“Truce,” she whispered. “Truce.”
“No, darling. Peace talks. A parley. Exploratory diplomacy.” His lips moved with hushed lightness over her cheek. His eyes closed, and when his mouth halted its slow search of her trembling lips, his open kiss was spare and subtle. He lowered his head a little, and his kiss moved to her throat before it traveled hotly along her jaw, to her ear, to her forehead, and came back to her lips. The pressure on her mouth deepened as he delicately teased her into parting her lips and entered her, dragging her into his kiss. His hands still pressing her to him, his lips on hers, he murmured, “Peace talks.And I surrender. Complete conquest. You win. Why are you always so shy with your tongue?”
Merry’s arms might have been made from putty for all the strength there was in them as she tried to push away from him. The best she could do was turn her face. “No—this is terrible—My tongue? I never know what you’re talking about. What do you mean about my tongue?”
His fingers, firmly placed on her chin, forced her resisting lips back. Before his mouth took her again, he said in a low tone, “Let me show you.” After a moment he whispered, “Do you like that, Merry?”
If he hadn’t been holding her, she would have dropped to the floor. She answered him thickly, her head swimming. “I think you’re… There’s something wrong with you! Aren’t you embarrassed at all?”
“We can’t be embarrassed yet,” he told her in a voice made tender with sympathetic amusement. Lowering her feet to the floor without haste, his hand moved in a caressing circle that followed the contour of the soft flesh of her buttocks. “How could we be embarrassed already? We have to save something for the rest of it. What do you do further on? Go purple in your skin like ripe fruit?”
Merry, having never been further on, decided that it was probable. “More than likely,” she sighed. His fingers quit her chin, and as they began to play erotic patterns on her naked shoulders, her cheek came to rest weakly against the warm skin of his throat, exposed by his open collar. “I’m beginning tofeellike a ripe fruit.”
His thumb stroked her ear, found the inner folds, and in another moment his mouth and his tongue explored there also. “Which?” he asked.
“Which what?”
“Which fruit? An apple? A cherry? Something tropical and exotic?”
“Something juicy.” Her tone was so lugubrious that it made him laugh.
“Merry… sweet child… Merry sweet. Is this so bad, then? Is it?” He continued the rich movements of his hands, and his lower lip made a sensuous path down the rim of her ear. With great gentleness he let out a breath that fluttered the short silk-curls at her cheekbones. Touching her skin through golden wisps of her hair, his mouth wandered back to hers and began to slowly drink her heat-flavored kisses.
“We barbarians call it desire.” He said it huskily, coaxing her body to a response. “We call it… Oh, yes… darling, yes. That’s right. Did I sayright? Such a forceless word.” The kiss was long, hard, and rapturous, and at sometime during the length of it he whispered against her lips, “Here. Move with me, love. No. Don’t be afraid. I’m not taking you to bed. Just the chair. All right?”
But she hadn’t been able to answer him because she was falling, sinking through fathoms of thick blue water, warm with exotic fish and trailing, clinging seaweed. Scented fluids were moving into and out from her lungs and rainbow colors filled her eyes. When next she was aware of herself, she was on his lap, nestled against his chest, her body pressing sinuously into him. Her head was thrown back, dependent on the support of his arm, firmly placed behind her neck over the heavy cushion of her hair. With hot cheeks, through moist and swollen lips, she whispered, “Devon?”
His face nuzzled the bend of her cheek and then lifted, until his eyes, heavy with pleasure, could study her features.
“What am I doing?” she said. “How do you do this to me?”
“Ah. This?” One accurate finger was softly following her hairline. “This is magic. It’s done with mirrors. Secret pockets. Sleight of hand. The coin disappears from one palm and reappears in the other. Everything depends on a willing and distracted subject.”
“I’m not willing. I’m not. I’m just…”
“Distracted?” he suggested gently, running his thumb over the sensitized rise of her lips, and feeling her tongue touching in shy curiosity against his skin, he rewarded her quickly with an exquisitely probing kiss.
Opening her eyes afterward with the side of her face comfortably nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, Merry said helplessly, “I thought you told me—Do you remember that first night before I was sick? You were going to teach me the best place to kick a man. I wish you had. I don’t know how to make this stop.”
The innocence of the blunt confession was not lost on Devon, though nothing of that showed in the love-hazed smile that she saw form on his lips.
“Devon, what do you mean to do?”
Cradling her in his arms, his mouth on the hollow below her ear, he said, “Fill you with honey, love.”
His hair brushed her parted lips, cool and smooth as satin, as he pulled away slightly. Holding her that way, finding her mouth again, he whispered, “Merry, lift your arms. Put your hands on my shoulders. We don’t need this shirt, do we? Let me take it… Better… and better.”
In the warm space that separated their bodies, her unrestrained breasts made scant contact with the fabric of his shirt. The slightest of her movements made her skin rub against him, the soft press of fiber washing her with emotions so tantalizing that a shudder passed through her like a current. He felt it; and his mouth at the base of her throat stopped its fluid quest to murmur a reassurance while one of his hands left its courtship of her hip, paused tenderly on the lustrous bare skin on the side of her body, and then gently covered her breast. Moaning and frightened, she tried to pull away, but with strong, gracious fingers he held her in his embrace, feeding pleasure to her shrinking flesh until resistance gave wayto bewildered rapture. Devon’s lips moved lower, making a discovery.
“Sugar…” he said. “Everywhere, you’re incredibly sweet. What were you trying to do, turn into a marzipan?”
She tried to answer him, but her tongue was thick in her throat. “Dev—Let me go.” It was a very faint whisper.
“Hush, little flower. Bloom under me. Bloom for me, Merry. How did you ever grow to be so sweet? Would you like me to lick you clean? I know where I’d like to begin.…”
His words made her arms cling to him as she found herself straining weakly toward his seeking mouth as it found her breast. Fever spread through her, delicious and fruity: sweet cherry juice, apple wine, rosehips, and honey. She could see nothing through her swirling vision, feel nothing but his warm hands and closeness and the clean delight of his touch. He lifted her hair in one hand, letting it fall in a tangled mass over her shoulders, and caressed the back of her neck. Moving his hands down to cup her shoulders, he brought his mouth to hers once again.
“Some for you,” he whispered, and she tasted the transferred nectar of her own sugar, a sensuous offering from his lips. Somehow her hands had begun to stroke the firm, supple muscles on his back and shoulders; and his pulse beats ran like surf under the unsure motion of her innocent fingers.
