“I’m fine,” she denied quickly.
He released his grip on her hips and stepped back. “My mistake. Here.” He reached for the plate again but Lilah shook her head. “Okay, you win. I can’t carry that. I can’t stand the smell of fish.”
He frowned and then let out a small laugh. “Then why the hell didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Because you were so pleased to think I couldn’t fish … and I didn’t like being pre-judged.”
“But you couldn’t fish. And you never have.”
“It makes no difference that your judgment was correct,” she said haughtily.
He attempted to control his amusement. “Sure, if you say so.”
“Pass me the plate.”
“I have no interest in making you sick.”
“I know. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ve already proven how brave you are, Lilah.” His words were soft and breathed pleasure across her soul.
She swallowed. “I …”
“Go inside. I’ll be right behind you.”
She turned slowly, wondering at the sense of failure over something as ludicrous as carrying a fishy plate.
Avoiding the step he’d warned her about earlier, she shouldered into the house gratefully. The fire was still burning, though less forcefully than that morning. The cabin was warm. It was a blessed relief to feel such a reprieve from the icy winds that had buffeted her face outdoors. She moved quickly into the bathroom and checked her appearance in the mirror. Her hair was a tangled mess despite the bun she’d clipped it into earlier, and her cheeks were glowing pink from the wind.
She stepped out of the bathroom as Will walked into the cabin, a bucket in one hand and the fish in the other.
Their eyes clashed for the briefest moment before Will turned away and walked into the kitchen. She watched as he covered the fish and placed them into the fridge which she belatedly realized was making a humming noise.
“Oh! The power is on?”
“Yeah.”
“I saw the candles and presumed …”
“It was out last night. Ice in the fuse box. I fixed it this morning.”
With an even greater sense of inadequacy, she padded across the cabin and propped her back against one of the benches. Ignoring her presence, he tied the top of the rubbish bag and then lifted it into the freezer.
“We’ll take it back to the city when we leave,” he explained, aware that he was casting about for anything to say that wasn’t on the subject of the fantasies he was running through his mind.
“Uh huh.” She didn’t want to think about leaving. Not before she’d got everything she wanted – needed – out of this trip.
“Lilah …”
“Will,” she interrupted, lifting her hands to her zip. “Would you help me with this?”
He scowled at her. “No.”
Her laugh was a provocative invitation. “But it is stuck. I thought you were charged with keeping me safe? You can’t very well have me pass out from heat fever.”
He shook his head with true frustration and lifted his own fingers to the zip. It came easily and his look of accusation was impossible to miss. Only it was too late. As his fingers pulled the zip lower, parting the snowsuit, he fell deeper and deeper into a well of inevitability.
She wore some kind of silky camisole beneath. It was the kind of lingerie he’d only ever seen in movies. He stepped backwards as though he’d been burned.
Lilah was not going to be dissuaded. If anything, his reaction proved that he wanted something to happen between them as badly as she did. She stepped out of the snowsuit. Wearing only her underwear, she took two steps towards him.
“Lilah.” It was a guttural oath of impatience. “For God’s sake.”
“Your turn.” Her hands shook a little as she lifted them to his zipper. “May I?”
“I don’t think you’d listen if I said ‘no’.”
“You have a valid point.” She pulled the zip down, but had to bite her tongue to stop from groaning when she realized that he was wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans beneath his own outerwear. “That hardly seems fair,” she said with mock seriousness.
“What are you doing?” He asked seriously. And despite the sensible voice wading through his brain, he gripped her hips, enjoying the sensation of silky material beneath his work-roughened hands.
She blinked up at him. “You know I have servants who help me with everything, even dressing. Is there something wrong with this?”
He could have rolled his eyes, it was such a pathetic attempt at normalizing the slow, torturous seduction she was indulging.
“You want me to act like your servant?”
Her smile was slow to spread across her face. “I want you to undress me for a bath.”
“Lilah …”
“You keep saying my name as though I am doing something wrong.”
“You are, and we both know it.”
She wrapped her fingers around the base of her camisole and steeled herself to be strong. “Do you know what my life is like?” She lifted the silk slowly, enjoying the feeling as it glanced across her skin.
“Luxurious,” he said sharply.
“Yes.” She nodded. “It is that. But it is so far from perfect.”
“Do you expect me to buy the poor-little-princess routine?” He demanded, needing to grab onto any kind of anger or accusation to stop himself from ripping the damned lingerie from her body. The slow, sensual strip-tease was about to give him a heart attack.
“I am never alone and yet I am so, so lonely. I have no friends. I have never been able to indulge the behavior that other women take for granted. And I have wanted, for so long, to be made to feel like a woman.”
“Jalilah. You have to stop this.”
“Why? If you don’t want me, then simply walk away.” She finally lifted her lingerie off completely, dropping it to the floor by their feet. Her breasts were right there, and it took every ounce of his strength not to drop his gaze to them like some lecherous pervert. “But if you want me, as I want you, then please give me something no one else can.”
A muscle jerked in his cheek. “Men must be queuing up to be with you.”
“I told you, dating for me is not like this. It is … staid. I want to be touched. I want to feel. I will never have an opportunity like this again, when I can be completely alone with someone I desire.”
“And then what?” He prompted, his eyes scanning her beautiful face. He couldn’t believe he was even entertaining this idea.
“And then,” she shrugged. “When we leave here, it will be as though it never happened.”
“What if I don’t want to let you go?”
Lilah’s smile was wistful. “You will.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because a man like you could never live as I do.” She lifted onto her tiptoes. “The captivity would kill you.”
Now, finally, he glanced at her breasts, and instantly groaned. They were perfect, as everything about her was. Neat, firm, and rounded, he felt his fingertips tingle with a desire to grip them.
“Touch me,” she begged, as if reading his thoughts. “I won’t break. And I am desperate to feel.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he attempted one last time to dissuade her from the reckless path she’d chosen.
Lilah reached down in response and grabbed his hands. She lifted them confidently, until his fingers splayed across her breasts. “Touch me,” she begged, though the brief contact was already unfurling ribbons of pleasure inside of her.
“If you want this to stop, Lilah, you need to only say the word.”
“I trust you,” she promised, swaying her hips forward so that her silky underpants brushed against his arousal.
If only Will could have conveyed how little he trusted himself. He hadn’t slept with a virgin since high school. He wanted to make it special for Lilah but that would require the kind of strength he wasn’t sure he possessed. How
could he draw it out and make it memorable when he could already feel a little of himself seeping with anticipation for her?
His chin was roughened by stubble. When he pressed his mouth to hers, so gently she shivered, she was aware first of the beard and then of the perfectness of his mouth against hers.
She smiled as his tongue lashed hers, and she tangled her fingers through his hair on instinct alone.
“I would like to do this somewhere better,” he muttered into her mouth as he scooped her up and carried her through the cabin. “Somewhere clean and neat and …”
“It’s perfect,” she denied, pushing at his shirt, lifting it over his chest. He tangled his hands with hers, discarding the shirt then pressing her backwards into the bed. She fell against it but immediately pushed up onto her elbows, searching for his lips again.
He laughed, but it was a shaky sound. He couldn’t believe what they were about to do. He undid his jeans, kicking them off so that he could feel their bare legs.
Lilah thrilled beneath the weight of his body. It was everything she’d fantasised about for years; only so much better. His legs were hairy and strong. He straddled her and she felt his erection; even someone as innocent as Lilah knew what a sign of desire that was.
She ran her fingers over his chest, marveling at her confidence. For someone with no experience, it was easy to know what to do. She was guided by something much bigger than her, or him. A force of need travelled through her like an electrical current. She felt goosebumps on his flesh and smiled.
He trapped her hands against his chest and straightened. “You are too much.”
“Am I?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled though and her heart turned over.
“I want you to feel everything.”
“Everything? What do you mean?”
He wrapped his fingers around her underwear. They were flimsy and made of the same silk as her camisole. He slid them down, exposing her to him completely.
Lilah wasn’t embarrassed. Despite having never been so intimately available to someone, she didn’t feel even a hint of nervousness.
Will nodded with approval. “I want to touch you here,” he pressed his thumb and forefinger around one of her nipples, wrapping his lips around the other. She bucked against him and made a noise of shock. “Breasts are incredibly sensitive,” he murmured. “I could bring you to orgasm just by doing this,” and he rolled her nipple with his tongue while squeezing on the other hard enough to make her moan softly. He ground his hips against her womanhood and she was aware that she was making little sounds of desperation as she ached to bring him closer towards her.
“Soon,” he promised, transferring his mouth to her other breast. He tormented it in the same fashion, flicking every single nerve ending to life with his tongue.
“You wanted me to sleep with you,” he said thickly, kissing fire down her belly as he chased the most exquisitely guarded flesh of her body.
“I do,” she nodded, but how could she possibly have been prepared for the joyous and overwhelming assault on her senses that was about to follow? At first, his lips brushed her womanhood gently, but it was still enough to make Lilah cry out in shock.
She pushed up on her elbows and he fixed her with a look of intent. “By all means, stay like that. Watch me. But don’t fight it, Lilah.”
“What are you going to do?”
He ran a finger down her front, and with his eyes latched to hers, he moved it into her warm, moist heat.
Lilah had never sworn but she felt every curse word she’d ever read sail through her mind at the unexpected invasion. “I’m going to touch you everywhere,” he promised. “And I’m going to taste you.”
He dropped his mouth and now he didn’t simply brush his lips to her pulsing flesh. He drove his tongue against her, lashing her until she was uttering a string of incomprehensible words in her own language. Heat passed over her body, covering her with the force of fire. She was flushed.
“Will,” she groaned, throwing her head back on the pillow.
He lifted away from her, smiling at her look of instant abandonment. “Like this.” He positioned her legs so that they were bent with her knees towards the ceiling and her feet flat almost against her buttocks. “Hold your ankles.”
She did as he said, though it was uncomfortable.
“Stay like that.” He ran his mouth over her body once more, but she secretly craved the intimate contact he’d broken seconds before.
“Please,” she said simply.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know what you want. But there is so much to teach you, Lilah, and if we have only this small amount of time, I want to teach you well.”
“To teach me what?”
“What your body is capable of feeling.” He brought his mouth back to her entrance and blew a soft breath across it. She shivered. It was a small window of respite. His mouth was back, punishing her, teasing her, bringing her to the very edge of what she could endure before lifting away again.
“I feel like … Will, I feel … I’m scared.”
“Don’t be,” he said softly, running his hands over her beautiful body. “I am going to make you feel exactly what you want. Soon. So soon.”
“I need …”
“I know.” He dipped a finger inside. “You’re so wet,” he felt himself tingle like he could explode. “How can a woman as sensual as you be a virgin?”
He rolled his finger inside her, watching as her eyes fluttered shut. “If I touch you here,” he pressed against her side, studying her face, “you get close to orgasm.”
“Yes, uh huh,” she nodded desperately.
He slid two more fingers into her opening, grinning as her muscles contracted powerfully around him. He massaged her quickly, and as she began to tumble over the edges of the world as she’d known it, he spoke to her softly in her own language, promising her that she would be okay; imploring her not to be afraid.
Lilah’s heart was jumping in her chest. Her words were threadbare. “I had no idea.”
“No,” he nodded. “But do you know what else? I’m going to make you feel that again and again and again and again.” With each word he placed kisses across her body, until finally he reached her mouth. He pulled her lower lip between his teeth and bit it playfully.
“It isn’t possible,” she denied.
“Oh, Lilah.” He kissed her eyelids gently. “Just wait.”
Another woman might have thought his confidence bordered on arrogant, but then again, Will knew how to deliver. Lilah had no doubt that every promise he made would be carried out. She cupped his cheeks to hold his face level with hers. “And what can I do for you?” She fluttered her eyes lower, lest he see her desperate need to please him revealed in their depths.
“You’re already doing it,” he said gently. He kissed her neck, running his hands through her hair. “You just need to promise to tell me if you’re uncomfortable.”
“I’m fine,” she said, pushing away the doubts that were lingering in her mind. No one needed to know about this. If Kiral did, he’d certainly have Will thrown in prison on some ancient law. This had to stay between them.
She watched as he stepped out of his boxer shorts and reached for the jeans he’d discarded. His wallet was in the back pocket and he pulled a line of foil out of it. She squinted and then flushed. Condoms. A lot. How often did he do this?
It was an unwelcome and unworthy thought. She had seduced him. She had begged him to take her virginity. So what if he had a host of lovers in his past? In that cabin, and that bed, it was just the two of them.
Lilah was powerless to look away as he unfurled a condom over his length. God, he was enormous.
Panic briefly flared in her breast but the second her eyes lifted to his, it was dispensed with and only fierce, impatient desire remained.
“Are you sure about this, honey?”
She smiled at the name. “Absolutely.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
He couldn’t
believe how nervous he was.
Will Wright didn’t do nerves. He was ‘ice-man’ to his friends. The journalist who’d embedded into some of the most brutal war-zones and kept a level-head through just about everything that was thrown at them. At least, until that last night.
He’d picked up women as easily as some men picked up shoes, and he’d never once felt this almost-paralysing anxiety.
He kissed her lips gently, aiming to reassure her, and himself as well.
“Absolutely sure?”
Her laugh was like bells in the breeze. “Stop asking me that, would you?”
He nodded. He couldn’t smile. He moved closer to her entrance and felt her still beneath him.
“Will?” Her eyes blinked up at his, and he hesitated. “I do want this. With you. I know I barely know you, and yet … I feel the opposite. I feel that this is meant to happen with us.” She coloured a little at the uncharacteristically spiritual interpretation of events. Her uncle would have appreciated her faith in the stars and fates.
Will nodded, and he pushed just a small way into her warm heart, watching her face for the smallest sign of pain or discomfort.
“You won’t break me,” she promised.
He shook his head. “God, Lilah, I want this. I want you. But I can’t help feeling that you deserve so much better.”
Panic gripped her heart. “Don’t say that.”
“You have waited until now, surely not by accident. I don’t care what you say; there must have been opportunities before this …”
“Perhaps if I’d met someone who made me feel as you do I might have sought out the opportunities more astutely. But I didn’t. Until yesterday I had no idea someone could simply look at you and bring you to life.” She curved her hands around his back, marveling at his smooth, warm skin. “I had no idea that I could want to be with a person so badly that it would feel as though I am jumping out of my skin. This has been me, all morning, Will. I have been watching you and feeling like my own heart was going to race away from me.”
He nodded, unable to smile. “Me too.”
“Then do not question what this is, and how we feel. Tomorrow we will face the music, but for now … there is only this.”
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