White Satin (6 page)

His teeth moved down to pull gently at her lower lip. “I wanted to wait but I couldn’t have you turning to Kowalt because I hadn’t shown you how sweet it’s always going to be between us.” His lips fastened hungrily on hers and he gave a groan deep in his throat as he kissed her with almost frantic urgency. His hands were suddenly on her hips, moving the thigh-length sweater up her body. He dragged his mouth from hers and pushed her body a little away, and then the sweater was
over her head and tossed carelessly aside. He held her startled gaze with his own as his hands moved to the front clasp of her bra.

In the beige lace bra Dany was all soft gold and shimmering ruby in the firelight, her eyes dark with bewilderment and desire. Anthony’s hands were shaking slightly as he undid the clasp, and he drew a long, shuddering breath. Careful, he told himself. He had to be careful not to show her the need that was tearing him apart. He could feel himself harden and the muscles of his stomach clench painfully. He wanted to tear off her clothes, throw her on the floor, and bury himself in her. Damn, he wanted that. The thought of her legs curving around him, her body arching to him, her dark eyes staring up at him clouded with desire, was driving him berserk.

He’d been so sure he could keep control of the situation. His lips curved in a mirthless smile as he remembered how he’d assured her he wouldn’t ask for a final physical commitment. He knew she wasn’t ready for that yet. This was all too new and bewildering for her. He’d happily mutilate Kowalt for precipitating his plans. He’d wanted
to wait. No, he’d felt it would be fairer to Dany to wait—wanting had nothing to do with it. He’d been in a blaze of heated need for Dany since that afternoon six years ago. Fourteen years old. Lord, he’d felt as shocked and disgusted with himself as if he’d actually taken her instead of sending her away. He’d tried to smother it beneath the tenderness and love he’d felt for her since the first moment he’d seen her, but every so often he’d feel a stab of desire so intense, it had been actual pain. He’d constantly reinforced his vigilance but he’d known it was there, just waiting to burst free. And was he supposed to keep that passion under control while he teased them both into a frenzy? He would have to if he hoped to block Kowalt from her mind and still leave her free. Hell, Anthony told himself, what was a little more torture after what he’d gone through for the past six years?

He parted the bra and slipped the straps slowly over her shoulders. Lord, she was beautiful. Small, but perfectly formed, her breasts tilting up perkily with the deep pink rosettes hardening even as he looked at her. Hardening for him. He could feel the swelling in his loins reach painful
proportions as he watched her body flush and tauten, readying itself for his touch, his possession.

“Come to me,” he said thickly. “Please, Dany. I want to kiss them, love them.” He was drawing her from her knees onto his lap and he could see her eyes widen as she felt the evidence of his bold arousal against her. It didn’t frighten her though, thank heaven. It only caused her eyes to darken to midnight softness and her pulse to accelerate in the hollow of her throat. She was so responsive, Anthony thought. His eyes narrowed as he arched her up to rub those beautiful, sensitive breasts against the rough wool of his sweater. She gave a little gasp, and he could feel her tense.

“No, don’t. It hurts.”

He froze, his gaze flying down to meet her eyes in surprise. He’d purposely kept the caress feather-light. “Hurts?”

“No.” She shook her head in confusion. “Not hurts. Burns. I don’t know. I can’t
stand
it.” She felt as if her heart were going to burst through her chest. How could she explain the wild, heated sensation that had flamed through her, sending out signals to every part of her body? Signals she
didn’t understand. But Anthony understood. She could tell by the way his lips were curving tenderly as he looked down at her.

“Too rough?” he asked. “Let’s see if we can find them something softer to nestle against.” He pushed her away a little and swiftly pulled off his sweater and tossed it aside. He rapidly unbuttoned the black shirt beneath it. When it was completely unfastened, he paused. His eyes were glowing silver in the firelight as he urged her quietly, “Take it off me, Dany.
Take
what you want.”

Take what you want. The philosophy was easy for Anthony to expound. He’d always taken what he wanted from life with a bold incisiveness. But he wasn’t taking now; he was giving.

Her hands came hesitantly up to his shoulders and closed on the dark cotton of his shirt. She gave a shuddering sigh and her eyes closed as she slowly slid the shirt from his shoulders and down his arms. The hard tips of her breasts swung gently against his hair-roughened chest with the movement, and she heard Anthony’s harsh inhalation as her head sank to rest against him. His heart was thundering explosively against her ear,
and she rubbed her cheek back and forth with the sensuousness of a cat. He smelled so good. Slightly spicy with a musk base that was all clean, virile male. She wanted to stay here forever just breathing in the fresh vitality of him. She ran her tongue over one hard male nipple. He tasted good too. Slightly salty, yet warm and smooth. Her lips pressed around the hard nub as she sucked gently, feeling a strange primitive enjoyment as the arched tenseness of his muscles increased tenfold.

“I think you’d better stop taking what you want for a bit, sweetheart”—he half-groaned, half-laughed—“or I’m going to be tempted into doing the same.” His hand tangled in her hair and he pulled her head back. Her eyes opened with a dreamy languor, and the expression in them made his breath stop. God, how long he’d waited for her to look at him like that. “I think it’s time for bed, Dany,” he said huskily. “Will you sleep in my arms tonight?”

She nodded slowly, feeling as if the world were narrowing and telescoping to contain only silver-green eyes lit with flames, supple bronze muscles that flexed and moved against her softness with a
hunger that was ravishing to the senses. “If you want me to,” she whispered.

She’d do anything he wanted her to do. She knew that with a serene certainty now. She was so overflowing with love for him that it filled her with a dreamlike disorientation. Love. She’d been so careful never to think of love in connection with Anthony. It was safe to love Beau and Marta, and she’d given that love freely. It was even easy to give warmth and affection to Jack and the other men who’d faded in and out of her life. With Anthony it was different. She’d never known what he was feeling behind that wall of reserve. But she’d wanted to know. Oh, Lord, how she’d wanted to know! All her life all she’d ever wanted was to look behind that veil into the man that was Anthony Malik. Now, with a suddenness that was incredible, he was lowering the barrier and inviting her in.

“That’s not enough,” he said quietly. “It’s got to be what you want too.” His fingers were warm on her naked back, drawing lazy, sensual patterns on its satin softness. “Tell me that you want it, Dany.”

His fingers were pulling invisible wires of
sensation that caused a spasmodic clenching between her thighs and a melting hotness in her veins. “I want it,” she said huskily in a half gasp. “Oh, yes, I want it, Anthony.”

His lips touched hers in a kiss as soft as gossamer wings. “So sweet,” he murmured only a breath away. “I suppose I should feel like a bastard taking advantage of an innocent like you, but I don’t. You were meant to be mine. You’ll know that soon, even if you don’t know it now.”

Then he was rising, scooping her up in his arms, carrying her up the three steps that led from the sunken living room and across the corridor. He didn’t bother to shut the door as he entered the bedroom, and the flickering firelight revealed a room furnished in silver-gray and wine. The deep-piled wine carpet contrasted with the silver-gray of the bedspread on the king-size bed. Then she was being lowered onto that bed’s cushioned softness, and the only thing she was conscious of was Anthony standing before her, a slim powerful shadow in the dim room. His hands were rapidly unfastening his belt and his voice was as velvet-soft as the coverlet caressing her naked back. “I’ve
lain on that bed so many nights thinking of how it would be when you were lying there with me.” He was stripping with lithe swiftness. Every move was imbued with an inherent economy and grace. She loved to watch him move—on the ice or sprawled in a chair or walking across a room. He was finished now, and his nude body had a gleaming bronze patina that glowed flamelike in the dimness. He sat down beside her and began pulling off her soft suede boots.

“Sometimes I could almost see you with your red hair tumbling over the pillow and your dark eyes looking up at me, pleading for me to love you.” He moved up a little on the bed and skillfully slid down the camel slacks and tiny bikini panties beneath them over her hips in one smooth movement. “I’d visualize you opening your thighs, arching up to me and inviting me to—”

“Anthony, it may be dark in here, but I assure you my cheeks are bright scarlet,” Dany interrupted shakily. “I’m not accustomed to pillow talk, dammit.”

His hand reached out to the crimson-shaded lamp on the bedside table, and they were suddenly
in an intimate pool of light that came as a breathless little shock. He was so beautiful, she thought dreamily, so slender, yet with that gleaming ripple of muscle that invited her touch. And his eyes … torches flaming beneath the ice. Those torches were burning her with a hunger that caused the muscles in her stomach to knot as they ran over her with lingering deliberation.

“I’ve seen you almost naked any number of times,” he said thickly. “But not like this. I remember last year in Chicago after that benefit exhibition I came into your dressing room while Marta was giving you a massage with just a scrap of a sheet over you. I sat there across the room talking with Beau, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off Marta’s hands moving over you with such clinical detachment.” He drew a deep, shaky breath. “It drove me crazy. I wanted it to be me touching you, causing that expression of sensual contentment on your face. I had to get the hell out of there or I’d have told them to leave and taken you right there on that table.” His eyes lifted from his intimate appraisal of her body to meet her eyes fiercely. “And it wouldn’t have been rape, Dany. I’d have given
you so much pleasure, you would have been begging for it. I’d never have taken without giving. Not with you. It wouldn’t have been possible. Do you understand that?”

She understood that she was melting and dissolving beneath those molten eyes and that the ache between her thighs was close to pain. Every breath she drew was being forced from lungs constricted with a mounting tension that was almost unbearable. “Yes, I can understand that,” she whispered. “Please don’t talk anymore, Anthony.” Her hand moved to caress the sleek coiled muscles of his shoulder. “I need you.”

She could feel the muscles suddenly tense beneath her hand and grow rigid, and the expression on his face that had been nakedly vulnerable was now an impassive mask. “No, I told you, you don’t need anyone. You’re too strong for that kind of dependence.” His gaze still holding hers, one strong, sensitive hand reached out to cup her breast in his palm. She could feel her heart leap crazily as the breast swelled to his touch. “You
want
me, just as I want you.” His thumb flicked the hard, thrusting nipple, leaving a blazing fire in its wake. “And
before long you’re going to want me a hell of a lot more. But you don’t
need
me. Remember that.”

He was wrong, she thought wildly. If this desire was beginning to dominate her every sense, wasn’t it stark need? It came so close as to be nearly indistinguishable.

Lord, he marveled, she was beautiful lying there with her eyes cloudy and languid, and her lips parted and inviting. He could feel her ripening under his hand, and he wanted to close his hand and squeeze gently, making her blossom even more. He wanted to run his hand over her body, discovering all the softness and textures of her. Her thighs were so damn soft and welcoming. All he had to do was to part those thighs and move between them. She was ready for him. She wanted him. Why the devil didn’t he reach out and take what he’d wanted for so long? It would be sheer, agonizing torture to have her lie all night in his arms and not bury himself in her, not give them the pleasure and relief they both wanted.

He closed his eyes for an instant, shutting out the sight of her. He was rationalizing, and he’d never been one to lie to himself. Dany wanted him
because he’d used all his expertise to make sure she did. He could take her now and chance that he could build on that experience, but he knew it was a risk he was reluctant to take. She was confused and uncertain now, and in the clear light of morning that confusion might be transformed into resentment and panic. It was all new to her, and he couldn’t expect her emotions to be as clearly focused as his own. No, he could only take so much and no more right now.

Besides, though Anthony couldn’t claim many virtues, he’d always prided himself on his fairness. His lips curved with a touch of self-mockery as he wondered just how long that sense of justice would have held up if it hadn’t been bolstered by the fear that any irrevocable move on his part might ruin his plans for Dany. Not for any appreciable length of time—if the lightest touch of her hand on his shoulder could make him harden with an urgency he’d known only in the final stages of lovemaking with any other woman.

He opened his eyes, and she was still gazing at him with a glowing languor that made his breath catch in his throat. He quickly reached over and
flicked off the light. “Come on, sweetheart, under the covers with you. This is all a little more than I can take at the moment.” She obediently moved as his hands and body bade her. He drew back the spread and sheet and covered her carefully before slipping in beside her and taking her in his arms. He could feel himself tremble as she molded herself against him with a responsiveness that caused his heart to leap to his throat. Willing. Great heavens, she was so willing, it was tearing him apart. Her lips brushed against his shoulder and he could smell the light floral perfume she always wore as a strand of her silky hair wafted against his cheek.