Inherited by Her Enemy by Sara Craven Page A

tights and the briefs she wore beneath them, uncovering her completely to the breathtaking urgency of his hands caressing her flat abdomen, exploring the hollows of her pelvis and moving downwards to hover tantalisingly at the soft brown triangle at the joining of her thighs.
    She gasped, arching towards him, as she yielded herself to this new intimacy, trembling as he began to trace a slow lingering path over the slick, wet heat of her womanhood, each sensuous movement of his fingers making her quiver with sensation, revealing within her an undreamed of capacity for arousal.
    She touched him too, smoothing her fingers in wonderment across his skin, learning the unfamiliar male shape from the broad muscular shoulders down to the narrow hips and firm, flat buttocks. And he captured her hand and kissed it and brought it to his body, clasping it round his jutting hardness, letting her feel the size and strength of him stir and lift under her first tentative caresses.
    At the same time his fingers were still exploring her—slowly—exquisitely. Finding her most sensitive place, and hovering there, teasing the tiny bud into swollen, aching excitement.
    She gave a tiny breathless moan, looking up into his face, her eyes widening under her long lashes, as she saw his own gaze deepen in purpose and intensity. As she felt him move over her, his hands sliding under her slender flanks and lifting her to him.
    His voice was a harsh whisper. ‘Take me,
ma douce, ma belle.
’
    And she obeyed, wordlessly, guiding him to her.
    Into her willing warmth...
    She had not expected there to be pain, yet there was and she found herself sinking her teeth into her lower lip, in order to stifle her instinctive cry of protest. Aware just the same, that her need—her longing to know and be known—was all that truly mattered.
    She gripped his shoulders, rearing up and thrusting herself against him, wrapping her slim legs round his hips, and felt her untried flesh yield in welcome as he filled her totally.
    Locked with her, his mouth again joined to hers, Andre began to move, slowly at first then faster, the strong, rhythmic strokes of his body robbing her of what little self-control was left to her, and carrying her to some new level in a long dark spiral of mounting pleasure.
    Oh, God, she thought, a sob rising in her throat. What was she letting him do to her—this man—half angel, half devil? As if he had always known how it would be between them? And as if she had ever had a choice?
    And then coherent thought fled, and nothing was left but a fierce crescendo of wild, irresistible sensation, which, as she reached its peak, tossed her into one rippling, rapturous convulsion after another, making her cry out helplessly against his mouth.
    And heard him answer her hoarsely as his own body juddered to its climax.
    Afterwards, as he held her, both of them drained and spent, there was silence and a sense of great peace. She knew that there were things that must be said, but there was time for that, she thought, head cradled on his chest and her eyelids drooping wearily. All the time in the world.
    And let that world quietly slip away.
    * * *
    She awoke slowly to darkness and for a moment lay still, completely disorientated. Her first realisation was that she ached deep inside her. Her second—that a heavy weight lay across her breasts, pinning her to the bed.
    She turned her head gently, almost fearfully, and saw Andre Duchard’s dark head on the pillow beside her. Discovered that it was his arm, thrown over her body in a kind of careless possession, that was imprisoning her.
    And with that, every searing memory of the past few hours returned, screaming at her, jolting her back to the terrible—the shameful reality of what she had done.
    And the absolute necessity of distancing herself from him. In every possible way. Permanently. And immediately...
    Moving with the utmost caution, she was able to shift his arm sufficiently to enable her to slide