His glance swept her from head to toe, leaving her skin burning. He got up off the bed, the same, but suddenly different, dangerous in a predatory unleashed way that trailed flutters of alarm down her spine.
This was not the Joss whose control she had envied and admired as he sat watching Helene flirt with Harry Weinberger. This was a man whose emotions were most definitely not under any sort of control at all she recognised numbly as he came towards her.
"What is it, Sarah?"
How silky and soft his voice was, but dangerous, too, setting her pulses thudding in primitive warning.
"I came ... to tell you that our meal was ready."
"Did you.. but it wasn"t food you were thinking about just now was it, Sarah?" He had drawn level with her now and she could smell the musky male scent of his skin. She wanted to turn and leave the room . to escape from the danger she could feel closing in around her, but she simply could not move.
"You were looking at me as though you couldn"t wait to feel my skin against your own... as though you couldn"t wait to touch me." His voice was low and faintly rasping now, making her shiver in tense reaction. She wanted to deny what he was saying . to escape from the humiliation he was forcing on her, but she couldn"t. She was like a helpless rabbit mesmerised by a hawk.
"Do you want to touch me, Sarah? Do you want to feel my flesh against your own? Were you remembering what it was like between us?" He laughed suddenly, a harshly bitter sound.
"Joss ... please, I know why you"re doing this..." Her throat hurt as she forced the words out.
"I know how you feel about Helene." She risked a brief look at him and found that he had gone tensely still, his eyes narrowing on hers.
"I know you..."
"What is it you"re trying to tell me, Sarah?" he demanded softly.
"That you"re jealous of Helene? Were you jealous of her, Sarah?" he probed, closing the distance between them.
"Of this. Were you jealous of this...?"
His mouth was on her own, taking it without finesse or delicacy, his arms locking round her like bands of iron as his self-control was blasted away completely and he gave in to the tightly reined emotions she had sensed churning within him all day.
She knew she ought to resist . that it was not her he Wanted, but the sheer sensuality of his kiss exercised its own dark power. Against her will she responded to it, her lips parting to the thrusting demand of his tongue.
His body burned against her own, his hands urgent and ungentle as he caressed her. She tried to break free of him, appalled by the sudden pressure his arms exerted on her body as he restrained her.
"Don"t fight me tonight, Sarah," he muttered against her throat.
"I.
need this too much to stop now. You shouldn"t have come in here . but now that you have. "
His heartbeat thudded crazily into her chest, all sense and reason suspended as she found herself responding instinctively to the male lure of him. This was the man she loved . wanting her. needing her.
"Stay with me tonight, Sarah." His mouth touched hers, lightly, less lightly, and then very fiercely as he reinforced his need. She could feel it in his body; in the hard urgency of his muscles, and in the tormenting throb of his arousal.
It was easy now to forget how he had rejected her . that he didn"t love her, when she stood within the circle of his arms, and his mouth was slowly caressing the tender arch of her throat. Without realising she had moved she felt the smooth skin of his back beneath her palms, a long shudder of pleasure rippling through his body as she slowly caressed the supple flesh. His teeth bit gently into the vulnerable juncture of her throat and shoulder, and then again less gently, so that it was her turn to shudder and cling helplessly to him as he eased down the zip of her dress.
She was almost feverish with the need to be rid of her clothes. She wanted to feel the satin glide of his body against her own. She wanted to touch him, to taste him. Blindly she placed her lips against the hollow of his throat, amazed and thrilled by the explosive sounds of pleasure he made beneath her tentative caress, his fingers against the vertebrae of her spine, pressing her into his body so that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were flattened against his chest.
"Why the h.e.l.l do you have to wear so many clothes?" He muttered the protest against her ear as he unfastened and removed her bra, holding her slightly away from him as he cupped and studied the aroused fullness of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"I can"t believe you"re real." He said it slowly, like someone caught up in a dream, his eyes dark and veiled, almost unfocused.
"Come to bed with me now, Sarah," he muttered against her mouth, slowly drawing her towards the bed.
Sarah went unresistingly with him, letting him pull her down beside him on the bed, watching almost dreamily as he threw off his towel and removed her briefs. Her body knew his now. knew it and reacted immediately to the proximity of it, her senses already savouring the pleasures she knew were to come.
"Sarah." Joss whispered her name against her mouth, kissing her slowly, his hand cupping her jaw, holding her beneath his mouth as it ravaged hers with increasingly urgent kisses. His heart was thudding at twice its normal rate, the heat coming off his skin burning her own.
Beneath his breath he was muttering words she couldn"t decipher; his hand leaving her face to travel along her throat and down to her breast, his fingertips lightly grazing her already erect nipples.
"Joss..." Sarah was barely aware of moaning his name as she arched eagerly beneath his hands, but she heard the hoa.r.s.e note of desire in his voice as he demanded rawly, "What is it you want, Sarah? Is it this?" His mouth touched her throat, caressing it moistly.
"This...?"
His head dipped further, his tongue tracing slow circles against the aureole of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She was dissolving in pleasure, Sarah thought hazily, melting in those circles of fire Joss was painting on her body.
She reached up towards him, dragging her nails protestingly along his shoulder, unable to endure the sensual torment of his warm mouth against her skin. Her teeth found his shoulder and bit protestingly, her body shuddering in heated delight as Joss"s teeth caught against her nipple as he dragged in a deep breath.
"Do that to me again and I won"t be responsible for how I react," he muttered thickly.
"I want to feel your mouth against my skin, Sarah," he told her huskily, "it does things to me that I can"t begin to describe. "
Listening to him was doing things to her that she couldn"t begin to describe, Sarah acknowledged hazily. The erotic mental images he was drawing for her, were turning her blood to fire, drugging her senses .
making her shudder in delicate response to what he was saying.
"Make love to me, Sarah." He murmured the command with aching urgency, drawing her down against his body.
Her fingers clutched at his shoulder and then relaxed, tracing the hard muscles beneath his skin, her lips instinctively feathering light kisses along the same path. Hesitant at first, Sarah felt her confidence grow as Joss responded openly to her caresses, inviting them to become more intimate.
Her lingers touched the hard flatness of his belly and he shuddered convulsively, muttering i her name, but when she drew away his handcovered hers, holding it against his body, moving it to where he throbbed demandingly.
The maleness of him beneath her hand was distinctly arousing, her stomach muscles tightening, desire flooding through her, weakening her so that she wasn"t sure which of them it was who shivered.
Her need to feel the life force of him pulsing deep within her was overwhelming.
"Sarah." Feverishly Joss caressed her body, drawing her up against him, moving against her in urgent demand. She wanted him so much. The intensity of it coiled achingly within her, exploding into liquid heat when his fingers touched the velvet moistness from which the heat radiated.
"You want me." His voice was thick and drugged with pa.s.sion, slurred faintly with an edge of masculine triumph. Beneath the open s.e.xual desire glittering in his eyes Sarah could sense a more primitive male delight in his ability to arouse her, to reduce her to this melting, writhing ma.s.s of nerve endings that craved only one release.
And then suddenly she was sick with self- disgust. What was she doing allowing Joss to use her as a means of relieving his frustration? He didn"t want her. not in the way that she wanted him, above and beyond all other human beings. She was simply a body in his bed, a woman who he could use to forget Helene for a few brief hours.
He sensed her withdrawal immediately, his body tensing, the glitter of s.e.xual hunger in his eyes replaced by a mingling of anger and. and what? she asked herself achingly. Pain? Hardly.
"What"s wrong...?" He wasn"t touching her at all now, and in fact had moved completely away from her. Treacherously her body missed the heat and pressure of his. She shivered, suddenly cold, coming down too quickly from the high plateau to which he had taken her.
"I think I"d better leave. Joss." She made to get out of his bed, but to her surprise he reached out and stopped her.
"For G.o.d"s sake, Sarah..." The words were strained and hoa.r.s.e. She could sense him fighting for self-control and reminded herself that he had every reason to feel rage against her. She should never have allowed their lovemaking to get so far.
"Look ... we have to talk." He sounded surprisingly gentle, but very, very tired, as though emotionally he was drained dry.
"I promise you I won"t touch you again."