Free The Golden Valkyrie by Iris Johansen Page A

“You may not be little, but you’re definitely cuddly,” he muttered. His hands left her face to slip beneath her black velvet wrap and cup the fullness of her breasts. “You’re so soft and round and cushiony.”
    Her chuckle was a trifle breathless. “You make me sound like Grandma’s feather bed,” she said faintly, and then gasped as his thumbs lightly grazed her sensitive nipples through the soft velvet.
    “I’d like to use you as a bed,” he murmured hoarsely. He lowered his head to rest it on her breast, while his thumbs rhythmically caressed her nipples. “I’d like to have these lovely mounds cradle me like fleecy pillows, and bury myself in the softness of your body.” She could feel the warmth of his mouth through the velvet as he rubbed his face back and forth across her swelling fullness with a sensual, almost catlike contentment. “Dear heaven, I want that.”
    No more than she did, Honey thought feverishly. The muscles of her throat and chest were so taut that it almost hurt to breathe, and every touch of Lance’s hands or lips seemed to leave a trail of molten fire in its wake. The words that he was whispering were as evocatively passionate as his gentle, stroking hands.
    Then his hands were sliding around the back of her dress and deftly undoing the zipper. At first she was so lost in the hot sensual haze that it seemed perfectly natural to feel the warm eager fingers on the naked flesh of her back. Then, as her black velvet wrap was pushed impatiently away from her shoulders, she abruptly came to her senses. What were they doing?
    “No,” she whispered, putting her hands on her chest. “We can’t, Lance. Let me go.”
    He looked up, his face as flushed and dazed as her own. “Let you go?” he asked, as if the idea were totally incomprehensible. “You know I can’t do that.” His lips covered her own in a kiss as bruisingly fierce as the others had been gentle, parting her lips to invade the moist sweetness with his tongue and explore it with an erotic skill that almost made her forget why she was protesting. “You see?” he gasped, coming up for air, his heart beating like a trip-hammer against her breast. “How the hell can we stop?”
    “The driver,” she said faintly, nodding to the silent, discreet figure in the front seat of the cab. She was so aroused that for a moment she was tempted to ignore their audience and melt once more into Lance’s arms and forget everything.
    Lance muttered a shocking obscenity, and his arms tightened possessively around her for a brief instant. Then he drew a deep, shuddering breath, and his embrace loosened fractionally. “Okay,” he growled raggedly. “Just give me a minute.”
    It was a bit longer than that before he slowly released her and drew away a scant few inches. “Sorry,” he said gruffly, while his shaking hands reluctantly zipped up the back of her dress. “I guess you noticed that you have a fairly explosive effect on me. I don’t usually attempt seduction in the back seat of a taxi cab.” He shook his head disbelievingly. “If you hadn’t stopped me, I think I would have taken you without a second thought.” He tucked her wrap securely around her shoulders once more, and pulled her into the sheltering curve of his arm. “Now, be still, and I just may withstand temptation until we get back to the hotel.”
    She was obediently still, her head tucked contentedly into the hollow of his shoulder while he stared impatiently out the window at the slow-moving traffic. “My God, it’s just like rush hour even at this time of the night,” he said disgustedly. “It will take us forever to get anywhere.”
    “Houston has a growth problem,” Honey said dreamily, thinking how beautifully sculptured were the bones of his cheek and jaw.
    He glanced down at her languid clouded eyes and bruised swollen mouth, and for a moment there was a flicker of amusement warring with the desire in his eyes. “At the moment I can sympathize,