My Man Pendleton(52)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

When she did, he went limp atop her, uttering a soft sound of surrender. He crowded his body into hers, tangled his fingers in her hair, curved his hand into her hip. She gasped at the quickness and intensity of his possession, and he took advantage of the opportunity to taste her more deeply still. He mated his tongue with hers before sucking it into his mouth, then he slanted his head for a more thorough invasion. The hand at her hip tugged her shirt free from her jeans, and his fingers danced along the bare skin beneath. Unable to stop herself, Kit drove her own hands under his sweater, gasping at the heat and strength she encountered there.

The warm flesh of his back came alive under her touch, the muscles bunching and writhing beneath her fingertips. She opened her hands wider, to propel him closer, heedless of the fact that they were already as close as two people could be. In response, he groaned and broke away from her lips, then dragged his open mouth along her jaw and neck, tasting the hollow at the base of her throat before skimming his lips over her collarbone.

Kit scooted one hand higher as the other scooted lower, and she cupped his taut bu**ocks through the faded fabric of his jeans. A shudder of heat rocked her, pooling in her belly and between her legs, staggering her heart rate, blinding her to anything but the feel of Pendleton as he touched her everywhere.

His hand skipped briefly over her breast, then, restless, he smoothed his palm down over her ribs, lingering at her waist, her hip, her thigh, where he finally curled his fingers over the denim covering her legs. Instinctively, she hooked her calf over his, fearful he would be coming to his senses any time now, and would try to pull away.

But he didn’t pull away.

Instead he rolled onto his back, tugging Kit along for the ride until she was sprawled over him. With their positions reversed, she tunneled the fingers of one hand through the silk of his hair, and curled the others around his nape. Pendleton raked his rough jaw along the sensitive skin of her throat before fastening his mouth to hers once again. She felt his hands running down the length of her backside, from her shoulders to her back to her bottom to her thighs, before they retraced the journey in a more leisurely fashion. Then he roped his arms around her waist and held her fast against him, so that he could wreak havoc on her mouth some more.

More. That was all Kit wanted after that. More of his mouth, more of his hands, more of his touch, more of the man. Somehow, suddenly, she simply could not get enough of him. There was an emptiness inside her she’d never noticed before—or perhaps she had noticed and simply refused to acknowledge. And now it was as if the only thing that would fill it, the only thing that would satisfy it, the only thing that would make it whole again, was Pendleton. So, with touch instead of words, she demanded more. And more was what he gave her. All the while, a fire blazed hot and wild inside her, like nothing she’d ever felt before.

Where had this come from? she wondered vaguely. This fever, this longing, this unquenchable need? No experience in her life had prepared her for what Pendleton made her feel. Whatever paltry emotion she thought she felt for Michael was little more than a shadow of what she felt now. Michael had been nothing. And Pendleton…

Pendleton was everything.

The sudden realization of that shocked Kit to her very core, rousing what little coherent thought she had left. Her response to Pendleton came from every cell, every feeling, every thought that was a part of her. The totality of her response terrified her. Terrified her enough to make her pull away from him. Immediately. Completely.

When she jerked her mouth from his, it was to find that she was clinging to him as desperately as he was holding her, and for one panicked second, she honestly didn’t think she would be able to let him go. But somewhere, she found the power, the resolution, the strength to release him. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem as willing to release her. When she tried to push herself away from him, he only tightened his hold on her, evidently as determined to keep her close as she was to escape.

“Don’t,” he said softly, his voice a bare rasp of sound in the otherwise silent room. “Don’t go. Please, Kit.”

She swallowed hard, knowing better than to try to put voice to the muddled jumble of her thoughts. So she only shook her head slowly, silently, adamantly. With one final burst of intention, she tried again to break free.

And this time, damn him, Pendleton let her go.

Chapter 13

Faith Ivory was stuffing the last of her Temperance League homework into her briefcase and anticipating a nice long weekend snowed in at her apartment when she heard a man’s voice in the outer office. Not just any man’s voice. Holt McClellan’s voice. Wonderful. Just what she needed. She’d been so close to making a clean break of it.

Her gaze skittered to the window, through which she briefly considered hurling herself, but she changed her mind when she realized what a mess that would make on all the pretty snow that had fallen since mid-afternoon. These unexpected spring snowstorms were so inconvenient. She sighed heavily, snapped her briefcase shut, and sat down to wait for Holt’s knock on her door.

She didn’t have to wait long.

“Yes?” she called out halfheartedly in response to the three quick raps, almost identical to the ones that had jolted her out of her peaceful existence at her apartment.

With the creak of a hinge, he filled her doorway. And as had happened on every other occasion when she found herself in the same room with him, her heart rate tripled. They didn’t part well that night at Cherrywood almost a month ago. After the appearance of his sister and her…her…

Well, Faith was still at a loss as to who exactly his sister’s companion was that night. Nor did she ever quite figure out just what that whole Me-Tarzan-You-Jane tableau was about. All that was important was that she exit as gracefully—and as quickly—as possible, to avoid further embarrassing both the McClellan family and herself. So she fled. In a taxi. After making it clear to Holt that she had no desire to see him again. Ever.

At least, she thought she made herself clear. But now, here he stood, looking more handsome and overwhelming than ever, and all she could do was feel strangely glad to see him.

“Faith,” he greeted her.

“Holt,” she replied, congratulating herself for maintaining such a steady tone of voice. “What are you doing out in this, weather? According to WFPK, we’re supposed to have eight inches of snow by dark.”

He chuckled morosely. “Yeah, and then it’ll probably hit seventy degrees tomorrow and make a mess of things. These spring snowstorms can be so obnoxious.”