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Her head ached—an aftermath of the brandy she had drunk, she reflected, then she suddenly remembered her ankle and moved her foot experimentally to see if it still hurt

There was pain, but it wasinstinctively as it brushed against Slade’s calf, and the realisation came to her that beneath the protective bedclothes they were both naked

A longing to be close to Slade overwhel her hat her brain told her was a crazily iive in to, and whether it was because enough of last night’s brandy still lingered in her veins to override habitual caution and wariness or not, Chelsea didn’t know, but it see closer to Slade’s un off of years of self-repression

Once that barrier was breached it see in the world for her to reach out experiertips acutely sensitised to the rough texture of overnight beard, thrilling to the knowledge that there was so

With new honesty she admitted that she wanted Slade’s possession of her body, even if it ithout love Pain filled her Part of her mind told her that she should have ued fiercely that surely she had the right to this; to give herself freely to the only man she was ever likely to love?

Her fingers stilled and she raised herself slightly to look down into his face, studying it avidly In repose there was a slight curl to hisat a sense of humour Thick black lashes protected her from the sharp intensity of his eyes He moved suddenly and the sheet slipped down between theainst his tanned flesh, Chelsea noted, and lifted her fingers to touch the smooth column of this throat He was oblivious to her tentative caress and it gave her the courage to bend her head and lightly touch her lips to his skin It arm and faintly salty and felt so pleasurable beneath the hesitant exploration of her er slid froe of discovery, Chelsea was oblivious to everything but the scent and taste of Slade’s body, the hunger she had da over to close herbut the feel of his skin beneath her hands and lips

Her tongue was tracing a delicate path along the brown shoulder closest to her when she suddenly becae was so subtle that it was several seconds before she realised what had happened so to her the fact that the ser inani a sensual responsiveness which set alarh for her to raise her head and encounter Slade’s sluaze

His hand reached out to capture the length of her hair and hold her against him, his voice husky and war to do? Take advantage of a poor helpless male?’

Heat scorched her skin, the shock of finding hi all her own instinctive fears, but it was too late to move away With one lazyher in his arht of his body At the first touch of his skin against hers, Chelsea’s resistance melted This hat she wanted; what she craved for; what she had been born for Feverish treh her, punctuated by delicate shudders of pleasure as Slade bent his head and traced a sensuous pathway over her shoulders and throat, pausing a ly over her shoulders and Chelsea felt as though she were drowning in the pleasure of his touch Her hands reached upwards, entwining in the dark thickness of his hair, i him to close the tiny distance between them, but Slade resisted her, his palms flat on the bed either side of her head as he studied her minutely

Chelsea no longer cared what he read in her face or in the hurried rise and fall of her breathing

‘Slade!’

His name was a plea and both of them knew it His hands left the bed to fra every feature, and then as though satisfied hat he saw he bent his head, lightly brushing her lips with his

Her blood turned to liquid fire, Chelsea strained upwards, hungry forinstinctively that Slade was deliberately holding hi for her total self-abasenored it

‘Slade?’

This time her husky plea was answered, with the hot pressure of hisher in velvet black darkness, awakening her to sensations she had never drea from her a felinely sensuous response she had never known she possessed, glorying in the knowledge that Slade was no longer ent as he thrust aside the sheet and bent his head to place the burning heat of his ainst the exposed curves of her breasts

Her heart was beating so heavily she half expected it to burst the wall of her ribs A hectic flush stained Slade’s skin, his eyes so dark that they were almost black, his arousal obvious, and yet it see her pleasure rather than satisfying his desire, and she knew instinctively that whatever else she ret her body would always remember these moments with intense pleasure

Slade was a skilled lover; Chelsea closed herecstatically as his handsthe shape of her spine and the narrow curve of her waist before stroking softly over her hips and the slender curve of her thighs, his touch turning her boneless with pleasure, as supple and sensual as a s in his exploration of her body and the knowledge that touching her aroused him

His tongue traced circles around her nipples, witnessing their response and encouraging it in apassionate kisses against his skin, recklessly uncaring of what she was betraying