Memory's Embrace by Linda Lael Miller Page B

tongue.
    Silver flecks seemed to fill that shoddy little wagon, dazzling Tess—were they a part of that strange storm? Did they come from within her, or from without?
    “Ooooh,” she moaned.
    He took away her dress, her camisole, her drawers. She was conscious of that, and yet it seemed to be happening to another person, not to herself. And then he was naked, too; his clothes had dissolved away, become part of the silvery mist.
    “T-Take me,” she said.
    “Not yet,” was the rasped answer.
    And then she was losing her grasp on him, he was moving down her body, kissing his way over planes of satin, searching for silk. Finding it.
    He sought the hidden rosebud and found that, too, making it blossom.
    Tess gave a great cry of tenderness and fear, he soothed her with his hands, stroking her smooth thighs, her hips, her waist, and ribcage. And while his hands tamed her, his mouth turned her to a wild thing, writhing, making a low, whining sound in her throat.
    He was her lover, he was her tormenter. He held herearthbound, he made her hips fly in a savage bid for heaven. He kissed her, he feasted upon her until a terrible, wonderful quivering began within her, culminating in a tender explosion that left Tess Bishop forever changed.
    Her fingers were limp in his hair, her breathing was ragged, her flesh was moist. He nipped the inside of her thigh gently, then moved up her body again and kissed her.
    He entered her with a motion that was at once swift and tender, and Tess cried out because there was a stinging sort of pain.
    Keith stiffened upon her, his eyes hot with passion and anger and shock. Lest he withdraw, she clutched at him, lifted and lowered her hips as she had when he’d been pleasuring her moments before. Every instinct demanded that she keep him near.
    There was a certain satisfaction in the moan the motion wrung from him; he tilted his head back, closed his eyes. His throat worked. “You—little—witch—”
    Tess smiled sleepily. She had him now, she could control Keith Corbin as surely as he had controlled her seconds before. The pain was gone, replaced by a feeling of lush need, and she continued to feed the sweet torment she saw in his face.
    “Oh—God—” he muttered, his features taut now with the effort to deny what his body was demanding. “Tess—”
    Slowly, smoothly, taught by instinct and guided by her own piercing pleasure, Tess moved beneath him. To her bedazzled delight, his powerful body was now in submission to hers, following her lead. He groaned again and began to move as she moved. And he causedher to need as he needed, something she had not anticipated.
    Their bodies were entwined, straining now in some desperate quest. Tess’s triumph was a brutal thing, shaking her very soul, flinging her high with the raw power of an angry sea, leaving her to weep in wonder as she fell from heights she had never before imagined.
    “Joel!” she cried, as she soared and as she tumbled.
    A moment, no, a fraction of a moment, later, his steely frame tensed with a violent magnificence; he groaned as if in a fever and shuddered upon Tess, spilling sacred warmth inside her. But the name he called was not her own. No, it had sounded like “Emily.”
    It was a sudden wounding, all the more brutal because of the tender, sweeping glory that had gone before. Tess’s eyes filled with tears, blinding her as the silvery storm had blinded her before.
    He lay upon her, gasping, unable to rise, for some moments. But she could feel his anger.
    She wanted to scream that she hated him, but she could not manage so much as a whisper, for her throat had closed tight, keeping in the hurt.
    Presently, Keith gathered the strength to raise himself, to withdraw. His breathing was ragged, his flesh, like Tess’s, was damp from the exertion. As though begrudging her so much as one kind word, he glared at her and then turned away to dress.
    He wrenched on his trousers, his socks, his boots. Tess thought his shirt would