Free Kelly's Man by Rosemary Carter Page A

kiss deepening so that it tasted and probed and explored, treacherous flames of delight seared her body, and the effort to oppose him became even more an effort to oppose herself.
    Nicholas raised his head once. 'Stop fighting me.'
    'Never!' The word wrenched out on a sob.
    'You want this as much as I do,' he said roughly. 'Stop kidding yourself, Kelly.'
    She tried to answer, but his lips were on hers again, and the lean-fingered hands were sliding over her back to her hips, her thighs. And then he was lifting her in his arms, and as easily as if she was a doll he carried her into the bedroom.
    She could not speak as he put her down on the bed. She could only stare at him with the tears welling in her eyes. She tried to sit up, but he held her down easily with one hand, while with the other he took off his shirt. Just as easily he slipped the dress from her body. He seemed to take her protests as nothing more than token resistance as he turned her sideways and slid down a zipper with an expertise which spoke of much practice.
    Not a word passed between them as he undressed both her and himself. Kelly shuddered as he lowered himself on to the bed and she felt the weight of his body on hers. Dimly she knew that she must get away from him, that she must find a way to save herself before it was too late. But it was becoming increasingly hard to think as waves of sensation cascaded through her. Even while the last vestiges of rational thought rebelled against Nicholas's behaviour, her femininity responded with elation to the maleness which seemed to envelop her, to the strong beat of the heart against her breasts, to the roughness of his cheeks and the tautness of the long thighs against her own soft ones.
    Nothing she had ever experienced had prepared her for the ecstasy which filled her senses and dulled her brain. A hand left her back and went to a breast, cupping its fullness, then the lips which had ravaged her face descended to her throat, and finally to the other breast. Quite involuntarily her arms went around his back, and her fingers knotted in his hair. She heard his swift intake of breath, and then he was lifting himself from her. She saw him unbuckle the belt of his trousers.
    It was at that moment that sanity returned.
    'Nicholas...' a sobbing gasp, 'I really am a virgin.'
    His hand was still on his belt as he looked down at her. His breathing was ragged, but the eyes that studied hers were bleak and hard. If she was devastated by what had happened between them, there was nothing in his own expression to indicate that he felt anything at all.
    'Nicholas...'
    'I believe you.' His voice was harsh. 'Perhaps I'm a fool, but I believe you.'
    'Then you won't... won't...' She could not finish the sentence.
    'Rape you?' A short laugh. 'I get my fun whenever I want it, Kelly. Raping virgins doesn't happen to be my scene.'
    He stood up. She was still lying on the bed. Her hands were on her breasts now, covering them from his sight, irrationally oblivious of the fact that he had touched them, that his lips had tasted them, oblivious of everything except an unaccountable feeling of bereftness and disappointment. Insanity it might be, but more than anything else she wanted to feel his arms around her again.
    'Goodnight, Kelly.'
    'Will you go back to the hotel?' she managed to ask.
    'There isn't a room—you know that. But it just so happens that I prefer to bed down on the couch in the living-room.'
    She should have been relieved, but perversely she was not. For there was insult in his words, and his meaning could not have been clearer. He had found her wanting. She had not come up to the standards of the women he knew. Serena de Jager ... In his eyes Kelly was not a woman.
    'Sleep well, Kelly,' he said as he turned to the door.
    Sleep well? She wondered if she would sleep at all. Long after Nicholas had closed the door, she lay quite still, just as he had left her. She heard him moving about the living-room. He was whistling