Free One Reckless Night by Sara Craven

slowly. His face looked stark, pared down to bronze angles. A flush burned along the high cheekbones and the dark gaze seemed to simmer into hers for one endless, stinging moment...
      Then, without another word, he lifted her into his arms, cradling her head against the hard curve of his shoulder, and carried her out of the room and up the stairs.
      He put her on the bed and lay beside her, propping himself on one elbow as his eyes searched her face. He touched her cheek with his hand, then followed the outline of her throat down to the opening of her shirt. Where he paused.
      'Now,' he said softly, holding her gaze with his. 'Now let us find out what we both enjoy.'
      He kissed her again, his mouth moving on hers lightly and sensuously, and began to unfasten her clothing as delicately and unhurriedly as if he were parting the petals of a flower. As he slipped the lacy cups of her bra away from her breasts her hands lifted instinctively, to cover herself, but he stopped her, catching her wrists and holding them prisoner.
      'Don't hide yourself,' he whispered. 'There's nothing to be afraid of. Don't you know how lovely you are?'
      The dark head bent over her and she felt his lips on her skin, his tongue drawing lazy circles around the dark pink areolae before taking each dusky, sensitized bud fully into his mouth.
      Her whole body shuddered at the sensation, half in shock, half in a pleasure that edged on pain, as she entered the unknown labyrinth of her own sexuality.
      His hands moved on her, uncovering her, discovering her until she was naked in his arms. Dazed with kisses, quivering in response to every movement of his caressing hands, Zanna only became aware that he too had stripped when she felt the erotic friction of his hair-roughened skin against her silkier flesh-a new delight that she accepted raptly, running her hands across his shoulders and down the supple spine, making him half-gasp, half-laugh.
      His hands were tracing patterns on her skin, marking out a path for his lips to follow, over the slight concavity of her stomach to the slender pelvic bones and downwards. Heartstoppingly and inevitably downwards. And when, at last, his languorous exploration attained the ultimate intimacy, the long, experienced fingers finding the moist sweetness of her hidden self, she sighed, arching her back luxuriously against his questing hand, her hips moving restlessly in search of a surcease as yet un-guessed at.
      'Soon,' he whispered against her mouth. 'Soon, I promise.'
      His hand moved rhythmically, tantalizing, arousing the tiny satin pinnacle of her desire with swift, deft strokes.
      Zanna's breathing tautened-quickened. Her head twisted wildly on the pillow as her self-control slid away. Her whole being seemed turned inwards, focused solely on the piercing sweetness of the sensations Jake was creating in her, on the silken spiral of tension carrying her further and further to some undreamed-of height-some uncharted realm of pleasure.
      When the moment of release came at last she heard herself cry out as her body trembled into spasm after spasm of aching rapture and then, finally, was still.
      When she could again think coherently she realised there were tears on her face, and she tried to turn away, ashamed of her weakness, aware that this was the second time she'd wept in front of him tonight.
      'Susie.' His voice was very tender. He captured her chin, making her face him, then leaned forward, kissing away the salty drops.
      'I'm sorry,' she said huskily. 'I never cry...'
      'You mustn't reject emotion,' he said quietly. 'Or be ashamed of it either. And that was quite a lot to assimilate-for a first time.'
      He took her in his arms and held her, stroking her hair, the curve of her shoulder, until her breathing steadied.
      'Now tell me,' he said. 'Why did you cry? And I want the truth.'
      She didn't meet his gaze directly. 'Because it was so beautiful,' she answered at last, a