagerly followed her down the corridor. He had absorbed little but a brief impression of red-patterned carpet and black and white prints of ships on the walls.

‘My name?’ she repeated, almost as though she were in a fog.

He liked her disorientation, liked the way she gasped when he pulled her abruptly into his arms. ‘Never mind,’ he growled. ‘No names for tonight. We’ll exchange names in the morning.’

He kissed her again before the fog could lift.

God, but he liked the woman his kisses turned her into, liked the sounds she made under them, liked the feel of her lips melting along with her body. He’d never known a woman become so pliant in his arms before. Her sweet surrender to his mouth and hands filled him with the heady power to do as he pleased with her.

He pleased to take off all her clothes. What little there was of them.

He pleased to carry her over to the king-sized bed and stretch her, seemingly dazed, out on top of it.

He certainly pleased to sit beside her gloriously naked body and touch her all over... at will... and very, very thoroughly.

She didn’t stop him, merely gazed up at him all the while with glazed green eyes, her lush lips gasping apart occasionally. Her pleasure was obvious, as was a bewildering amount of surprise. Hadn’t she expected to enjoy his touch so much? Or was it that she wasn’t used to a man giving her pleasure first this way?

She was getting close, he knew; her thighs were beginning to tremble. When her back began to arch from the bed he stopped abruptly, and she moaned her frustration.

It was only when Luke stood up that he realised his breathing was as hard and fast as hers. God, he hadn’t been this excited in years, he realised. Or this enthralled with a woman. Stripped of those sluttish clothes, she had taken on a totally different persona. There was nothing cheap about her any more. She was all classical curves and sweetly fragrant beauty. She was even a genuine blonde!

He couldn’t wait to bury himself in those softly golden curls, to have those lovely long legs wrapped tightly around him, to see those lush lips form a gasping O at the moment of her orgasm.

Funny, he had no conscious thought of his own satisfaction—which was a first for him. In the past, his priority when making love to a woman had always been what he would get out of it.

But not this time. This time he wanted to give even more than to receive.

Luke hardly recognised the man he’d become since entering this room. He felt all-powerful, yet that power was tempered with a strange tenderness. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought he’d finally really fallen in love. Even if not, it was certainly an experience outside his normal realm of experiences.

He could not even remember the first time he’d made love to Tracy, though he’d fancied himself in love with her back then. Yet already he knew he would never forget this night, not as long as he lived.

‘You haven’t done this before, have you?’ he remarked as he began undressing himself, slipping out of his jacket and draping it over one of the bedposts.

She licked her lips, her eyes wide upon his. ‘Why do you say that?’ Her voice was husky, as though desire had dried her mouth and throat. But not the rest of her. The rest of her was far from dry, he recalled, with a lurching in his stomach.

‘You seem too nervous.’

‘I’m no virgin,’ she protested, though shakily.

‘I never said you were.’ But her gaze was definitely close to virginal as it clung to his half-naked body.

Luke found her mixture of fascination and fear a real turn-on. He knew he had a good body, knew it was well equipped to satisfy most women’s fantasies. So there was no hesitation when he finally stripped off his underwear. He actually saw the swallowing action in her throat, and revelled in her reaction.

‘Where have you put the condoms?’ he said as he joined her on the bed, running a gently caressing hand down her body as he did so.

She quivered uncontrollably and closed her eyes.

‘Hey,’ he prompted, quietly but firmly. ‘The condoms?’

Long lashes fluttered open; the green eyes were pained. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned, shaking her head from side to side. ‘I didn’t think. I just didn’t think.’

Her distress touched him, despite his flash of annoyance at her naivety. He would have to make sure that she never did insane things like this again. There again, she wasn’t going to have any lovers other than him after tonight. He was going to make sure of that. Come morning, there would be no more of this ‘stranger’ nonsense.

‘It’s all right,’ he reassured her, trying not to sound irritated. ‘I always keep one in my wallet.’

And that was what was annoying him. One. Only one! They would need more than one before this night was out. He tossed up between dressing now and finding a twenty-four-hour chemist or doing it later.

Later, his intense desire told him. Much later.

He could not wait another minute. Or even another moment.

‘No!’ she cried out when he swung his legs over onto the floor.

His glance over his shoulder carried impatience and puzzlement. ‘No, what?’

‘No, I can’t,’ she rasped. ‘I can’t...’

Luke had no intention of letting her change her mind at this point. It was beyond bearing just thinking about it.

‘It’s all right,’ he murmured, turning back to cup her face with firm hands and stare deep into her anguished green eyes. ‘I understand. You’ve only just realised what a very silly girl you’ve been tonight. But I’m a good guy. Really. I won’t hurt you, loveliness. I’m going to make beautiful love to you,’ he promised, pressing her back against the pillow and kissing her.

He kept on kissing her till she began clinging to him and squirming with renewed desire. But he didn’t dare leave her even then, reinforcing his temporary triumph by sliding down her body and kissing her all over till she was beyond stopping him, even when he had to abandon her for a short while.

She reached for him when he returned to the bed, pulling him down on top of her and not letting him indulge in any further foreplay. By this time Luke was ready to explode anyway, so when she opened to him, winding her legs high around his back, there really wasn’t any option.

He drove deep into her hot, honeyed flesh, shuddering with pleasure at her exquisite tightness. He’d barely moved within her when her first fierce contraction seized his flesh, and it was all too much. He could not hold back another second, tremors racking his body as he climaxed uncontrollably, his spasms totally in tune with hers, going on and on for simply ages.