Gideon, Robin - Desire of the Phantom [Ecstasy in the Old West] (Siren Publishing Classic) (17 page)

He’s just drying my hands,
Pamela told herself.
It’s not like
he’s caressing me.

But a caress was exactly what it felt like.

“What are you doing?” she asked softly.
I’m babbling like an idiot
.

“Just drying your hand for you,” he replied, false innocence ringing in every word.

Pamela pulled her hand out of his grasp. She finished dry
ing her hands on her Levi’s. “It felt like much more than that,” she accused softly. “And don’t talk to me in that
I’m-as-innocent-as-the-night-is-long tone. I know you too
well to believe that.”

“Too well?” He moved a half step close
. “I’m not so sure that’s true. In fact, I suspect you hardly know yourself, much less me.”

Pamela had been watching Phantom’s mouth as he spoke, and though his words had piqued her anger—a reaction she was certain he’d intended to provoke—she remem
bered the pleasure she had known from his lips and ques
tioned why she had denied herself even greater pleasure from them.

Why had she denied Phantom his passionate request when
they had stood so close together in the darkness
earlier? At the time, denying him had seemed absolutely
critical. Since then, the “why” of that particular action had become obscured, leaving her with the hazy realization
she could not deny Phantom without denying herself as
well.

“By not responding, I’ll have to assume you agree with what I have to say,” he said in a whisper, raising his
hands to place them very lightly on Pamela’s shoulders.

I
don’t agree with you.
You assume too much, Mr. Mid
night Phantom,
Pamela thought, though she could not get her
self to speak the words.

The heat of his hands upon her shoulders seemed to
burn her flesh. The weight of them, though actually light, threatened to push her to her knees, or perhaps merely to
coax her to them.

She moistened her lips and fought the tightness in her throat.

“You shouldn’t touch me,” she managed to say at last in a soft, thin voice.

“Does that mean you don’t want me to touch you?”

They were not the same things, and Pamela just didn’t know what the proper answer was.

“You’re so good at all the wrong things,” she said softly. “I so wish I could criticize you with more conviction.”

“I don’t want to want you to touch me,” she said at last.

The truth of her statement surprised her. This was one of the few times she had been with Phantom that she had spoken the complete truth, and it was shocking she hadn’t realized it until after the words were out of her mouth.

“I’m not really as bad as you make me out to be,” he
said, and now his whisper was most definitely seductive.
“In fact, I’m not a bad man at all.”

Pamela pulled her gaze away from his mouth, from those
too-enticing lips that could mesmerize her with their
touch and tantalize with words that played havoc with her
senses and with everything she had believed about herself.

“Please…I’m not really the woman you think I am either,” Pamela said, her eyes upon Phantom’s chest. She felt
his fingertips moving slowly against the tension-tightened
muscles in her neck and shoulders, loosening the pressure.
“The last time we were together, and the way I be
haved, that wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t something that you normally do? Yes, Pamela, I
know that.” His thumbs slipped under her chin to gently
but insistently tilt her head back so that she was forced
to look into his face. “I also know that you are much more
beautiful than you realize, and I fully intend to show you how beautiful you are until you believe it. Believe it deep
down in your heart.”

I
mustn’t listen to him.

“We should leave before too long,” she said, looking into his masked
face, trying hard to convince herself that she was unaf
fected by the way he looked, by the things he said, by his
touch.

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Because you haven’t kissed me yet.”

The tingling inside her became stronger, and she felt her pussy clench in response to Phantom’s words.
“What would you do if I said I don’t want your kisses?”

“I would say you’re lying and kiss you anyway.”

She stood there, looking at him, wanting him to kiss
her, wanting him to take her into his arms. How could she be so brash, so wanton and bold, as to ask for his
kisses or, worse, to initiate them? So she waited, hungry
for his touch, thirsty for his kiss.

Phantom took off his Stetson and cast it aside, and then very
slowly, he bent down, his fingers sliding around the back
of Pamela’s neck to angle her face up toward him.

“Kiss me,” Pamela whispered a moment before his mouth
came over hers.

It had been important for her to say those words. She was a strong and forceful woman, and she would flaunt
convention if need be to get what she wanted. At that very
moment, more than anything else in the world, she wanted
Phantom’s kisses, wanted them to be intimate, so she parted
her lips invitingly and received his enticing tongue.

She melted against him, her arms slipping around his body beneath his cape. When that first long, deep kiss finally ended, Pamela sighed, leaning against Phantom, her heart thrumming, her body alive.

“I love your kisses,” she whispered. She leaned for
ward, pressing her cheek against his chest, her breasts compressing against him. His black silk
shirt was soft and smooth against her lips as she spoke,
in contrast to the firm, warm pectoral muscles beneath it.
“I know I shouldn’t. I know that women aren’t really supposed to enjoy such things, but I do…with you.”

Phantom pushed
Pamela away from his chest just far enough so that he could kiss her again, and when he did, it was a fiercely arousing,
almost bruising kiss.

She felt the passion in it, sensed the burning desire
that flowed in his veins. As the kiss deepened, his tongue
filled her mouth and danced with her own, every part of her responding, coming alive, opening like the petals of a flower to the warmth of Phantom’s desire.

She felt his hand at her shoulder, sliding between their
bodies. And when at last he cupped her breast, catching
the nipple between his fingers to pinch it firmly, she
sighed against his mouth.

“You’re stunning,” Phantom whispered, his lips against
Pamela’s as he fondled her nipple into a state of erect, fevered
excitement.

She turned her face away, ending the kiss, knowing this
was the time for her to put an end to their lustful madness.
As Phantom touched her, his hands strong and demanding,
one on her breast, the other at her buns, she shivered with rapidly escalating excitement. It was time to tell him
to stop, but she couldn’t.

One and then two buttons on her shirt were unfastened.
Then a third one inexplicably refused to release under
Phantom’s experienced fingers. For several seconds Pamela
feared he would stop, that the stubborn button on her
old cotton shirt would deny her and Phantom what
they both desired.

The sound of the button being ripped from her shirt
was both shocking and exciting. She hadn’t expected him
to be so brash and bold. Certainly not after he’d simply
walked away from her earlier, when she’d refused
to untie her chemise for him. Though there was something
disturbing about his tearing a button off her shirt, it was
also exciting to know she could arouse him so that
he would follow his instincts. Her clit tingled wickedly at the thought of being submissive to his masterful domination.

“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,” Phantom whispered in
a litany of passion as he opened Pamela’s shirt, pulling the
tails out of her Levi’s, kissing the satiny flesh of her throat.

Pamela was consumed by the desire going through her.
His hands were everywhere, strong, forceful, touching her,
giving her no choice but to respond. Her shirt was soon
unbuttoned down to her Levi’s, and a moment later, the three ties closing her chemise were unknotted.

“So beautiful,” Phantom whispered. “So lush and full.”

She expected him to finally touch her breasts now that they were exposed, but instead, he took her by the shoul
ders and pushed her to arm’s length.

“I’ve got to look at you,” he whispered hotly. “I’ve
imagined you a thousand times. I must look. I must
see your beauty to fully comprehend it.”

Pamela felt on display, but strangely, she was not self-con
scious. Rather, she was proud of the way she looked, and
when Phantom eased his hands within her shirt and chemise,
opening the garments to bare her breasts in the moonlight, s
he squared her shoulders and pushed her breasts toward him.

Pamela watched, hardly breathing even though her heart was hammering in her chest, as Phantom slowly cupped her breasts from the underside. He hefted her breasts as though weighing them, judging their size, shape, and firmness. Then, very slowly, he bent at the waist and kissed her in the valley between her breasts.

She held his head between her hands. The silk of his mask was against her fingertips, and for an instant, she
thought of ripping it from his face. Then she watched, as
though she were more an observer than a participant, as
she turned her shoulders and guided her pink-tipped breast
to Phantom’s mouth.

“Ohhh.” She sighed when he captured her nipple in his
mouth, putting his tongue and lips in motion against the
throbbing bud.

She had anticipated what it would feel like to have
him kiss her there, but that was nothing compared to
the reality. The pleasure of feeling his mouth against her
bare breast was a thousandfold what she had experi
enced when she’d felt the heat and moisture of his mouth through
her chemise.

Pamela’s knees trembled, her breath coming in uneven
gulps as she guided Phantom’s mouth to her other breast.
She wanted to feel him everywhere, to know the ecstasy of his tongue, slick and yet raspy, touching her, electrify
ing her flesh. It seemed she was being devoured by Phantom,
but miraculously, rather than being smaller because of it,
she was expanding, becoming greater, more powerful.