Chapter Fourty Two

His own body throbbed anew as Chloe gave a throaty groan and her head dropped back to break the kiss. As Timothy moved the soft pad of his thumb against the puckered pout of her nipple, her breathing became labored and ragged, and he kissed down the length of her creamy throat to push aside the hand of the singlet so that his tongue and teeth could seek out the hollows at the base of her neck.

She tasted better than anything he had ever experienced before. The feel of her skin against his lips was a beguiling combination of feminine softness and spice. He could feel the heat of Chloe's arousal as she pressed her hips into his, sensed how ready she was for him. So ready that Timothy wanted to lie her down on the floor and take her right here and now. To thrust into her time and time again, until she screamed out his name as she climaxed, wildly, fiercely, as spasm after spasm of pleasure wrapped itself around him and she took him over that edge with her.

Timothy nudged her back towards the couch , feeling the added pressure of her body against his as the couch pressed against the back of her legs. He pushed those legs apart to step in between them, grinding his arousal against her tempting heat in an effort to relieve some of the fierceness of his own need.

He succeeded only in increasing that need until he could only move rhythmically against her, the barrier of their clothing no hindrance to the heat, the satisfaction he found between Chloe's legs as he continued to surge against her. Again and again. Harder. Faster. Until Timothy felt he would lose his mind if he didn't soon possess her for real!

This was insane, Chloe acknowledged achingly, as she felt the thick length of Timothy's shaft pressed against the swollen nub between her legs, creating a fire deep inside her that quickly spread and threatened to flame totally out of control. She couldn't do this… She wouldn't do this! She didn't need anyone to tell her that it wouldn't end well.

"No, Timothy!" she gasped, even as she pushed against the hardness of his chest. "No!" she cried again, entangling her fingers in his dark hair and pulling his head back and away from her when her verbal protest had no effect on those questing, arousing lips.

"No," she said again firmly, and she looked up appealingly into the unfocused darkness of his eyes.

Eyes as wild, dark, and dangerous as those of the lethal predator she had initially thought him to be! The very air between them seemed to crackle with tension, and Chloe could only wait tensely to see if her pleas would have any effect. Because if they didn't then she knew she was seriously in danger, crushed as she was in Timothy's arms, every hard muscle and sinew of his body imprinted upon her own. There was no way, absolutely no way, that she would be able to physically fight off a man as large and fit as Timothy undoubtedly was. And at this moment, breathing in his scent, still weak from the touch of his hands against the bareness of her flesh, she wasn't sure that she really wanted to… She continued to stare up at him for long, timeless seconds, not breathing, not moving, the palms of her hands damp with tension, her legs trembling beneath her.

His jaw clenched even as the fierceness slowly left the dark unfathomable depths of his eyes. He stepped abruptly away from her, the muscles still tense in his back as he turned away from her to smooth the wildness of his hair back from his face and draw deep, controlling breaths into his lungs, allowing Chloe to draw in a couple of much needed breaths herself.

What on earth had happened just now? More to the point, how did it happened?She never allowed men to get close to her in this way... This totally physical way! Not even Matthew. But for some reason she seemed to lose every atom of control when it came to Timothy.

Well, she hadn't exactly allowed Timothy to get close to her this time; he had just taken the opportunity. And she had responded… Responded to that animal magnetism that drew her like a moth to a flame. To the hunger of his lips on hers. To the caress of his hand against the bareness of her skin. To the fierceness of his hard and demanding thighs pressed so intimately against hers… Chloe felt another warm rush of heat between her legs just at remembering the hardness of Timothy's thighs pressed against the throb of her own arousal. An arousal he had found with unerring accuracy as he rubbed himself against her and took her ever higher, ever nearer to a release she had never known.

She had wanted Timothy just now. Desperately. So much so that she wouldn't have been able to stop him if he had chosen to continue kissing and touching her. If he had thrown off their clothes before laying her back on the couch and satisfying their desire for one another.

Dear God…!

Timothy was still breathing raggedly as he turned back to face Chloe. He ran his hands through his hair. "Well, that was—"

"Stupid!" she supplied forcefully, her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightly accusing, her breasts rapidly rising and falling beneath her singlet in her agitation.

His mouth compressed. "That's not what I was going to say. I was going to say… unexpected…" he said.

It was crazy...and a bit surprising too. This woman, who had literally thrown herself at him, was suddenly pushing him away. Surely there was no way she would have responded to his kiss that way if she didn't want him. But the last thing he would do was touch her if she didn't want him to. Except the kiss had aroused Timothy just to be able to pierce through all that prim self-righteousness. To see this obviously controlled woman totally come apart in his arms… Timothy lived his life as he wanted. As he chose. And where he chose. With no involvements, emotional or otherwise. That had worked for him for the past three years, and he had fully intended for it to continue working for him for the foreseeable future....until Chloe had bounced back into his life. Even if Chloe Gilbert had succeeded in getting to him, in breaching his guard, in a way Timothy knew no other woman had done before… His mouth thinned.