Page 98 of Forbidden

For a long moment Duncan looked at the golden eyes and outstretched hand of the girl he wanted more than he wanted life itself.

Then he touched her, felt her burning, saw the wildfire of his own need blaze in her eyes.

Duncan’s torrential male hunger poured over Amber in a river of fire. She was a spark caught in a whirlwind, recklessly burning, helplessly spiraling upward to an unknown destiny. With a woman’s instinct, she sought Duncan’s flesh both as haven and as fuel for an even greater fire.

Duncan pulled Amber close with a strength he could barely control. The feel and taste of her mouth made him groan with redoubled need. His body chained hers to the ground as his tongue shot between her teeth, claiming her mouth in urgent, elemental rhythms.

With a wildness that equaled Duncan’s, Amber fought to get closer to him, to ease the torment of his arousal and her own, a suffering that was also a savage pleasure. Her hands searched over his body, seeking ways through and beneath his clothing.

The feel of Amber’s hands on his face, his chest, his breeches, was heaven and hell combined for Duncan. When she found the aching source of his need, the pleasure nearly undid him. His hips thrust suddenly against her, once, twice, thrice, and a groan was dragged from the depths of his passion.

Amber felt both Duncan’s pleasure and his driving, unfulfilled need. However great his enjoyment of her hand caressing him, it wasn’t enough. She could feel the savage heat of him, taste the salt of his passion on his neck, and she knew that she was pouring oil rather than water on the fire of his need.

“Show me how to ease you,” Amber said urgently. “I can’t bear the hunger tearing at you!”

The sound Duncan made then was indeed that of a man in torment. His hands swept down Amber’s body to her hips. Strong fingers clenched there for an instant, sending pleasure lancing through her. Before she could do more than take a swift breath, his hands were sweeping down her legs to her feet and then back up again.

Amber hardly noticed the cool bite of autumn on her legs, for the anticipation in Duncan was spinning through her, driving out all else. When his hand pressed between her legs, tested the liquid heat of her body, and found it ready, his wild elation speared through her.

With it came a piercing pleasure that was hers, for in the act of withdrawing his touch, he flicked over the aching nub of her own need. Instinctively she sought another such caress, twisting beneath Duncan in silent demand.

“Aye,” he said savagely. “I can wait no longer either.”

His hands clamped on Amber’s thighs, stilling and opening her at the same instant. In the next instant he drove into her.

A searing pain clenched Amber’s body, only to be burned away by the fierce pleasure that pulsed through Duncan as he felt himself fully sheathed in her. Then came a moment of utter stillness and disbelief.

Duncan struggled to control the wildness hammering in his blood, but it was impossible. Amber was a velvet fire surrounding him tightly, caressing every bit of his aching length. With a broken sound, he began to move, driving for completion within her body.

His release broke over Amber like a storm. She let out a long, ragged sigh and closed her arms around him, feeling both the ecstasy and the wildness pulsing through him into her.

Yet as soon as the last pulse was spent, there came not peace, but unhappiness. Duncan rolled aside and saw what he feared he would—his lover’s blood bright on his body.

“I hurt you,” Duncan said through his teeth. “God’s wounds, I never meant that! What is wrong with me? I’ve never been like that with a woman!”

“Nay,” Amber said, touching Duncan’s cheek. “I’m not hurt.”

“You’re bleeding!”

“Of course. ’Tis the nature of virgins to bleed when they first take a man into their body.”

The look on Duncan’s face would have been amusing, if he hadn’t been so clearly horrified.

“You were a virgin?” he asked roughly.

“How can you doubt it?” Amber asked, half smiling. “You wear the truth of it like a crimson banner.”

“But you responded so quickly, so wildly, like a falcon that has been flown many times.”

“Did I?”

“God’s teeth, yes!”

“I wouldn’t know,” Amber said simply.

Duncan closed his eyes and measured the extent of what he had done. She had been a virgin, she had given herself to him…and he had given her nothing in return but pain.

He was certain of it. He had felt the tearing instant as clearly as she must have, but he had denied it even as he had felt it.