Out of the Dark Read online

  And some mocking part of his mind was jeering him, telling him that he was lying to himself, just looking for an excuse to take what he already wanted so badly he could hardly stand it.

  And then, with a steeling of her nerve that was so obvious it tightened his chest unbearably, she took a step toward him.

  “Will you teach me, Cole?”

  Instinctively his hands came up. He’d meant to fend her off. He knew he had. So why had his hands gone instead to her shoulders, his fingers practically shaking as they curled around her?

  “Tory,” he said, shocked at the break in his voice, at the painful lump in his throat. “I don’t...I can’t...” He took a deep, shuddering breath and tried again. “You deserve more than this.”

  “I’m twenty-seven years old, Cole, and I never knew there was this much. I don’t want to take the chance there never will be again.”

  His fingers tightened on her shoulders, and it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms right then. He heard a harsh sound and realized it was his own breathing, coming fast and deep. He felt an odd coolness on his forehead, and realized he was breaking into a sweat. Small wonder, with the thoughts, the possibilities, the visions that were racing through his mind.

  Desperately, he tried to give her one last warning. “You don’t want to do this, Tory. Not with me. Not now. I’m not going to deny I want you—” His gaze flicked downward to where flesh taut and ready, strained against his zipper. Tory followed his glance as if instinctively, and when she looked hurriedly back up at his face, the wonder that filled her eyes did nothing to ease the ache that was building in him. “I couldn’t, anyway. Obviously. But it won’t be soft and sweet, Tory. In fact,” he added, hating the fact that his voice had become nearly a growl, “it would damn likely be right here, because the more I think about it, the hotter I get. We’d never make it to your bed.”

  Her lips parted as she stared at him. He’d done it, he thought. He’d finally scared her off. And his body was going to torture him for it for longer than he cared to think about it.

  And then she was answering him, simple words that stole what was left of his breath. “That’s what I mean,” she said quietly. “It’s not just...how I feel. How you make me feel. It’s that...no one’s ever felt that way...for me.”

  Cole knew it couldn’t be true, knew that all the men in the world couldn’t be blind to Tory’s sweet appeal. More likely it was she who hadn’t realized it, she who had kept such a distance between herself and any man who wanted her that it couldn’t be bridged.

  Until now. And for some perverse reason, she’d chosen to let him in. The one she should have kept the farthest from. And God help him, he didn’t think he had the strength to keep that distance from her. Not when she was looking at him like this, not when she slowly reached up and touched his cheek, so tentatively it felt like the tiny breaths of the breeze that had brushed over his face that day by the spring.

  Involuntarily he turned his head, touching his lips to her fingers. She hesitated, looking suddenly very shy, then even more slowly began to trace the line of his mouth. He shivered, unable to stop it, and that look of wonder came back into her eyes. It was his undoing.

  With a throttled groan, he pulled her into his arms.

  Chapter 12

  Tory knew she’d begun this, had told herself she’d thought it through, that she knew what she was letting herself in for. But Cole quickly showed her she hadn’t really known a thing.

  At first it had been like that kiss by the spring—startlingly swift and fierce. She’d been expecting this, even telling herself it couldn’t possibly have been as wild as the kiss she remembered. She’d been right. It was even wilder.

  He pressed her back against the edge of the desk, his hands cupping her head and tilting it as his mouth devoured hers, as his tongue plunged deep. He tasted her as if she were the sweetest of springwater after a long day in the California sun. He seemed ravenous for her, and just the idea sent ripples of heat through her that made her feel as if he were that sun. He seared her, made her quiver, then shake as he took possession of her mouth.

  It struck her then that he would take possession of her body the same way—hotly, fiercely and a little savagely. It should have frightened her, she supposed with what little part of her mind was still functioning, but instead she longed for it. She was eager to know more, yet she wanted to savor the feelings he was causing in her now. She wanted to leap ahead, yet stay here in this delightful place. Her dilemma was the sweetest she’d ever faced.

  She made a tiny sound of protest when he drew back a little, depriving her of the rough heat of his tongue. He traced her mouth with his tongue and drew back again. Then he flicked the tip over her lips and withdrew it once more.

  At last she understood, yet she hesitated, nervously uncertain. This time his tongue slipped softly over her lower lip and lingered for a moment. And this time she responded, moving to taste him with her own tongue.

  She heard an odd sound, a slight whisper of a moan that she couldn’t quite believe had come from him. She’d expected him to become the aggressor once more, but he didn’t, he simply let her tongue tease his, only occasionally returning the caress, letting her take the lead.

  When he pulled back again, it was to catch her lower lip between his teeth, tug, then release it in a gentle bite that unexpectedly sent little darts of fire racing through her.

  With barely an inch between them, Tory was suddenly aware that she was clinging to him. And that even that wasn’t close enough. Her breasts felt swollen, nipples tautly rigid, as if begging for his touch. She felt an aching emptiness low and deep inside her, and instinctively she parted her legs to let him closer. It took him only a split second to accept the tacit invitation.

  She gasped as his body came up hard against her. She’d seen that he was aroused, but somehow it was very, very different, feeling that hardened ridge of flesh pressed so intimately against her that the layers of cloth that separated them seemed to barely exist. Hesitantly she shifted her hips, rubbing against him. He groaned, low and husky, from deep in his chest.

  “I’d say you’ve got about another minute to change your mind,” he said thickly. “Then there’s no turning back.”

  Turn back? Her inflamed body recoiled at the suggestion. But she couldn’t find the breath to answer him. Couldn’t remember how to speak at all. So instead she reached up, and slid her hands around his neck and her fingers through the thick darkness of his hair.

  He responded to that barest of pressures, slipped his hands around her waist and brought his mouth down to hers again. That alone—how easily he did as she’d asked with that faintest of urging—made her feel that little thrill again. And when he moved his hips harder against her, pressing convulsively, as if he couldn’t help himself, that thrill was joined by a sense of feminine power she’d never experienced before.

  When he at last wrenched his mouth away, he was breathing hard and fast. She could feel his chest heaving as if he’d just been on the longest eight-second ride of his life. For a moment she was afraid he was going to back away. But then his hands tightened at her waist and lifted, and suddenly she was sitting on the desk top. For a long moment he just looked at her.

  “Is this another last chance to change my mind?” she whispered shakily.

  She saw him swallow, as if he were having to force the words out. “Do you want one?”

  A different kind of warmth flooded her then, born of tenderness. Different, but just as consuming as the heat he’d kindled.

  “If I said stop, you’d walk away, wouldn’t you?” she said, a new kind of wonder dawning in her eyes.

  “Crawl, maybe,” he muttered. “Are you...saying stop?”

  She smiled shyly, shaking her head. “No. Hurry up, maybe.”

  He closed his eyes on a low groan. “It’s liable to be fast enough, anyway,” he growled. “I’ve spent damn near every night since I got here wanting this.”

  Her eyes widened
. “You...have?” Then, ingenuously, “Why?”

  He chuckled wryly, a painful little sound. He slipped a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head back. Then he kissed her, gently this time, stroking softly over her lips with his tongue. She parted her mouth for him immediately this time, and flicked at his tongue with her own. The heat was softer, rippling instead of racing this time, but no less intense for the difference.

  “That, for starters,” he said.

  Then he reached once more for her shoulders, only this time it was to slip the straps of her sundress down. The fine fabric slipped away easily, only to catch on the taut points of her breasts. She felt color flood her face once more. If she’d been intent on seduction since the moment she’d dressed this afternoon, she couldn’t have planned it better. The skimpy straps of the cotton dress had precluded her wearing a bra, and for coolness in the summer heat, she had worn no panty hose. She was suddenly very aware that she wore only panties beneath the dress that he could pull to her waist with only the slightest of tugs. She wondered if perhaps she had planned it, that somewhere in some part of her mind she had known this was inevitable. She waited for him to take the next step, to reach for the soft cotton material.

  He didn’t do it. His hands came down to rest on her knees, then slid slightly upward on her thighs, as if he’d only now realized her legs were as bare as her arms. He stopped, as if waiting. She held her breath.

  “Tory?”

  It came from him in a voice so hoarse it was barely recognizable as his. And suddenly she realized his hands were trembling.

  She sensed then what he was waiting for. That even now he was giving her a chance to back out. Little did he know that the raw hunger in his face would have decided for her, if she had had any doubts left. In that moment she was as certain as she could be that no woman had ever been wanted more than this. It was a heady feeling for her, and powerful enough to wipe out any fears about what would happen afterward. Surely this hot, fiery soaring, was worth any price.

  She reached up with a none-too-steady hand of her own and tugged the dress free. It pooled around her waist, baring her breasts to him.

  “God, Tory.”

  It came out on a long, drawn out breath, his tone touched with a wonder and need that seemed almost palpable as his gaze swept over her body. She shivered as if he’d touched her, and felt the tingling flesh of her nipples draw up, tight and eager.

  He groaned again, low and husky, and lifted his hands. They came up to cup and lift the soft, rounded flesh of her breasts. Tory moaned at the first touch of his strong, tough hands on her delicate skin. Her head lolled back and her eyes drifted closed, only to snap open again as he rubbed his thumbs over her taut nipples. She cried out, her back arching involuntarily as he did it again, and again.

  She should be embarrassed, she thought vaguely through the web of pleasure he was spinning around her. She was half-naked atop the desk, wantonly offering herself to him, while he stood there fully clothed, caressing her body as if he owned it. But he was causing such intense sensations, making her feel things she’d never felt before, doing exactly as she’d asked, teaching her, that she couldn’t feel anything but pleasure. More pleasure than she’d ever imagined. More pleasure than she’d thought possible.

  And then he lowered his head to capture one hardened nipple in his mouth, and she cried out his name in shocked wonder as he gave her a whole new lesson in what was possible. He flicked at the puckered tip with his tongue until she was moving helplessly, thrusting herself upward, silently urging him on. Then he moved his lips to the other nipple, suckling deeply, making her cry out again, and then again when his fingers began to pluck at the other crest still wet from his mouth.

  The exquisite tugging made her aware—in a way new and wondrous to her—of the connection between the ultrasensitive flesh beneath his fingers and mouth and that hot, swirling place deep inside her that seemed to have been born when he’d kissed her, and had been expanding ever since.

  Heedlessly she moved, hands curved as she sought something to hang onto, some anchor in this maelstrom she was twisting in. Her fingers caught in the cloth of his shirt, the pearl snaps giving way beneath her frantic grasp. She let her fingers slip beneath the shirt, sliding over skin that felt like living satin stretched over muscle as taut as any fit, powerful animal she’d ever seen.

  She heard him suck in his breath, then felt the muscles beneath her hands contract, felt the hammering beat of his heart. With some vague idea of returning the pleasure he’d given her, she moved until her fingers encountered the flat disks of his nipples, not expecting the sharp intake of his breath when she rubbed the tightened flesh there.

  She did it again and, as if involuntarily, his hips moved, sliding that ridged hardness over the core of her once more. She felt an odd, spiraling, falling sensation that faded away to a throbbing ache, as if she’d nearly reached some unseen goal her body was clamoring for.

  She clutched at him then, hanging on. Her hands slid around him, and she felt an odd series of faint ridges beneath her fingertips, just above his belt on the left side of his back. Scars, she realized. A web of them, crisscrossing the sleek skin. She barely had time to wonder what hell he’d been through before he sought out her breast with his mouth again and sucked just hard enough to make her arch upward with a cry.

  When she could breathe again, she slid her hands up over his shoulders, pushing at his shirt. It slid away, and he moved his arms to let it fall to the floor. She moved her hands slowly down his sides, then over his belly. She felt a rippling contraction there as he let out a low groan.

  He took her wrist then, and gently urged her hand lower. Her fingertips encountered the denim waistband, and she hesitated. He let go of her, but muttered something that sounded incredibly like a plea, and she was helpless to resist it. She moved then, tracing the rigid length of him uncertainly but lovingly through the worn jeans.

  He made a choking sound, and his hips jerked as he pressed himself into her palm. She caught her breath at the way he seemed to expand beneath her fingers, obvious even through his jeans. She stroked him again, with more assurance. And again.

  An explosive oath ripped from his throat. His hands slid up her legs, reaching, curling in the practical blue cotton of her panties much like her fingers had frantically caught in his shirt. He yanked at them, and she lifted herself to help him. She wasn’t sure where they landed, didn’t care, because he was touching her, stroking her, and teaching her yet another lesson.

  She’d known he would touch her, had even guessed it might be even more shattering than when his eager lips had enveloped her nipples. But she hadn’t yet connected the expansion of that heated pool of flame within her to the physical readying of her body for his plunge into it. Only when his fingers slid easily into her wet heat did she realize how very ready she was for this man.

  And so did Cole. He groaned her name at his first touch of that slick, welcoming flesh, and in seconds he was yanking at the button at his waistband and clawing at his zipper. He tugged at the layers of interfering jeans and briefs.

  Tory stared as engorged male flesh sprang free; she should have known, she supposed. Cole was a very big man. And she couldn’t help a pang of trepidation. But she forgot it as she realized the significance of the small foil packet he’d yanked hurriedly from a front pocket. A memory knifed through her mind, and her gaze flew to his face.

  As if he’d felt her stare, he met her eyes.

  “That’s why you were in the drugstore,” she said in a tiny voice. “Before you went to Whitey’s.”

  Understanding hit him visibly. “Tory, no,” he said quickly. “I didn’t...doesn’t have anything to do with her.”

  She bit her lip, all her doubts flooding back.

  “Tory, listen to me. I bought these—” he gestured with the package, an almost grim look on his face “—because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep my damned hands off of you, after that day at the spring. And I was right.”
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  For a long, silent moment, she just looked at him. All the reasons she was here came back to her, all the decisions she’d made. None of them had changed. And even if he had bought them with the intention of using them elsewhere, he hadn’t. He’d come home. And she didn’t even think to cringe at that word she had instinctively used.

  “A good thing you did, then” was all she said.

  “God, Tory,” he said on a sigh of relief that seemed tinged with wonder.

  And then he was touching her again, stroking, petting, until she was writhing there on the desk, aching for him to finish the lessons he’d begun. She had just enough sanity left to realize that he was perilously close to the edge himself. She’d never seen raging need so eloquently expressed as in the tight, rigid line of his jaw, the taut cords of his neck, the tensed quiver of his arms as he touched her.

  Remembering what she’d learned moments ago, she tentatively reached for him. She wanted to feel the heat of him, wanted to trace the hardened length of him without the interference of cloth between them.

  The moment he saw what she was doing, he froze. So did she, afraid she’d done something wrong. Without a word, but with a world of fevered need in his face, he again took her hand and guided it to him.

  Tory shivered in amazed wonder at the feel of him, hot and hard and heavy against her hand. And sleek. And smooth. So very smooth. Maybe even smooth enough to make this impossibility, this joining of his body to hers, possible after all. But as she tested the size of him with unschooled fingers, she had her doubts.

  But what she couldn’t doubt was that he was taking pleasure from her touch. It showed in his face, in the tautness of his body, in the way he moved, urging her on. She touched him again, with more assurance, and then again, long, deep stroking caresses that, to her wonder, made him tremble. And then he began touching her yet again, gently, teasingly, sliding his fingers over her, finding and massaging a little knot of nerves that leapt to life with sizzling awareness.