Gritting his teeth against temptation, he held her wriggling hips still and nudged another tiny bit into her.
Despite her open hunger, she was a novice at this-it was his task as her husband to prepare her, soothe her.. and then storm her. Another tiny nudge.
He did the same again and again, moving slowly deeper until he hit the feminine barrier he'd known was waiting for him. Some wholly primitive part of him growled in approval. She was his. For always. It was right that he was the one to initiate her into this. The only one. Fighting the grip of the primitive within, he took her lips in a voracious kiss and nudged again, this time with more force. That fine barrier stretched and then broke. Hira's fingers dug into his shoulders but she didn't pull away.
Instead she returned his kiss with fierceness that destroyed him. Sure of his welcome, he pushed fully into her almost-shocking heat. The pleasure was indescribable. Lips locked with hers, he moved one hand to her bottom, squeezing and caressing as his other hand moved up to her breast. He could feel her fighting the multiple sensations, trying to control her senses.
"Let go, baby. Let go for me." His husky demand was whispered into her mouth, almost drowned out by the water.
But she'd heard. When he rolled her nipple in his fingers, her body jerked and then she cried out against his lips.
Her surrender was apparent in the way she clung to him as ripples of pleasure tore through her body. In the deepest, most feminine part of her, she clenched around him again and again, an intimate caress that brought him to the edge of insanity. He clung to that edge with every ounce of strength he possessed, determined to hold her safe through her first ride into the firestorm of pleasure.
Almost sobbing with the fury of her ecstasy, her legs locked tight around his hips, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against him, as if she wanted to crawl into his body. It was the final straw.
He started moving faster, speeding his rhythm in a way designed to stroke her already sensitive inner tissues into shuddering abandon. He felt her shock as her body began to react again, felt her mouth open on the skin of his neck as she kissed him there, touched him, stroked her fingers into his wet hair. But she didn't back away.
Her lush body accepted the pleasure he lavished on her. It was all he'd wanted, but she gave him more. With her lips and her hands and the way she held him to her, she not only accepted but actively participated, telling him without words that his pleasure mattered to her. It was his last thought before the spiraling void he'd been circling sucked him in.
He took her over the edge with him, took her on another incandescent ride into a realm where pleasure was the only currency. His and hers.
Five
Hira wasn't sure she was functioning properly. Moving her head with care lest it fall off, she looked beside her to the hunter sharing the bed. Yes, she'd once thought him a civilized man, but that had been a complete delusion. He was about as civilized as a mountain lion. His taking of her-and it had been a taking in the most basic sense-had been domineering, controlling and very, very sexual.
This very uncivilized man thought he owned her even relaxed hi sleep. She was pinned down with«ne heavy arm thrown across her waist and a muscular thigh across her lower legs; now that she'd given herself to him, he wouldn't allow her to back away from their sexual joining.
But was it making love?
No, she thought with a little pang of loss. It hadn't been making love. He desired her but he didn't love her. And as for her? She didn't know what to make of her own emotions. She'd been so sure she'd loved Romaz, and yet she'd never felt this desire to mate with him that she did for her American husband.
From the first moment she'd seen Marc, her feelings had spun as wildly out of control as a desert storm. Turning, she raised one hand and brushed his dark hair off his face, unable to stop the tender caress of her fingertips across his strong jaw.
He fascinated her, this hunter with his scars and his eyes full of shadows. She'd never seen a more magnificent man, and she came from a culture far more primitive in its beliefs about men and women than her new home.
Zulheil's history had made its men toughened, somewhat wild creatures who had to be coaxed to trust a gentle feminine hand.
Had she misjudged her husband and dealt with him in the worst possible way? If he were like the men of her homeland, then he would have to be treated with the same wary tenderness, for wild creatures didn't trust so easily as their civilized brethren. She'd thought him an American millionaire but that was merely a mask. He was far more like Zulheil's desert chieftains, who sometimes took women for the simple reason that they wanted them.
Eyes the shade of aged silver were suddenly looking into hers. "How long have you been awake?" he demanded.
"Hours and hours," she lied. Like those chieftains, he must never be given all he wanted, or he'd become a total dictator.
His lips curved in that slow sexy smile that never failed to weaken her virtue, and he rolled over to lie on top of her, his arousal nudging at her. Shocked, she felt her eyes widen. "Already?"
"The first two times were mere entrees, baby. I'm working toward the main course." He pushed into her.
Gently. Oh, so gently.
Surprised by the tenderness she could feel in the care he took with her well-loved body, she was undone. To her further shock, she accepted him easily, without pain or discomfort, feeling only sweet, hot hunger. He was slow this time around, moving with languorous ease that gave her much pleasure. As passion built, she rode the tide with him, clutching the sheets and letting him kiss and suck her breasts as he would, giving herself to her hunter.
Marc watched Hira move sinuously beneath him and could barely believe she'd been a virgin only hours before. He'd been merciless, not letting her recover from that first joining before taking her again, stroking her to incoherent passion as morning turned to afternoon, his appetite for her and her pleasure out of control. But she'd been with him every step, a sensual, gorgeous creature whose body reacted to his touch like dynamite to fire. He'd never had his hands full of fire before. It was an education.
Though he would never tell her, she'd spoiled him for other women. They damn well were going to stay married forever because he had no intention of going without, now that he knew what was possible. In bed she was his perfect mate, honest and giving with just a whisper of wildness. He wanted to coax more of that wildness from her, in the bedroom and out.
Her breath hissed out from between her lips as he touched her deep in her heat, his engorged flesh stretching her swollen tissues. Slowing the tempo of his hips, he stroked and kissed and caressed, giving her the tenderness he'd denied her earlier. "Was I too rough, cher?"
Exotic eyes of lightest brown met his. "Did I complain?"
He grinned. "You said I made you crazy."
She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. Obligingly he moved close enough for her to kiss him. "Yes. I am insane and that is your punishment."
Chuckling, he inserted a hand between their bodies and caressed her where she was most sensitive. She moved against him, surprising him with her acceptance of the intimacy. To his delight her curious honesty apparently translated into open sensuality in bed. He gave her what she wanted and she returned the favor, locking her long legs around his hips and holding him to her.
Watching her eyes go almost golden as she reached her climax, Marc wondered why this day felt more momentous than their wedding ceremony.
After that incredibly pleasurable day with her husband, Hira decided to truly fight for their marriage. She had taken vows. Though they hadn't been made with full freedom of choice, they had been made. She had many faults, but she wasn't a promise breaker.
Her husband didn't love her, she thought as she walked along a stream that ran near the house. But neither did he treat her with the lack of courtesy that her father always showed her mother. It wasn't much, but it was better than the life she'd expected on her wedding night.