“We’ll take this slow,” he said in her ear. His breath was a warm soft whisper that caused her to turn her mouth blindly toward his again.
His shaft rested against her inner thigh, hot and throbbing and swollen with need, but he made no further move to claim her. He kissed her mouth again instead. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she kissed him back with feverish abandon, and quite forgot about the thing between her legs.
“You’re beautiful.” He lifted his mouth, and smoothed wayward tendrils of hair back from her face with a hand that was not quite steady.
“So are you.”
He smiled at her then, a heartbreakingly sweet smile, and kissed the tip of her chin. His mouth slid down her neck, and he turned his attention to her breasts, caressing them, suckling them, gently nibbling on her nipples, until Gabby was on fire with the pure pleasure of it. Her heart pounded. Her pulse raced. Her breathing deteriorated to fast little gasps that sounded as if she had been running for miles. Finally, when her hands were buried in his hair and she was offering her breasts up to him quite shamelessly, his hand slid down her body to the secret place between her thighs. She was burning hot there, and damp, melting and so far gone with passion that she no longer cared if she melted. When his hand found the nest of curls and stroked it, she moaned. When it went lower still, she lay helpless and quivering as he touched her where she had been dying to be touched without even knowing what it was that she wanted. He stroked her, found a tiny little nub that she had never even dreamed existed, and rubbed it. Tongues of flame raced over her body, and she cried out.
Then his fingers slid inside her.
Gabby’s breath caught, and her nails dug into his shoulders. The slow penetration of her body by first one finger, then two together, made her loins clench and burn and ache. She gasped, then arched against his invading hand, begging it for—something. Her hips moved in a circular fashion, and his body suddenly went stiff as a board. For a moment he lay perfectly still.
“God in heaven,” he muttered thickly. “This is going to be the death of me.”
Her lids fluttered up, and her eyes met his. His were black with passion, blazing down at her, intent.
His fingers were still inside her. He pulled them slowly out, then pushed them in again, watching her all the while.
“Do you like that?” His voice was guttural now. His lips parted as his breath whistled between them.
“Yes,” she gasped, clinging to his shoulders, lost to all sense of shame. Her body tightened, wept, quaked. “Oh, yes.”
“I want you more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.” The words were a groan. His gaze flicked over her face. “All right, then.”
His hand left her body and he moved on top of her, supporting his weight on his elbows. Her legs parted instinctively to receive him. His thighs slid between hers and suddenly his shaft was once again probing at the hot, wet place his fingers had readied for it.
As she felt him there, entering her that first little bit, the aching within her intensified until she was shuddering with it. Her thighs trembled. Her body burned. She wanted . . . She wanted . . .
He pulled out, then pushed back in again.
Gabby cried out, and his mouth claimed hers with a sudden fierce ardor. Her hands slid up his back. His skin, she discovered, was damp with sweat. His muscles flexed, and he pushed himself farther inside, until it seemed that he was wedged up against a barrier within her.
Her virginity. She was giving him her virginity. She recognized that with the last tiny flicker of sanity that remained to her, and realized too that, even if she could, she would not stop him now. She would die if he stopped now.
Then his muscles flexed again, and he seemed to gather himself. Suddenly he gave a mighty thrust and broke through the barrier.
The pain was sudden, and scalding. Gabby whimpered, stiffening, digging her nails into his back in surprised protest.
“I’m sorry.” His eyes were narrow coal-black slits that gleamed down at her. He whispered the apology against her lips even as he pushed himself farther inside, stretching her, filling her to the point where she was sure she must burst.
“That—hurt,” she managed unevenly as the worst of the pain began to recede.
“I know.” He pressed a soft kiss against the corner of her mouth. “It won’t hurt anymore. I—oh, God, Gabriella.”
She did not resist, but could not help the involuntary tensing of her muscles as he began, slowly, as if he couldn’t help himself, to move. He was sweating like he had put in a long day’s labor under a hot sun. He held his weight from her with arms that trembled, and eased himself slowly in and out.
As he had promised, there was no more pain, although some of the magic was definitely gone.
But when he bent his head to kiss her breasts, and at the same time pushed deep inside, to her own surprise she moaned. That one small sound seemed to make him lose all sense of restraint. He groaned in answer, and she felt a tremor rack the long back she clutched. Suddenly his movements changed. They were no longer gentle at all. He drove savagely within her, his thrusts growing ever more fierce and fast and deep. His breathing came in quick harsh pants; his body pounded hers mercilessly into the mattress.
He had become a greedy predator, while she was semi-reluctant prey. The intensity of his passion made her feel taken, overwhelmed. If it had been anyone but him she would have struggled, fought to get free. But instead she lay quiescent beneath him, her hands clutching a back made slippery by sweat, as he made her most thoroughly a woman.
The one thought that swirled through her brain was, if it was like this with a man she loved, what would it be like with one she didn’t? At the thought of Mr. Jamison performing such an act upon her person, she shuddered.
Apparently her shudder was all it took to send him over the edge. He muttered her name, buried his face against the side of her neck, and thrust inside her so hard that she feared he might split her in two. Then he held himself there for a moment, impaling her with his flesh, gripping her hipbones with fingers that dug into her tender skin. He groaned, and his body seemed to convulse. Finally, at long last, he went limp.
Gabby lay there, staring up at the ceiling, her hands resting nervelessly atop wide shoulders that, along with the rest of him, pinned her to the mattress. The man weighed a ton. He was hot and heavy and sweaty and certainly not the Prince Charming of every maiden’s dream. She had wanted him, and she had certainly gotten what she wanted.
In future, she cautioned herself, she might be well advised to be careful what she wished for.
He lifted his head then, and met her gaze. She tried to smile at him, but it was a weak effort. Grimacing, he rolled off her, then gathered her up so that she was lying against his side. A muscular arm wrapped around her waist held her in place; otherwise, she would have scrambled off the bed and out of his reach, as he somehow seemed to guess.
He picked up her hand as it rested rather limply on his chest, carried it to his mouth, and pressed his lips to her palm. Then, still holding her hand, he glanced at her.
“I’m perfectly agreeable,” he said with the tiniest suggestion of a twinkle, rubbing her hand over the prickly roughness of his cheek, “if you wish to box my ears.”
This had the surprising effect of making her smile. Just a small smile, it was true, but genuine nonetheless, and welcome after the emotional and physical trauma of the last several minutes. She remembered suddenly that she was in love with him, quite madly really, and why. Among other reasons, she thought, had to be counted that teasing glint in his eyes.
“I don’t wish to,” she responded primly. “Now.”
He eyed her. “And so what did you think of your first sexual experience?”
She hesitated, and her cheeks pinkened. To talk about it—did people really talk about such things? She had no idea. But he was asking, so apparently they did. Besides, worrying about maintaining a decent decorum seemed rather foolish under the circumstances. He was nak
ed, she was naked, and they were in bed together and she was draped all over him and damp with his sweat and juices and he had just done things to her that she had never imagined anyone would do. Certainly her every pretension to modesty must have flown out the window some time since.
“It was fine.” The word was a small pale thing to describe the fiery awakening of her body and then the sobering aftermath, she reflected, but it was the best she could do.
He laughed, then groaned, and kissed her palm again. Then he rolled out of bed, scooped her up in his arms before she had any idea what he meant to do, and headed toward his room with her.
36
“What are you doing?” Gabby demanded, scandalized, even as she automatically curled an arm around his neck. To be naked in bed with him was bad enough; but to be naked right out in the open air, and carried about in his arms, was far worse. She could glance down and see every inch of her skin from her neck to her toes: her breasts, no bigger than oranges, their creamy skin capped by small erect nipples, still rosy from his recent attention to them; the mahogany triangle of curls that he had just thoroughly explored and claimed; the slender curves of her thighs, draped over the hard brown muscles of his arm, complete with, on the left one only, faint scars, pearly white now and no wider than her smallest finger, that marked where her bone had broken through her flesh in two places that awful night so long ago. If it had not been for the scars, she reflected, no one would know, just from looking, that there was anything wrong with her leg.
“I need a smoke, and a swallow or two of brandy to clear my head, and then you and I, my girl, are going to have a talk.”
That sounded like a promising enough agenda, especially when he set her carefully down on the edge of his bed, dropped a quick kiss on her mouth, and provided her with a pitcher of water, a basin, and a cloth, before proceeding to turn his back. As she gave herself a quick sponge bath, she eyed his back with a great deal of interest. He was as naked as the day he was born, and, seemingly, not a whit bothered by it. Not that, aside from modesty, which he didn’t seem to possess in any appreciable amount, he had anything to be bothered about. From his wide shoulders to his sleekly muscled back to his long, powerful-looking legs, he was more masculinely gorgeous than even the Greek statues at the museum. She observed his buttocks with particular fascination. She already knew they were smooth and firm to the touch. Now she saw that they were nice to look at, too. Very nice.
“Nick,” she said experimentally, having finished her sponge bath, run her fingers through her now loose hair, and pulled on his dressing gown, which had been lying very conveniently across the foot of his bed. Holding a snifter of brandy in one hand and a lit cigar in the other, he actually responded to the name, turning with an inquiring look to face her. She was sitting up against the headboard by this time, her legs curled beneath her, feeling appreciably better now that she was both clean and minimally decent.
What she had been going to say next died on her lips as she got her first good, full frontal look at a naked man.
The sight practically stopped her breath.
She had known that his shoulders were broad and that his arms bulged with muscle. She had known about the wedge of black hair on his chest and how it tapered to a trail leading straight down over his hard-as-a-washboard belly. She had known about his male appendage, and how, when sated, it hung in a semi-somnolent state from its bed of black hair. She had known about the red, puckered scar just above his left hip—she had given it to him, after all—and even about the other scar, jagged as a lightning bolt and paler than his skin, that snaked down his right thigh.
What she hadn’t known was how looking at him like that would affect her. She felt her eyes widen, and her mouth go dry.
“What?” he asked when she didn’t say anything. Gabby’s gaze rose to meet his, and she realized, to her embarrassment, that he had turned around in response to something she had said. The problem was, she couldn’t remember exactly what that was. Oh, yes; his name: Nick.
“I just wanted to see if you answered,” she said, a shade tartly. “I would imagine it’s hard to keep your identity straight, when you seem to have a name du jour.”
He chuckled, swallowed the small amount of brandy in his glass, and set the glass down. Then he put his cigar in his mouth and came toward her, gloriously naked.
“Back to being a shrew again, are we? You must be feeling better.” He removed the cigar from his mouth as he reached the bed, and stubbed it out in a receptacle on the bedside table. “Nick is my real name, I promise.”
“Nick who?” She met his gaze with a touch of wariness in her own. The state of his body, which had changed considerably just over the course of their conversation, alarmed her. He looked ready, willing and able to . . . Could men do that more than once a night? Apparently they could. But she could not. Or at least, she didn’t want to, and so she meant to make perfectly clear to him.
He gave her a charmingly crooked smile, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why is it that women are never satisfied, I wonder? I tell you my name’s Nick, and you say, Nick who? I make love to you, and you say it was fine. Gabriella, fine is not a word that a man likes to hear in that context. I think, if we try again, we can certainly improve on fine.”
“Wait.” When he leaned forward, clearly meaning to kiss her, she placed a detaining hand on his chest. “I . . .”
His hand came up to grip her wrist, holding her hand in place. Beneath the crisp mat of hair and the warm, resilient layers of skin and muscle, she could feel the steady beating of his heart against her palm.
Her gaze met his. The fire in his room was only minimally bigger than the one in her own, but it provided enough light for her to plainly see the hard planes and angles of his chiseled features, and the intent look in his eyes.
“No matter how carefully it’s done, the first time is never good for a woman,” he said quietly. “And to make matters worse, I’d had too much to drink. I lost control at the end. I should have been gentler, but I wanted you so damned much that I just couldn’t slow it down. Forgive me.”
“Nick.” But her resolve was melting in the face of those blue eyes. “It isn’t your fault. You warned me. I told you to go ahead.”
“Are you sorry?” He brought her hand up to his mouth again, and pressed his lips to her knuckles. The warmth of his lips sent a little shiver coursing down her spine.
“No.” She swallowed, knowing as she said it that she spoke nothing but the truth. “No. I’m not sorry.”
“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever set eyes on in my life,” he said then, in a deeper tone, lowering her hand but not releasing it. “And I’d cut off my right hand sooner than hurt you again.” A tiny muscle jumped at the corner of his mouth. Then he seemed to shiver, and when he spoke again his voice was lighter and brisker. “I’m freezing, and you, in case you haven’t noticed, are wearing my dressing gown. How about if we just get into bed together and talk? I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, I give you my word. And you can ask me all the questions you want.”
Gabby looked at him rather suspiciously. That last sounded too good to be true. It made her think of balky horses and metal pans filled with corn.
Which, indeed, proved to be the case. Having been cajoled into bed with him—although she had categorically refused to give up his dressing gown—she lay wrapped in his arms with the covers piled high atop them both. She was cozy and comfortable and warm as toast, and perfectly content to watch him wind a thick skein of her all-too-abundant hair around his fist in an absentminded kind of way, then unwind it before repeating the operation all over again.
“Nick who?” was her first question.
He slanted a half-exasperated, half-amused look down at her. “If I told you, would it make any difference?”
“It might,” she said. “Try me.”
He laughed, and pressed a quick kiss to the end of her nose.
“All in good time,” he said.
“You said I could ask you anything I liked,” she reminded him. Her hand rested on his chest. Her fingers spread out of their own accord, burrowing through the thick mat of hair. While the covers were tucked cozily around her shoulders, they only covered him to the waist. When she had, in the spirit of helpfulness, tried to tuck them closer around him, he had pushed them down to their current level. Which was quite all right with her. She found the sight of his wide, black-furred chest, broad bare shoulders, and heavily muscled arms impossibly appealing.
“I did, didn’t I?” He glanced at her with a lurking smile. “But I didn’t say I was going to answer.”
“Oh, you.” She was not surprised by the evasion, but she gave his chest hair an admonitory little tug anyway.
“Ow!” His fingers unwound from her hair and captured the hand on his chest, flattening it. “There’s that nasty, violent streak I was talking about showing itself again.”
“The only times I’ve been nasty and violent toward you, it’s been well deserved,” she said severely, then glanced back at their joined hands. The feel of his chest was intoxicating despite her recent disenchantment with some other parts of his anatomy, she reflected. His skin was so warm, and the muscles beneath were so solid. . . . She moved her fingers experimentally.
He took a deep breath, and freed her hand to push the covers even farther down, so that he was just minimally decent. His navel, his hipbones, the puckered scar where she had shot him, all were revealed.
“I thought you were cold,” she said, frowning up at him.
The faintest of smiles curled his mouth. “Not anymore.”
“Oh,” she said, as she got his meaning.
“Yes, oh.”
“You can’t possibly—I mean, you don’t want to do that again, do you?” Faint consternation colored her voice.
“The thought had crossed my mind, I must admit.”
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