For uncounted minutes in the heated dark, they communed on that sensual plane open only to lovers.
He showed her the ways, taught her to experience, enjoy, and savor the most delicious of intimate delights.
In return, she eagerly followed his lead and proved herself an avid student.
Step by step, through scalding caresses and tantalizing touches and demands laced with a desire so hot it burned, he sank deeper, more profoundly under the sway of the compulsion to please her. To give her all—everything—she desired and more. To reveal the totality of the landscape that passion could paint. To thrill her with fresh experiences and new insights—into him as much as herself.
Under his steady, experienced guidance, he pushed her to know herself sexually. To revel in that understanding. And in so doing, he opened himself to her in a new and very different way to any previous lover.
This, with her, was so very different. He’d wondered if it would be—had heard and suspected that it might be so—and so it was proving. His devotion to her pleasure—to this depth, this intensity—was something novel and new.
It was almost frightening, so complete was that compulsion’s hold on him.
Of course, she wanted to rush ahead, but on that point, he was adamant. He wanted her beyond heated and ready when he entered her. He wanted her so desperate she wouldn’t care about the inevitable pain.
It had been a long time since he’d last lain with a virgin. With her, he wasn’t willing to take any chances.
That fleeting thought brought another to mind. In an effort to distract her and himself, he pulled back from the searing exchange enough to ask, “Why just one night?”
From under his heavy lids, he scanned her features. Lips swollen, eyes closed, head tipped back, she was so gloriously lost to passion, he felt he stood a decent chance of gaining an honest, unshielded answer.
When she didn’t reply, he stilled his hands.
A faint frown tangled her fine brows. “Because…I want to know. I’m curious. And once—tonight—will answer my questions. Satisfy my curiosity.” She raised her lids enough to look at him. “Won’t it?”
He stared at her for a second—at the blue glint of her eyes beneath her lashes—then he ducked his head to hide his grin. “That’s my aim—to satisfy you.” He illustrated by pressing an open-mouthed kiss to her bare stomach.
Her lids fell, and on a smothered moan, she arched lightly beneath him.
He refocused on the task before him, rekindling their passions and fanning the flames, while some small part of his brain turned over her words, and the Cynster in him recognized and gleefully accepted her challenge.
That of ensuring that this one night would not be enough. That the pleasure he lavished on her would sink to her bones and bring her back, tomorrow and the next day and the next, eager and hungry for more.
He fell to with alacrity, with a devotion that was absolute.
And as she writhed beneath his hands, her body rising helplessly beneath his ministrations, and the pressure to seize the moment and join with her built, he gloried in her open, unrestrained responses and drank in her delight.
The time was right, the moment upon them. She was frantically eager as he parted her thighs and settled between. The tip of his engorged erection unerringly found her scalding slickness, but before he could press gently in, she tipped her hips in flagrant invitation, and he reacted and thrust deep.
She gasped, but not in pain. Her eyes flew open, and her luscious lips once again formed a perfect soundless O.
Her nails sank into his arms as he set his jaw and, lids falling, nudged deeper still, pushing farther into the scalding haven of her body, then with one last, almost involuntary thrust, he seated himself fully within her body’s embrace.
He refocused on her face, and the stars in her eyes almost undid him.
Her expression was a combination of amazed, astonished, and utterly delighted.
And he hadn’t even moved.
A vague notion explaining her lack of pain floated through his mind. She’d ridden a great deal throughout her life. While he’d definitely felt the resistance as he’d entered her, the pressure had been slight, barely there.
“Oh.” The shiver of sound escaped her lips, laden with joyful wonder.
Then she clamped about him—hard—and it was he who saw stars.
He hung his head and groaned. “Adriana…”
“It feels so strange.” She experimented, relaxing, then tightening.
