And he did. And Ellen met him with just as much ferocity. Mouths open, tongues tangling, they set a torch to the sparks that had flown around them, and Ellen couldn’t get enough. She turned his head so she could kiss him more deeply; but Kane pulled her hair back so he could lift her chin and kiss his way down her neck. She heard herself making sounds that were almost like sobbing, because she couldn’t do without his mouth on hers for a second, unless it was when he was running his tongue over her collarbone.
For the first time in her life there was no thought process. She was acting on pure instinct, and her instinct was to get Kane as close to her as humanly possible, as quickly as possible.
With his lips on her neck she had to content herself with pulling his shirt out of his jeans and getting her hands on the burning hot skin of his stomach and back. Still making his way past her collarbone, he shrugged out of the coat he had never taken off, and Ellen let her hands move higher, into the thick pelt of hair on his chest. She found a nipple and flicked at it, and he groaned and spanned her waist with his hands. When his fingers went under the waistband of her pants at the base of her spine, she shivered and pressed closer, unconsciously asking him to move lower. But he moved back around to the front, feeling the curve of her stomach, his fingers reaching under her pajama top to just below her breasts.
Kane broke away long enough to murmur, “Thank God, no bra.” Ellen grabbed his head again and pulled it down to where the buttons began on her top, then she made a noise of complaint and let go of him long enough to direct his hand up her ribcage. Kane obeyed while he took her mouth again in a broiling kiss. Ellen arched into his hand, that now cupped her small breast completely, while his thumb ran over the nipple. She was making little gasping noises into his mouth, and somehow her leg had found its way up beside his hip on the table, so she was almost sitting on him. The proximity nearly blew the top of her head off.
She wanted his hands on every part of her, and when he moved, she wanted him back where he’d been. He had both nipples now, and she yelped and pulled his shirt all the way up so she could find his. When she lowered her head because she absolutely had to touch that nipple with her tongue, he lost contact, and she had to slip down his leg a little, but she couldn’t help it. If she didn’t kiss his skin, she was going to weep. She felt the moan in his chest before he let it out and smiled up at him. His hands couldn’t reach her anymore, just her shoulders and her back through her top, and she rejoiced at the frustration on his face.
Suddenly he got his hands under her arms and lifted her up and back onto his lap, moving so he could cup her buttocks and hold her against him. Ellen arched again, amazed at the hot pulsing that was building deep inside her, that made her grind down on him as hard as she could. Kane’s neck was slick with sweat now, and she could feel the same heat on her skin. She brought her knees up, so he was holding her completely, and kissed him again, scratching the back of his neck with her nails.
Kane gasped and suddenly broke off the kiss. “No.” He kept holding her to him, his head lowering to her shoulder. He was shaking; they both were. The rest of his body wasn’t saying no. “No,” he said into her neck, and very slowly relaxed his hold, so she slid off him.
Putting her feet back on the floor was heartbreaking. Her whole body was humming; her face tingled from his stubble. “What do you mean, no?” she whispered. Had she been doing it wrong? The whole thing had been a blur; an animal response she’d never had before. Was that not right? A wave of cold swept over her.
His head was still down. He moved his hands to her shoulders and held her away from him. “I’m sick,” he said. “My throat is sore, and my chest hurts, and when I make love to you, I am not going to do it when I’m too tired to see straight.”
“You didn’t feel tired,” she said diffidently.
His mouth quirked up in that half-smile, finally. “I’d have to be dead not to react to you.” He smiled wider. “Oh gods, look at you. You’re so beautiful, you’re passionate beyond anything, and you’re standing there like you did something wrong.”
The flush came back to her face. Now he laughed properly and leaned forward to kiss her again, this time gently and slowly.
“Okay,” she said against his lips, “but you’re going to have to stop doing that.”
He kissed her for a bit longer anyway, and Ellen helplessly let him. When he stopped, and she looked at him, he said, “God, Ellen, don’t look at me like that. I’m going home.”
“Do you at least want something to eat?”
“YES!” he shouted, and laughingly got his arms back around her. “But like I said, not until I’m better.” Now her cheeks were so hot she put her hands to them, making him laugh even more.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow about eleven, okay?” he said, grabbing his coat.
Oh, right, Thanksgiving. “I don’t know, Kane. Do you still think your sisters will want to meet me?”
He ran his thumb over the redness on her chin from his stubble. “Come on, Ellen. You came to a whole new country full of uncivilized Yanks; surely a few Fielding women won’t scare you?”
Yes, they would, actually, but she would follow him anywhere. “What about you getting sick?”
“It’s Thanksgiving,” he said simply. “You don’t miss Thanksgiving. So, eleven o’clock, okay?” He crushed her to him one last time.
She went to bed but tossed and turned before succumbing and doing something for herself she hadn’t done since the last time she’d watched Russell Crowe get chained up in Gladiator.
