Island Flame by Karen Robards Page A

own lips tightly clenched, rejecting his kiss utterly. She remembered the last time all too well. She would not disgrace herself in such a way again.
    His arms slid around her, pulling her away from the wall and into his embrace. Cathy clawed at his face desperately, but he caught her hands before she could inflict any damage, imprisoning them. His mouth closed over hers again, and this time his tongue succeeded in prying her shaking lips apart. She arched away from him in a hopeless quest for freedom, but the movement only made her more burningly aware of his hard male body as it pressed intimately against her softer female one. She felt his tongue touch hers, and the tremor that racked his arms as he held her. A strange heat began to pulsate in her loins. His hands moved over her back and buttocks, warmly and seductively. Her knees felt suddenly weak, and she was forced to cling to his shoulders for support.He bent her backward over his arm, his mouth ravishing the slim white column of her throat before returning to devour her mouth. Cathy knew suddenly, helplessly, that she was lost. Her arms crept around his neck of their own volition, her fingers curling through his thick dark hair.
    As he felt her response he groaned, then swung her off her feet and into his arms, carrying her on unsteady legs over to the bed. Cathy lay nestled like a small trusting kitten against the hard muscles of his bare chest, her arms twined around his neck. She could no more have resisted him than he could have stopped himself.
    He laid her gently on the bed and stretched out beside her, drawing her up tightly against him and kissing her in that strange, animalistic way that drove her almost out of her mind. As his mouth twisted across hers, she shivered, and then she was kissing him back.
    “This is wrong,” a small voice inside her head warned. But Cathy was beyond heeding her own advice.
    Jon’s hands explored the curves of her body through the thin nightshirt, reveling in her budding womanliness. Her nipples grew rigid under his hands. He ripped aside the material covering them impatiently, then caught his breath as if the sight of her milky white, pink tipped breasts caused him physical pain. He stretched out a finger and ran it reverently over the soft peaks, marveling at the velvety warmth of her skin.
    He bent his head, gently kissing first one nipple and then the other, drawing the last one into his mouth and nibbling at it teasingly. Cathy gasped at the fiery sensation that stabbed her, and her eyes flew open. The sight of his black head nuzzling so intimately at her breast shocked her back to awareness. She went hot with shame. Herhands flew to his broad shoulders and she tried frantically to push him away.
    “No! Please stop! Jon, please!” she panted, her nails digging into him.
    “Hush, Cathy,” he murmured in reply, his voice thick and his eyes glazed with passion. “Hush, now, Cathy love.”
    He reached up and gently removed her claws from his flesh, drawing her hands over her head and holding them pinioned. His lips returned to press hot kisses over her breasts. Cathy twisted, frightened now, and tried vainly to pull away.
    “Just be still, sweetheart,” he said against her ear. “I won’t hurt you. Easy now. Just be still.”
    He held her hands pinned to the mattress with one of his, while the other stripped away the remnants of the torn nightshirt. In a few short moments, her body lay bare to his gaze. His eyes went over her slowly, possessively, seeming to scald her flesh. She sobbed with fear and embarrassment as he studied her from head to toe, and when his hand went to the buttons of his breeches, she renewed her frantic efforts to escape.
    Naked, he held her with his leg across her body, stilling her harsh cries with his mouth. He kissed her in a leisurely fashion, his hands resuming their shameful wanderings. They roamed casually over the sensitive peaks of her breasts, then moved downward to caress her soft