Free Magnolia by Diana Palmer Page B

looking intently at her, watching her reactions as his lean hands teased her body.
    His thumbs slipped higher with each movement. “Is this better?” he asked, and his voice was suddenly deeper, huskier.
    She realized she was shaking. Her hands were clutching at his hard arms through his suit coat, and she couldn’t even manage speech. The feel of him so close, the touch of his hands, made her knees weak. She loved him so much that even the lightest caress was heaven. She hadn’t the will to pull away, despite the shame her easy capitulation caused. She wanted his touch too much to protest.
    His lips brushed her forehead. He could sense herstruggle. “I’m your husband. It’s all right to give in to me, Claire,” he murmured deeply. “God knows, I’ve given you little enough since we married. It’s no hardship to pleasure you. I won’t do anything to frighten or hurt you. Relax, now.”
    Her hands trembled where they clung to his arms. She wanted to deny that he was pleasing her, to tell him to let her go, but she couldn’t. She had no pride. She moaned in anguish, drowning in the need to be touched by him, held by him, wanted by him.
    He understood. He was as helpless in his passion for Diane as Claire was in her need of him. In that one way, they were very much alike. It hurt him in an odd, new way, to see her suffer for his touch. He felt her need and ached to fill it.
    His lips hovered at her eyelids, closing them tenderly. His hands moved to the tips of her breasts and found the nipples hard and warm.
    She jerked back, but he drew a breath and shook his head, stilling her instinctive withdrawal. She met his eyes for an instant and found deep fires burning there.
    In the silence of the room, the ticking of the clock on the mantel was unusually loud. Outside, the steady clip-clop of a horse and the grinding wheels of a carriage behind it could be heard. Above all that, Claire’s heart made a rocky rhythm that was audible to the man holding her.
    Her response, her reaction, made him dizzy. Diane was so experienced that his touch only made her purr like a kitten. Claire was altogether different. He didn’t have toask to know that she’d never permitted any other man to touch her like this. She’d probably never been kissed, either. The knowledge shook him.
    He watched what he could see of her downcast face while he teased her hard nipples, feeling her body tremble with each new caress. She liked what he was doing, but she was too shy to admit it, or let him see it.
    His hands slid up to the buttons at the high collar of her dress and, one by one, began to unfasten them. She stood before him, perfectly still and silent, so caught up in the excitement of her first caresses that, he knew, she was incapable of movement or speech.
    When he had the bodice unfastened to her waist, his warm, strong hands slid inside the neckline and spread the fabric before they eased down over the soft muslin of her chemise. He heard her breathing stop and then start again, jerkily, felt her hands contract even more on his arms. Smiling indulgently, he moved his hands slowly under the muslin and down, down until he had her soft, pretty little breasts warm and throbbing in his palms. He heard her gasp and felt his own body go rigid, and he laughed with surprise at how easily little Claire had aroused him.
    â€œOh, you…mustn’t!” she whispered frantically, pulling at his wrists.
    â€œClaire, you’re my wife,” he whispered, ignoring her protests. His hands became even more warm and caressing and his lips brushed against her forehead, her temples, her nose. “This is part of marriage,” he continued softly, as his mouth moved down to poise, teasingly, just above her lips.“This is how a man expresses tenderness.” His mouth eased down right over her own, lightly brushing until he made her lips part. “Yes, that’s it, sweetheart.