Her hands were in his hair, fingers funnelling deep, holding him to her. Her back was arched and she was fast losing any sense of reason. Or maybe she'd lost it when she'd laid eyes on this man for the first time. Anyway, it was gone.
He lavished attention on both breasts until they ached and felt swollen, and then his mouth was moving down...over her belly and lower. Sylvie only realised her hands were still on his head when he reached up to take them away. Taking both her hands in one of his, he held them captive over her belly.
Now she really was at his mercy. He moved lower, the bulk of his body forcing her legs apart.
Sylvie lifted her head and looked down.'Arkim...' Her voice sounded rough, broken. Taut with need.
He looked up at her and said,'Shh...'
Sylvie's head was too heavy. She let it fall back just as he released her hands, and then both of his hands were on her buttocks, lifting her to his mouth, where his tongue explored the damp folds of her sex, laying her so open she couldn't bear it.
She had to bite down on a fist when she felt his tongue surge deep inside her, and then his teeth were nipping... The tension was coiling so tightly now she thought she might have to scream to release the pressure, and he was relentless.
Sylvie was vaguely aware of bucking towards him mindlessly-and then he reached up and squeezed her breast, and she exploded into a million tiny pieces of pleasure so intense that she couldn't breathe or see.
She'd orgasmed before-you couldn't work in her industry and remain completely unaware of taking pleasure-but it had always been by her own hand, and never this...mind-blowing. She'd actually thought it was overrated. Evidently she'd been doing it all wrong, she thought dreamily as her body floated back to earth slowly, lusciously.
She was aware of him moving aside momentarily, with an intense focus in his movements, and then he was back, coming over her and leaning on both arms, the muscles bunched and taut.
Sylvie felt him lodge himself between her legs, and then the potent thrust of his erection against the sensitised folds of her sex. For a moment she thought it might be too soon, that she couldn't possibly- But then he hitched himself against her, the head of his erection sliding tantalisingly between those folds, and her whole body quivered with anticipation.
Instinctively she put her hands on Arkim's arms, as if to hold on for the ride, and her legs opened wider in tacit acceptance.
* * *
Sylvie's eyes were huge, staring up at him as if he knew all the secrets of the universe. Arkim didn't know how he hadn't already spilled onto the sheets, like the virginal teenager he'd been all those years ago, when he'd felt her body convulse in spasms of pleasure. But somehow he hadn't...and now he was on the very edge of his control as he felt her body accept his.
He started to sink into her tight, silken hot sheath.
Her very hot and very tight sheath.
In fact as Arkim's body sought to go deeper he realised that Sylvie's body was tight against him in a way he'd never encountered before...
His brain was overheating, his body screaming for a release of the tension, and those huge limpid eyes were still staring up at him. The hard tips of her breasts scraping against his chest.
Arkim was about to lose it...the heady scent of musk and sex urged him on. He gritted his jaw and thrust hard-and went nowhere.
He heard Sylvie's swift, sharp intake of breath and looked down. His brain was feeling too hot, too fuzzy to try and figure out what was wrong. But something was wrong. Very wrong.
Moments ago Sylvie had been flushed with pleasure. Now she looked pale and clammy. Shocked. She was biting her lip and her eyes shone with...tears?
Arkim's insides seemed to drop from a height. But even as suspicion crept in he fought the knowledge... She was just small-that was it. A lot smaller than he'd realised she was.
He clenched his buttocks, trying to forge a passage, and Sylvie's hands gripped his like steel clamps, her nails digging into his muscles.
'Stop-please! It hurts.'
And the truth resounded in Arkim's head like a klaxon going off. Virgin. Innocent.
It was too much to take in. But he had to. She was a virgin.
Arkim pulled back from Sylvie's resisting body, her wince of obvious pain making him feel as if someone had just punched him in the gut. Somehow he got off the bed, stood up... His legs were shaky. He stared at Sylvie but didn't really see her, and then he acted on autopilot, going to the bathing area to take care of the protection.
He caught the expression on his face in the mirror and stopped. He looked dark, feral. He looked...like his father. With that insatiable glint in his eye. Narcissistic and intent only on his own self-satisfaction. Uncaring if someone might be innocent, pure. Like his mother. Like Sylvie.
He was no better than his father. This proved it more than any teenage humiliation with a porn actress. Something cold settled down over Arkim's heart. Something hard and familiar.
He went back out to the main area of the tent and saw Sylvie sitting on the side of the bed, the sheet wrapped around her body. She looked at him over her shoulder and the dark hardness inside Arkim nearly split apart because she looked so forlorn.
He reached for his trousers and pulled them on, irrational anger growing deep down inside him and crawling upwards to catch him in its hot grip.
'Why didn't you tell me?' He walked around to stand in front of her.
She looked shell-shocked. Arkim drove the emotion down.
'Why?' It burst out of him like the firing of a rifle.
Sylvie flinched, her hands clutching the sheet to her chest.'I wasn't sure you'd notice. I almost told you...but I didn't know how.'
Arkim felt as if all of his ugliness was exposed. He sneered.'How about, Hey, Arkim, I'm a virgin, by the way...be gentle with me.'
Sylvie stood up then, and Arkim could see how she trembled. The exposed skin of her shoulder and upper chest was very white. Delicate. Fragile. And he'd been like a rutting bull in a china shop.
He wanted to smash something.
'I didn't think you'd notice and I didn't think it was important.'
'Well, I did notice and it is important.' Arkim stalked away and then back, folding his arms across his chest.'You're twenty-eight and you work in a strip club-how the hell are you still a virgin?'
Sylvie hitched her chin.'It's not a strip club. And I just...was never interested before now.'
She started to look around for her things and Arkim caught her by the arm. The anger inside him was a turbulent mass. Everything in him wanted to lash out, to blame someone-blame her. If she'd told him...
What? asked a snide voice. Would you have let her go?
Never.
'Why, Sylvie? And it's not just because you weren't interested. You're a sexual being-it oozes from you. I had no idea. If I had-'
She wrenched her arm free, fire flashing in her eyes now, any hint of vulnerability gone.'You'd have what? Declined the offer?'
She spied her robe on the ground and grabbed it, letting the sheet fall as she tugged it on-but not before Arkim saw that luscious body and his own reacted forcibly.
Then she stopped and glared at him.'You want to know the psychological motivation behind my still being a virgin? Really?'
Suddenly he didn't. But she went on.
'My father rejected me as a child. My mother had died-his beloved wife-and I resembled her so much that he couldn't bear to look at me. So he sent me away. He's never been able to look at me since then without pain or grief. The truth is he would have switched me for her any day of the week.'
Arkim's chest ached.'How can you know that?'
'Because I overheard him talking to someone. I heard him say how he couldn't bear the sight of me-that I was a constant reminder that she was gone and that if he could he'd have her back instead of me.'
Arkim reached out, but she slapped his hand away.
'And as for why I decided to let you be my first lover...? Well, maybe I felt bizarrely secure in the fact that you'd already rejected me on pretty much every level that counts. When you've protected yourself against rejection your whole life, it's almost a relief not to have to fear it any more.'
She stepped back, the robe pulled so tightly around her that every curve was lovingly delineated, and then she left.
* * *
Sylvie was so angry and humiliated she could have cried. But her anger kept the tears at bay. What on earth had possessed her to spill her soul to Arkim like that? As if he cared about the sob story of her relationship with her father. Or about her deepest inner fears of being rejected. She'd never even spoken to Sophie of any of this, not wanting to burden her sister with a negative view of their father.
Sylvie paced back and forth, her emotions vying between humiliation and anger, very aware of the dull throb and stinging between her legs. She stopped in her tracks when she thought of the excruciating pain of Arkim trying to penetrate her-his shock when he'd realised why he couldn't.