Page 34 of Promise Me Love

‘Oh, David! I don’t know what to say.’ She turned to him, her eyes glistening with tears as she went on tiptoe to kiss him quickly on the cheek. He steadied her, his hands warm and strong against her waist as he looked down into her face, and Beth felt her pulse leap at his expression.

‘You don’t always need words to say what you mean, Beth. There are other ways.’ Slowly, so slowly, he bent and touched his mouth to hers, his lips warm and tender at first before they became more demanding. Beth shuddered, feeling the hot, swift surge of desire flowing along her veins. For the past few days she had guarded the memory of that other kiss, but even that hadn’t prepared her for this heady, demanding assault on her senses. Last time the kiss had been a sweet promise of things that could be, but this was so very different. This time David wasn’t giving, he was demanding, wasn’t promising, but taking. He kissed her now as a man kissed a woman he intended to arouse, to master, to take with him to some private place where no one else could intrude, and suddenly Beth knew that whatever David wanted from her she would give.

Her hands came up to slide inside his jacket and across the warm, hard muscles of his chest while her lips parted to admit the entry of his tongue, and everything seemed to flare out of control as he realised that she wasn’t going to resist. He drew her closer, his hand burrowing under the silky length of her hair to hold her head while he deepened the kiss until she moaned in ecstasy at the hot swirl of sensations which flooded her. When his hand slid down the smooth column of her neck then moved on to cover her breast she arched towards him, gasping as she felt his fingers brushing and teasing her hardening nipple to life.

‘Beth.’ Her name was hot and sweet as he said it that way in that slow, deep voice and she shuddered convulsively, clinging to him as her legs went weak. He supported her against the long line of his powerful body, his mouth skimming up her cheek to press kisses to the corner of her eye, her forehead, then down the straight line of her nose until his lips just brushed the top of hers and then stopped tantalisingly out of reach.

‘David…please.’ She was barely aware of what she was saying, barely aware that her voice held a plea in its soft tones, but he heard it.

‘Please what, Beth?’ His lips brushed hers, softly, gently, making her ache for a deeper contact, and she turned to capture his mouth, but once again he eluded her.

‘Tell me, Beth. Tell me what you want.’ His voice was smooth as satin, soft as silk, deep as velvet, and she shivered in response.

‘Kiss me, David…please.’

There was a moment when he seemed to hesitate, but then she felt his mouth take hers while he kissed her with a passion which left her clinging helplessly to him. She had never felt this way before, never felt the blood surge along her veins like fire, never felt the beat of her heart in every cell, never felt as though one kiss held the whole world. Never! Not even when Andrew had kissed her.

The thought came from nowhere, sharp and bitterly painful, shattering the magic with devastating speed. She pulled away, her face pale, her eyes haunted. She’d thought she’d loved Andrew, the father of her lost child, but the touch of David’s mouth had made a mockery out of that. Shame swept over her, hot and heavy, and she turned away, hating herself for her blind stupidity, hating David for making her admit the truth at last: what she’d felt for Andrew had never been love!

‘There’s nothing to feel ashamed about, Beth. Physical desire between a man and a woman is the most natural thing in the world.’

‘Is it?’ She spun round, her hands clenched into fists as she strove for control. ‘I’m afraid that is something I have little experience of despite the evidence to the contrary. I know little about the opposite sex and how natural desire can be! It might surprise you to learn that Andrew was the first and only man I have ever slept with, and that was hardly a success!’

She regretted the revealing statement the very instant she saw the way his eyes narrowed. From the first moment they had met, Andrew had tried to talk her into bed with him, but when she had finally agreed she knew that he had found it a disappointing experience. His remarks had been scathing at the time and Beth had been bitterly hurt, attributing his disappointment to her own shortcomings. She had hated the whole experience if she was truthful, which made it all the more worrying how she’d just responded to David.