‘Work with me here,’ he muttered. ‘I’m pretty sure I can go slower. You just have to stop kissing me like that.’
‘Oh, my God!’ she said.
He nipped at her jaw, the slender curve of her neck, the sweep of her shoulder, and everywhere he touched she responded with a shudder, a purr, a gasp. He was dizzy with the feel of her, wild with need for her. He slid his fingers between her legs, found her soft and damp as he parted her protective folds to expose her tiny bud and position himself against her more fully. Against but not in, always rocking, always intensifying the sweet slide of skin against skin until her breath came in short, sharp gasps and her eyes turned molten. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, her mound slick and swollen against his hardness as her movements grew more frantic. He sucked in his breath as she trailed her hands down his chest to his nipples and stroked them to hardness, carefully passive, and aching with the control it took to stay that way as she moved her hands lower, positioned herself above him and guided him in, a fraction at a time.
That was when he felt it. A barrier in his way.
No! Surely not. It couldn’t possibly be what he thought it was. Could it? Her eyelashes were shielding her eyes, her brow was furrowed as she focussed intently on the task at hand and, dammit, she was chewing on her bottom lip. Oh, no. Please, no. ‘You’re not a virgin, are you?’ he asked with an impending sense of doom.
‘Does it matter?’ she said, still trying—unsuccessfully—to accommodate him.
What did she mean, did it matter? ‘Of course it matters!’ he roared. ‘Oh, hell. You are a virgin!’
‘Well, technically, yes,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m not that inexperienced. I’ve had sexual relations before.’
‘Don’t you dare bring politics into this conversation,’ he snapped, snatching his hands from her body and pressing them against the bed as he struggled for control. ‘You! A virgin! What next?’
Her eyes narrowed, her chin came up. He loved that look. His body loved that look. His body, he thought with increasing alarm, was almost past the point of stopping.
‘Get off,’ he ordered.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ She bit her bottom lip, pressed down hard, and suddenly, suddenly, he was in.
Her eyes watered, her breath seemed to catch in her throat.
Oh, God! His control was moments away from shattering. She was so hot, so tight, so wet. ‘Don’t panic!’ he muttered. ‘We can fix this.’
How on earth were they going to fix this?
Hallie started to giggle.
‘Don’t laugh,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t move!’ If she moved, he was history.
She moved, and so did he, rolling with her, rolling her onto her back and moving over her, into her, his movements carefully restrained as he tried, God help him, to be gentle with her.
She looked up at him then, her eyes dark and slumberous and her lips curved, and he felt her melt into him, felt her body grow accustomed to him as his strokes grew longer until at last he was sheathed inside her completely. He managed a smile, shuddering with the effort it took to rein himself in. ‘You okay?’ he muttered.
‘Absolutely.’
And then she was threading her hands through his hair and dragging his lips down to hers and he was surging into her, his control a thing of the past. Trying to be gentle with her and not at all sure he was succeeding as he rode out his need for her, his fascination with her, each stroke destroying him, what was left of him, and all around them was the rich scent of sex and the slide of sweat-slicked bodies. His need for her was outrageous, his satisfaction darkly overwhelming as she gave herself over to him, came for him, convulsing around him with a soft, sexy cry that screamed through his senses.
Now. As she cried out again, wrapped her legs around him and urged him deeper.
Now.
Later, much later, he carried her to the bathroom, turned the shower on hot and hard and stood her under the spray, one arm wrapped around her waist to support her. Gentleman or rogue—he figured he had his answer. Figured he was going to have to live with it. ‘Can you stand?’ he asked gruffly.
‘Of course I can stand.’ She pushed his arm away and took a couple of wobbly steps towards the soap. ‘Walking’s the challenge.’
‘Here…’ He adjusted the showerheads so that the water cascaded over them both and handed her the soap. He’d never in his wildest dreams imagined that sassy Hallie Bennett was a virgin. She was twenty-four. What woman in this day and age reached her mid-twenties still a virgin? And why? ‘I, ah, hope you weren’t saving yourself for your future husband,’ he said awkwardly.