His hips flexed against hers and he gave a low grown. ‘‘You’re so tight.’’
The way he said it, she assumed it was a good thing. Then he was moving in and out of her. The uncomfortable pressure decreased, but the good pressure, the kind she’d felt before when he’d touched her and kissed her down there, started. She found herself flexing against him, wanting him to thrust inside her more.
‘‘I can’t,’’ he breathed against her mouth. ‘‘I can’t hold back.’’
He broke their kiss and straightened slightly. He grabbed her hips and held her still while he buried himself inside of her over and over again. Their eyes locked. She watched his expression tighten. He swore. ‘‘I’m not going to last much longer.’’
In a flash of insight, she realized he was both warning her and asking for permission. ‘‘It’s all right,’’ she assured him, feeling the tingling inside of her grow. She realized that if they did it again and it took a little longer, she would climax herself.
He thrust inside deeper still, then froze in place. His mouth opened and his lips formed her name, but he didn’t actually speak. She watched as the wave of pleasure crashed over him, making him first tense, then shudder. He collapsed against her, pulling her close, then rolling onto his side and taking her with him, their arms and legs wrapped around each other.
He was still buried inside of her. Alex inhaled the masculine scent of him and of their lovemaking. This was how it was supposed to be, she thought in contentment. She knew they would make love again and again, and each time it would be better.
‘‘You’re full of surprises,’’ Mitch said, then kissed her forehead, her cheek and her nose.
Nothing in his tone warned her, so she was unprepared when he raised his head and stared at her, then spoke again.
‘‘But you should have told me you were a virgin.’’
Chapter Fourteen
Alex’s expression shifted swiftly, showing shock, then disbelief, then guilt. Until he’d seen the last emotion, Mitch had been praying he’d been wrong. But her sudden inability to meet his eyes warned him that his worst nightmare had just come true.
‘‘How did you know?’’ she asked.
‘‘I didn’t,’’ he said flatly. ‘‘It was a hunch. You just confirmed it.’’
‘‘Oh.’’
‘‘Yeah, oh.’’
He pulled out of her and rolled onto his back, then pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. What the hell had he just done? Alex looked a few years younger, but he knew for a fact that she was pushing thirty. How could she still be a virgin? Then he remembered that she wasn’t an ordinary woman—that she was royalty and that she’d been saving herself for Prince Charming.
‘‘What gave me away?’’ she asked. ‘‘Did I do something wrong?’’
He felt more than heard the quaver in her voice. Dammit. She was about to get all female on him and start worrying about whatever it was women worried about in this particular situation. When had everything spun out of control, and how could he undo what they’d just done?
Except he didn’t want to. Mitch groaned low in his throat. That was the hell of it. Even if someone offered him a way back about thirty minutes, he wouldn’t take it. Because for some stupid macho reason, he was glad that he’d been Alex’s first time, which made as little sense as her wanting him to be the one to change her life.
He rolled over and faced her. Her auburn curls tumbled across the pillow. Her skin was impossibly pale, with a faint rose glow staining her face and her chest. It was the lingering physical manifestation of her release, and he was fiercely glad that he’d done that to her.
‘‘It’s your fault,’’ he told her. ‘‘If you weren’t so beautiful and so imperious, none of this would have happened. I’ll be damned if I’ll have regrets, but we both know we shouldn’t have done that.’’
‘‘Why not?’’
‘‘Because.’’
She smiled. ‘‘Oh, there’s a sterling reason.’’
He touched her cheek, then rubbed his thumb across her mouth. ‘‘You make me crazy.’’
‘‘In a good way?’’
‘‘In the best way possible.’’ He lowered his hand into her hair and squeezed a fistful of curls. ‘‘So have I committed a felony or what? There have to be some pretty stiff penalties for stealing a royal princess’s virtue.’’
‘‘I’ll have to do some research, but I have a fairly close relationship with the king, and I’m sure I can get him to go easy on you, as they say here in your country.’’
‘‘Sorry, Alex, but the king isn’t going to want to do much more than change me from a bull to a steer.’’
