Reckless Passion by Stephanie James

curving midsection. "Give yourself to me tonight. I want all of you. All you have to give...."
    She gasped as he dipped a wet kiss into her navel and then moved on, stringing kisses along the flare of a hip. His hand slipped down to grasp an ankle, tenderly forcing her legs even farther apart, and then she felt his teeth first feather and then nip the vulnerable inner length of her thigh.
    Convulsively, her fingers locked in the dark honey of his hair and her body lifted into his urgent, demanding lips and hands.
    "Oh, Yale. Please, please..."
    "Tell me what you want," he rasped thickly, sliding his hands under her buttocks and holding her body still while he rose to settle himself between her legs. "Tell me, Dara !"
    The command was punctuated by tiny, velvet kisses along her stomach.
    "Love me, Yale!" The cry was a feminine order of the first magnitude. "Please, please make love to me!"
    He inched slowly upward, his hands sliding along her waist to palm her breasts as his mouth explored her silky skin in their wake. She was vividly aware of the heavy maleness of him, knew it would soon pour over her in a wave.
    Hungrily she wrapped her arms around him, drawing him down into her waiting body. Her lips buried themselves in his throat as he loomed over her and she clutched at the tensely muscled back.
    "I knew it had to end like this between us tonight," Yale gasped, shuddering as her hands clung to him, dragging him under into the rippling tide of her. "Sooner or later it had to end like this...."
    "Yes, oh, yes," she panted, her breath coming in short, excited gasps that lifted her full breasts and crushed them softly against his chest.
    Somehow it wasn't until she actually felt his unmistakable hardness against her that the last of the dream finally faded. Perhaps it was the stunning sensation of imminent masculine possession, or perhaps it was because she finally opened her eyes and took in the full significance of the cheap motel room. Whatever the cause, Dara was finally, fully aroused from her dreamlike state.
    What was she doing? This wasn't the way she had meant to conclude the evening! It was too soon, much too soon! They needed time....
    "Yale, no! Wait, please, wait! I didn't want this to happen...!"
    "It's too late now," he gritted against her mouth. "I'm going to make you mine. There's nothing in this universe that could stop me!"
    He fastened his lips over hers, silencing her protest, and then everything seemed to explode around and in her at once. He held her with fierce urgency, forcing his tongue into her mouth even as his hardness took her completely.
    Dara would have cried out with the ecstasy of it, but there was no chance. He dominated her awareness on every level, pulling her into the rhythmic surge of his body as if he would meld every inch of her with him.
    Dara's fleeting moment of sanity vanished once more under the passionate onslaught. She couldn't think of the future when he held her like this, touched her like this, mastered her body with his own.
    Deliriously she gave herself up to the thrilling wonder of the man to whom she had wanted to belong from the instant her eyes had met his. This was what she had been searching for all her life. This was the joy and exquisite excitement that had been missing from her short, ill-fated marriage.
    Almost incredulously she felt her body responding in a way it had never responded before. Something tight and coiling was fighting to free itself deep in her loins.
    Her hands slid down the violently arching male back, digging into the muscular flesh of Yale's buttocks and thighs.
    "My God, woman! What are you doing to me! "
    She reveled in the evidence of his unleashed need and sensuality, delighted in the now ungoverned response of his body to hers. His strength and power seemed to master her softness at the same time that they surrendered to it.
    "I never knew..." she tried to say, "I never realized..." The words wouldn't come. How could she try to describe the