Free Lord of Lightning by Suzanne Forster Page B

said as she reached to dip her fingers into the water. He tilted her chin up with his hand, wet his fingers, and scrubbed gently at the patches of white. Lise was surprised at how easily she gave in to his wishes, and how often. It seemed every time they were together, he was dressing or undressing her, cleaning her up like a child. It was a strange predicament for a woman who’d always considered herself independent. Correction, she thought, who had fought so hard for her independence.
    “Do you like doing this?” she asked. “Baby-sitting grown women? Taking care of them?”
    He smiled. “Women? Plural? I like baby-sitting you.” He was scraping softly near her upper lip. “I think I’d like doing anything to you.”
    A direct hit, Lise thought. The man had good aim. He got her right where she lived. Every time. She closed her eyes as he brushed his thumb over her lips. Several soft strokes. He’s not cleaning paste anymore, she realized. He’s touching me . Caressing ... me.
    I ought to stop him, she thought . But I don’t think I can. I like it too much. I like what he does to me.
    Lise wasn’t the only one who didn’t know if she could stop.
    Stephen could feel the quiver of her mouth beneath his fingers, and it paralyzed him for a moment. She fascinated him with her softness and her seeming willingness. He could feel the turmoil in her when he touched her. He could feel her need to resist, and then something happened ... a softening in her body and in her breathing. It tore him up, that sighing moment of abandon when she gave up the fight, when all the resistance went out of her, and her lips parted.
    There was something he had to tell her, something important, but he couldn’t resist the way she responded to him. As his thumb pad brushed the silk of her inner lip, its delicacy brought other, more erotic images to mind ...
    His stomach tightened, hollow again, alive with sensation. He drew his hand away, and her eyes flew open. Her sharp intake of air was like a fist to his ribs. She looked dazed and softened, still totally vulnerable.
    Say what you have to, he told himself.
    “Lise—” He cleared the huskiness from his throat. “You did the right thing at the museum. Telling everyone there were no lights. I don’t want anyone endangered until I know exactly what’s causing the aurora, do you understand? I don’t want anyone out at the quarry.”
    There were questions rising in her eyes, a quick flash of uncertainty. She had doubts and fears, he realized, but she was suppressing them. She wanted to be talked out of them. Her shoulders lifted slightly, then dropped with the breath she exhaled. “Sure,” she said after a moment, “I understand.”
    Lord, he thought, she could stop a Mack Truck with those eyes. Fascinated, he watched her lips part again. Her tongue darted nervously along the inside edge, reminding him how warm she was there, how delicate. He imagined how her lips would feel, all that shiny softness against his mouth. And suddenly he knew he had to do more than imagine.
    There was a pulse in her throat as he rested his hand there, and he could feel the same faint pulse beat in her lips when he bent to take them, gently.
    The sound that breathed out of her made him want to be tender with her. His hands trembled slightly, responding to an impulse stronger than anything he’d felt in years. He had a deep, raging need to be tender. But there was also another urge kindling inside him, the hellfire of sexual desire—and the colliding impulses sent a current of energy straight to his groin. As the deep aching began he knew he would be ready for sex within moments, as ready as he’d been in the cabin. But this ... was just as impossible a predicament. He was mentally prepared to deal with the impulse this time, but the setting was wrong. They were out-of-doors. They were in a park, he reminded himself. Even if she was willing, it was broad daylight.
    He broke the kiss and threw back his