Free Love Me Knots by Dee Tenorio Page B

over and under his fingertips before releasing him. Rather than repeat the stroke, he concentrated on how she often touched him. Fingers flexed open, he slid his palm down her arm, his hand grazing dewy drops of moisture and guiding them carefully along the length of her limb. When he reached the end, the next natural step was to take hold of her hand.
    “This isn’t a good idea,” she burbled suddenly, unsteadily backing up half a step.
    David followed instinctively. She still hadn’t let go of his hand. That had to mean something. He knew it did. He cupped her jaw, lowering his face to slide against the side of hers, putting his mouth close to her ear. “I just want you to hear me.”
    “David…” Her whisper, laced with confusion, tore at him. Why didn’t she understand? He could hear the hurt in her, feel it in the tremble of her lips against his jaw. He clenched his eyes shut, wanting to wrap his arms around her just as tight.
    She shook her head. “This isn’t helping anything.”
    “Yes it is.” He let his hand duck under the open edge of the robe to grasp her still-slick hip. He continued to stroke her cheekbone with his thumb, drawing small circles along the curve. Her breath shuddered across his throat. “I’m trying to tell you. I know you can hear it, the same way I hear it from you. Hear me, Krista.”
    It took a moment—a long, trembling moment—before she leaned into him, her body softening. Warm, welcoming. Perfect.
    He let his stroking hand course up her back, feather light, dipping over each contour of her ribs. Following the outer swell of her breast to where it joined the muscle that led to her shoulder. It was a deep groove, a purely feminine line he would give anything to put his mouth to and worship. He traced it back down, his touch circling the deep mauve point of her nipple. It was already taut, but he rubbed it gently anyway, before covering it with his palm. Her heartbeat fluttered wildly under his hand. He bowed his head to press a kiss there, over her breastbone. Chaste. Not to seduce, though he knew that’s where this would likely end. But not before she knew, without a doubt, that he wasn’t trying to silence her. He wasn’t trying to force her to stay. He just wanted her to know how much she meant to him.
    He would kiss every inch of her body, soothe her with touch, give her an infinite amount of time and every drop of his effort. She needed to feel what he couldn’t seem to say in a way she’d accept. She wanted smooth and flowery words. Not struggles. Not tangled thoughts that defied explanation. He might never be able to give that to her, but there was no mistaking his meaning this way. If he’d wanted just sex, he could take it and she’d enjoy it, but it wouldn’t be this . This was loving her, promising her everything he was. Only her. Only ever her.
    “Please, David, don’t do this to me,” she murmured and he froze.
    “Do what?” he asked carefully, breathing in the soft floral scent of her skin. As he said the words, his lips grazed the highest curve of her breast. His mouth watered, wanting a taste.
    Her voice was thick, an almost strangled whisper. “You’re trying to make me feel and it’s not fair.”
    What wasn’t fair about it? He felt. Or didn’t that matter? “Nothing about this situation is fair,” he decided, thinking of how much she needed that he hadn’t seen, hadn’t realized she wanted. It wasn’t fair at all that he’d been so unprepared to give any of it to her. But he could learn. He was learning right now. “We can fix that.”
    “With sex?” Her ire was starting to get past the desirous glaze to her eyes.
    “No.”
    The ire disappeared, eclipsed by a flinch of true pain. She closed her eyes, slowly, her body somehow heavier with the weight of her disappointment. Damn it. Before he could fix the bluntness of his tone, she started pushing at him, her cheeks red now for all the wrong reasons. Her gaze stayed on the floor at