He smiled down at her and brushed his mouth over hers. “I told you, lady, you can trust me to take care of you.”
“See, that’s the thing,” she said, determined not to get lost in his gaze. That was hard. She was falling fast into all that beautiful blue. The odds were stacking up very quickly against her. This couldn’t happen. But his hands moved down her body, and he had great hands. She felt the peculiar lethargy that had overtaken her before. Her body lay under his, wanting him. Even her brain betrayed her, whispering, Just this once. You’re alone with him. Just this once let yourself feel beautiful. Sexy. Like a woman.
“I don’t need taking care of,” she informed him.
His hand slid under her shirt and moved up her side, fingers taking in her skin. Skin that was hot. Needy. Skin that longed for his touch. His hand reached the sides of her breasts and stroked. Her breath hitched in her throat. Left her lungs in a rush. She should have screamed and pushed him away. That was the only sane thing to do.
Once she had this beautiful memory, it would haunt her forever. She wasn’t stupid. She knew she felt things too deeply. She had to protect herself or she would be scarred by him for life. Until the day she died. She would feel beautiful. Sexy. A woman. And then he would be gone and she would be alone.
“You live too much in your mind.”
He took her mouth. Not gentle. Not coaxing. He took it. As in claiming it. As in making her mouth—his. She could never kiss another man. Not ever. Not without tasting him and thinking of him and comparing. There would be no comparison. Every other man would come up short.
She tried to keep her sanity. She tried to chant in her mind who she was. Who she would always be. But his kisses swept through her like a drug. So hot. So tempting. So demanding. She gave herself up to have more. So many more. He had to exchange breath with her to keep her from passing out. Still he kissed her, and then his hands were on her breast and she heard herself cry out. Soft. Exposed. Needing him. Needing more.
Somehow, after all the years of emptiness, he poured himself into her, filling every empty place. Giving her something she was terrified of taking. Waking her body up when it had gone to sleep so long ago. She felt like a virgin. A terrified virgin. That was totally humiliating considering her age and that she should be a woman, not a teenager unable to control herself.
She had no idea what to do, but she needed more. She kissed him like a woman starved, and she had been starved. She kissed him like a woman possessed, and she was fairly certain he’d possessed her. At the very least she was under some spell he’d ensnared her with.
His hands were on her bare skin, whispering over the swell of her breasts, sliding down to her nipples, thumbs doing delicious things that sent fiery streaks straight toward her most feminine core. Then his mouth was there. At her breasts. Alternating between them, sucking them deep and then flicking with his tongue, using the edge of his teeth until she was crying out in desperate hunger.
There was no holding on to sanity. Her mind slipped right past every coherent thought and she could only feel when his fingers moved down her body, his mouth following. His fingers found the heat and wet silk between her legs and dipped. Her head thrashed wildly and she dug her fingers into his shoulders to anchor herself when she was fairly certain she was going to fly apart and never come back together. It didn’t matter.
This was worth her sanity. Right here. Right now. His hands. His mouth. His hard, hot body. She’d forgotten what a man’s body felt like. No, she’d never had a man’s body. She’d been a teenager fumbling in the dark with another teenager. This man knew exactly what he was doing, finding her song. Her music. Playing her body like a master would play an instrument.
Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her body was burning up, the tension coiling so tight she thought she might die. She couldn’t get enough of touching him, and twice she tried desperately to roll over, to be on top, to attack him to get what she wanted because he was going too slow and she was nearly sobbing with her need.
“Shh,” he whispered. “I have you. You are in my care, hän sívamak, and I will give you everything.”
She tried to be calm. She tried to get her brain working, but her body had taken over. There was no going back and she didn’t even want to. He had to be inside of her before that empty, hollow hole consumed her. He had to be inside of her until the horrible, unrelenting emptiness was filled by him, just as he’d flooded her mind with him, filling every lonely spot in her mind.
Then he was there. Kneeling over her, between her legs. She felt him at her entrance. She heard him let his breath out as he slipped just an inch inside of her. Burning. Stretching. He had to fight her tight, hot tunnel. One small inch at a time. Retreat. Come back. She thrashed under him, her hips bucking. Trying to take him. Needing him.