Best of Virgins Bundle

by Cathy Williams

  His brow shot up, devastatingly ironic, but his voice was straight disdain. ‘What do you want? A promise of permanence?’

  ‘What would you know about permanence?’ she asked in a low, scornful tone. ‘Juliette wasn’t enough for you, and even with Lauren Porter to cater to your every whim you’re unable to keep faithful to her.’

  White around the mouth, he surveyed her with hooded, molten eyes. ‘Did Juliette tell you that?’

  ‘Who else would?’

  ‘She was wrong.’ When she lifted her brows in disbelief he said with freezing distaste, ‘Lauren and I are good and close friends, but there is nothing romantic or sexual between us.’

  A wild tumult of emotions rocketed through her—a reckless desire to believe him, mixed with disgust and angry resentment. ‘So why did Juliette think there was?’

  ‘Like me, she grew up in a household where the husband couldn’t keep his hands off other women.’ He watched her with an unyielding expression. ‘Unlike my mother, hers accepted her father’s mistresses as a fact of life. Juliette grew up with a pragmatic outlook; she didn’t believe in friendship between men and women. For her, there had to be a sexual component to any relationship.’

  Horrified by the strength of her need to believe him, Paige remained obstinately silent.

  He said harshly, ‘I had no idea she saw Lauren as a threat until just before she was killed. I told her what I’m telling you—when I make vows I keep them. I was faithful to her.’

  Paige couldn’t formulate any answer. The hunger to believe him ate into her will power, but she didn’t dare give in to it. Appalled, she realised that she was wringing her hands, and with an effort forced them apart to hang limply by her sides.

  ‘Look at me,’ he commanded.

  Her hair swirled round her face as she shook her head.

  ‘Paige, I don’t believe this. You’re such a valiant fighter I’d never have taken you for a coward.’

  The note of amused gentleness in his voice shredded her determination. She glanced up and was lost, her gaze ensnared by the piercing brilliance of his.

  He said roughly, ‘I want you so much—so much—but not if you don’t believe me. If there is nothing else between lovers, there must be truth.’

  No man could speak with such blazing honesty and lie.

  A shudder of need tightened her skin; she felt the small hard points of her breasts peak beneath the soft material of the bath sheet.

  ‘Paige,’ he said between his teeth, his voice so guttural she had difficulty discerning the words, ‘turn around while I leave this room. Then lock your door after me.’

  She’d intended to ask him whether Juliette had married him for practical reasons; she’d wanted to watch his face when he answered. But the idea fled as she met his eyes, points of sapphire flame in the golden skin of his sculpted face.

  Longing and frustration combined like fire and petrol, urged on by an intensity of relief that Juliette had known the truth before she’d been so tragically taken; she said unevenly, ‘Thank you for—I needed to know that. And I’m so glad Juliette didn’t die believing that you had—that you were—’

  He reached out to catch a tear slipping from the corner of her eye. In a hard voice he said, ‘So am I. I don’t deserve your tears, Paige, and she wouldn’t have wanted you to cry for her.’

  And as if he couldn’t help it he lifted his hand and licked the tear from his finger. ‘I have to go,’ he said harshly. When she shook her head, he waited for a heart-stopping moment, then asked on a rough note, ‘Are you certain, mon coeur?’

  My heart—probably an everyday endearment in France, but she’d cherish the way he’d said it for the rest of her life.

  ‘Yes.’ She had never been more sure of anything in her life.

  Her clamouring senses demanded satisfaction, but it was an upwelling of love that drove her to hold his hand against her cheek. Nothing, she realised with a swift, intense relief, had ever been more right than this. The last virginal tremors dissipated like dew under a benign sun as passion rioted through her, dazzling her with its stupendous intensity.

  He turned and closed the door on Fancy. Then he pulled Paige gently against him and his mouth came down on her forehead.

  ‘Are your arms and shoulders very painful?’ he murmured.

  Dimly she understood that he was giving her another chance to pull back. In some distant recess of her brain common sense drummed out warning and instructions, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything but the clean, salty scent that was his alone. Essence of Marc, she thought desperately, fighting off the impulse to push her nose into his chest and inhale.

  And his heat, curling around her like smoke, driving away the warnings until they turned into vapour and disappeared. Slowly, captured by the dilating intensity of his eyes, she slid her hand up to rest on his chest and luxuriated in his closeness.

  Huskily, her mind finally surrendering to the barrage of sensory input, she said, ‘My shoulders and arms are fine, but I think I can feel a chill coming on.’

  His heart kicked against her palm. The heavy catch in its steady rhythm filled her with astonished triumph.

  ‘We can’t have that,’ he said thickly, picking her up again and walking across the room.

  Beside the bed she expected him to put her down, but instead he stopped and looked down into her face, his eyes almost black. Very quietly he asked, ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

  Did he guess that this was the first time for her? She didn’t care.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said huskily. And because she suspected that he was going to spell out that making love to her meant nothing beyond a momentary pleasure—a statement she wouldn’t be able to bear—she lifted her head and kissed the words from his mouth.

  When his arms tightened around her, and his demanding mouth turned that tentative kiss into an avowal of naked hunger, she accepted that she’d regret this surrender. Yet she knew she’d regret much more not making love with Marc.

  And then she could no longer think. Banishing the last remnants of fear, she slipped the leash on her senses and allowed them to run riot.

  Some time—a long time—later, her feet touched the floor. She swayed on boneless legs, dragging air into her famished lungs when he slid his hands beneath the towel and opened it. The damp bath sheet fell to the ground and she was exposed to him.

  Swift colour stained her skin, turning it rose-gold. He was probably accustomed to women in silk and satin, she thought wildly, and wished she had some sexy, sensuous garment to wear.

  He cupped a breast in his lean, strong hand. ‘Look,’ he said, his voice a deep rumble that reverberated through her.

  She obeyed, sensation knotting in the pit of her stomach at the contrast of his long, tanned fingers against her gleaming skin.

  ‘You’re the colour of a peach,’ he said quietly, and met her eyes with a stark urgency that splintered the last of her resistance.

  All that mattered now was Marc, and her need to give him everything she could.

  ‘Don’t be shy,’ he said, the slight French intonation in his voice strengthening. ‘You are so beautiful, and I want you so much that I’m scared.’

  ‘You?’ she croaked as his thumb stroked the pleading nub of her breast with a skill that indicated his experience.

  Sheer, astonishing pleasure shot from there to the rest of her body, scintillated across her nerves, lit up every cell in a parade of sensuous fireworks. Her breath choked in her lungs, then came and went swiftly through her parted lips.

  He gave a soft, ironic laugh. ‘Is that so surprising? Any man would be terrified by such beauty.’ Before she could answer he buried his mouth in the hollow of her throat.

  The touch of his lips fuelled her runaway anticipation, and when he nipped the spot where her neck joined her shoulder the sharp edges of his teeth produced an almost painful excitement.

  She clung to him, gasping as he moved his hand upwards. For a moment she hung on the
cusp between fear and violent anticipation, until he kissed her throat again and claimed her other breast with one teasing stroke of his fingers.

  And then he said quietly, ‘Take off my shirt.’

  Her hands were shaking so much that she could barely push the buttons through their holes. When Marc shrugged free of the shirt she sighed, devouring him with shadowed eyes.

  ‘You’re so—so broad,’ she breathed. Her fingertips lingered on smooth, hot, supple skin, sleekly taut over the hard swell of a muscle.

  ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said harshly.

  She gave him a swift glance and looked away, her hand falling to her side. ‘I know.’

  And clearly he knew that she wasn’t experienced. Was she being awkward and gauche? Should she explain that this was the first time for her—and run the risk of having him pull back?

  No.

  ‘How do you know that?’ He caught her hand and rested it lightly against his chest, the soft abrasion of the pattern of hair a stimulus in itself.

  She bit her lip. ‘Pain is barbaric,’ she murmured, ‘and you’re very civilised.’

  He gave a bark of sardonic laughter. Paige looked up in surprise.

  ‘At the moment,’ he said, curving his hand around her breast, ‘I’m very uncivilised—almost purely primitive, in fact. But I won’t hurt you.’

  And he bent his black head and drew the tight, expectant nub of her breast into his mouth.

  Paige froze, captured by impossible pleasure, by intolerable excitement. When he lifted his head she could have cried out in protest.

  In a voice made deep and slow by carnal hunger, Marc said, ‘Yes, you are beautiful, delicate and fragile as a flower, yet like a flower there’s strength and determination in you.’

  He picked her up and lowered her onto the bed. Still flushing, she watched with dilating eyes as he stripped. She was under no illusions; although she’d loved him for ever, and he wanted her now, his desire was deceptive and illusory as moonshine, a fleeting, beautiful thing. She would make love with him, and when it was time she’d leave with her pride intact and without a backward glance.

  With slow, drugging expertise Marc kissed every thought from her head, and when he lifted his mouth he was beside her on the bed, an arm around her shoulders holding her against his lean, eager body.

  A primal thrill scorched through Paige. Somewhere outside a gull screeched, its angry, spiteful call jaggedly reminding her that there was a reality outside the room and this man.

  She didn’t care.

  Turning her head, she kissed his shoulder, then licked where she’d kissed; the faint salty taste of his skin was fiercely erotic to her, as was the tight sound from his throat and the dark flames in his eyes.

  He ran a hand down her body, beginning at her throat and finishing at the place where her thighs met, and while her lashes slowly fluttered down he gave a crooked smile and began to show her exactly what magic a man and a woman could make together.

  The instinct that had warned her he’d be a consummate lover had been dead on target. Marc seemed to understand more about her body than she did. He knew that his mouth on her breast twisted sensation inside her, tightening it until she sobbed on a shivering wave of heated rapture.

  He explored her with his mouth, unlocking a reckless response that built and built and built until she was sobbing with a delicious frustration, her hands clenched by her sides and her body a taut, pleading bow under his ministrations.

  Eventually she whispered in a hoarse, desperate little voice, ‘Please. Marc, I can’t—I want—’

  His kiss pressed her head back into the pillow with its depth and demand, and while she was lost in that sorcery he moved over her, prolonging the kiss as he eased into her.

  A sharp jab brought Paige’s eyelashes bolting up. Dazedly she stared into Marc’s eyes and read astonishment there, and then—amazingly—a white-hot satisfaction.

  Harshly he said, ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t know.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, desperation cutting across the words as the ardent delight receded a little.

  He kissed her again, and against her lips he murmured, ‘Try to relax.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, starkly honest, her hands gripping his shoulders. ‘I want you too much.’

  ‘So?’ The muscles beneath her hands bunched and he pushed, slowly widening that path until the fragile barrier ripped.

  Urgently she said, ‘It’s not—it’s fine.’

  ‘Good.’ And he drove home.

  What followed was pure drama. Never losing control, he wooed her with his body and his voice, driving her further and further up the sides of some insurmountable cliff, a long, pleasure-drenched journey where he was guide and mentor. At last, poised on the brink of rapturous knowledge, she reached the top and spun off into delight, ecstatic waves breaking through her body until she could bear it no longer.

  Almost immediately he followed her, big body taut as a bow, and without realising it made her his for all time.

  Her last thought, barely coherent before she slipped into sleep, was that whatever happened to her in the future she had this memory of delight to treasure.

  It was dusk when she woke, with the distant noise of a helicopter buzzing in her ears. She turned towards the empty side of the bed, unconsciously questing, then remembered, and blushed, and lay for several moments while the memories flooded through her.

  Stretching luxuriously, she thought that no other woman in the world could have had such a long, idyllically sensual introduction to making love. Marc had been gentle and skilful, until gentleness and skill had been abandoned in raw male fire as desire overtook him.

  It had been perfect. Marc had been perfect. She thought idly that she was no longer a virgin, and smiled, enjoying the tiny signals of his possession—her tender lips, a small ache between her legs, the deep, lingering sensuality.

  Loving Marc had opened her to change, shown her that if this once was all she’d ever have of him—well, it would be enough for a lifetime. Because after this there would be no other man for her.

  But she knew now that she wouldn’t retreat from life as her mother had; instead, she’d live it richly and fully, because love meant much more than a cowardly dependence.

  She moved restlessly on the bed, turning to look at the indentation on the pillow beside her where Marc’s head had rested. Satiety bred appetite; instead of being satisfied with the miracle he’d made for her she wanted to loosen the bars on the wild need that sang in forbidden cadences through her body, demanding a like response from him too.

  She wanted him to lose control as she had lost it; she wanted him to know the almost aggressive craving that felt as though it might tear her apart—to feel it and to be forced to surrender to it.

  ‘It isn’t going to happen,’ she said aloud. ‘So take what you got and be contented.’

  If she made love with him again it would shatter her self-esteem and break her heart. Marc might have ravished her soul from her body, but neither that afternoon or now had he said anything about a future.

  So she’d have to resist this intense love that undermined every warning, every sensible thought and decision.

  ‘Why?’ she asked suddenly. After all, she’d made love to him knowing that he wasn’t going to offer her permanence—he’d made sure of that with brutal frankness.

  Resisting him would be cutting off her nose to spite her face.

  She had tonight—their last night together. And, because she wasn’t wasting a moment of it, she sprang out of bed and into the shower, then dressed swiftly before going out to see where he was.

  Marc looked up from his desk. His eyes narrowed when he saw Paige wander across the lawn towards the beach. She looked forlorn, he thought, and found himself on his feet, setting off to make everything better for her.

  Fortunately logic kicked in before he’d taken more than a couple of steps. His mouth compressed into a straight line and he strode back to his desk, step
ping over a comatose Fancy.

  This desire to smooth the way for her was suspicious. He swore beneath his breath; he’d assumed that at her age she’d have had some experience. Her virginity had surprised the hell out of him.

  And pleased him far too much, he thought with a twist of self-derision. He hadn’t ever made love to a virgin before and, damn it, it changed things.

  So what to do now?

  The telephone rang. Impatiently he picked it up and barked, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Darling, I’ll be with you in an hour,’ Lauren said, not at all discomposed. ‘I’ve got everything ready; there’s just a couple of things to finalise, papers for you to sign off, and then it will be done. See you soon.’

  Marc put the telephone down and frowned, his eyes on the solitary figure walking along the beach. Fancy had gone out to join her and they made a pretty picture in the dying glow of the sun, outlined in a crimson glow against the shimmer of the sea.

  Closing down the computer took a couple of seconds while he sorted the papers he’d need later that night, when he spoke to his office in London.

  Then he went out into the soft spring dusk, scented with the sea and the perfume of the season, a sensuous breath of growth and fertility. His mouth quirked cynically when he noted a glow behind the hill that promised a full moon. A cliché if ever there was one!

  Yet clichés had power, and in spite of himself his instincts woke, strong and powerfully primal within him. But not tonight, he thought. For too many reasons; Lauren would be here, and Paige would be…

  She’d gone down to the edge of the water and was standing very still as she stared out to sea, her slender body held upright by that steel spine.

  As he watched she straightened already straight shoulders and stooped to pick up a stone, hurling it across the water.

  It skipped five times before sinking.

  ‘You’ve practised that,’ Marc said drily, walking down to join her.

  Paige’s heart jumped. Sheer force of will stopped her from whirling around, but her voice sounded breathy and startled when she said, ‘For about three months when I was ten.’