He arched a brow. “This is what we bargained for. Are you reneging?”
“No,” she managed. “But I…I’ve never…”
He nodded. “I realize that.”
He said nothing more, but stroked his hand over her breast. In the office, she had been protected at least a little by the layer of fabric of her gown plus the chemise beneath. Now there was nothing but a thin scrap of silk that kept him from touching her intimately and shockingly.
She felt the roughness of his palms through that scrap, the heat of his thumb as it strummed her. She felt the way her nipple responded by hardening to a tight, aching bud that seemed to betray all she had been taught as a lady.
“God,” she whispered and reached back to find some balance on the edge of the bed.
“Don’t fight that feeling,” he murmured, placing the opposite hand on the strap of her chemise. “Let it happen. Let yourself feel every pleasure. Let yourself ache.”
She shook her head, and her voice barely carried as she murmured, “I don’t know how.”
“I’m teaching you,” he said, lifting his gaze to snare her with blue, steely heat. “Now surrender.”
Such a dangerous word, and an even more dangerous concept. Surrender? To this man? To do so was madness, given their history. And yet her eyes fluttered shut of their own accord. She did not fight him as the chemise strap slipped down her shoulder and one breast was bared to him. She did not pull away.
“Yes,” he breathed and his head moved, lowered. Her eyes flew open just as he gently licked the naked nipple of her left breast.
Heated, powerful and utterly wild pleasure mobbed her. Wetness suddenly flooded her thighs, and her womanly parts flexed over and over as sharp sensations overtook her. She cried out and clung to him, holding him against her as the crisis intensified and then faded, leaving her to collapse, shocked and shivering, against the bed.
Chapter Eight
Christian stared at her a moment with astonishment lining his face. Ava flushed, even as her body remained warm and satisfied from whatever unexpected explosion had just rocked her body and her very soul. From his expression, she could see she had done something wrong, something he hadn’t expected. And now she had no idea what he would do in response.
But then he surprised her again by smiling.
“Without even touching your pussy, without stimulating you in any way beyond that vague touch,” he said, easing onto the bed beside her and urging her to move and lay against the pillows beside him.
“My…?” she trailed off.
He shook his head. “Your pussy. It is a vulgar term for your womanly parts. I apologize.”
Renewed heat flushed her cheeks at his frank explanation, but she refused to turn away. She had to be strong now that she was on this path with this strange and seductive man.
“I don’t understand what happened,” she whispered as she rested her head against the comfortable pillows and glanced at him. “What was that feeling?”
“Release, my dear.”
Release, that was a good word for it. The pressure from his touch had built up in her, becoming maddening until that moment when pleasure mobbed her, freed her.
“Release,” she repeated.
“Orgasm,” he explained further. “Many women struggle to attain it, but a few are so responsive that the slightest touch, the barest excitement can overtake them and make them come. You appear to be one of the latter.”
She bit her lip. “Come…”
“To find orgasm, to experience that release,” he explained as he stroked her shoulder lightly. Electric heat seemed to flow from his fingers and through her body when he did so. “Did you like it?”
“Coming?” she said, looking at him to see if she was using this new terminology correctly.
He nodded.
She swallowed, her mind still spinning as she tried to process it all. “I—I don’t know. It was so powerful, so confusing.”
“You’ll expect it the next time it happens,” he soothed her, dragging his fingers down to the swollen nipple he had been teasing when the…the thing had happened. “Eventually, you’ll come to crave it.”
She arched her back as he plucked the sensitive peak of her breast. “I—I thought there was more to it than this,” she admitted on a blush.
“It? You mean our joining?” he asked.
She nodded slowly, her mind addled by the warmth of his caress.
“Indeed there is,” he chuckled, dragging the other chemise strap down so she was entirely naked from the waist up. “Are you ready?”
“I don’t know. I’m so…so…”
“Shhh,” he whispered, moving to cover her body with his. She saw the slight strain of discomfort around his eyes until he maneuvered himself into a better position. “Let me show you. Relax.”
She almost laughed. Relax? While he was lying atop her? While she was nearly naked in his arms? While he was lowering his head for another deep, probing kiss?
And yet despite all those outlandish things, his kiss did relax her. She settled back and found herself enjoying the pleasure, enjoying his kiss and the light way he stroked her body here and there, strumming her as if she were an instrument he was learning bit by bit.
A talented student, he certainly was, too. The sharp, intense pleasure that had so taken her off guard had faded now, taking her surprise with it. What was left was a dull version, a throbbing ache that seemed to build slowly as he touched her, stroked her.
She could have lain that way with him forever, but he seemed determined to charge forward, driven for more, though she couldn’t fathom how much more there was to give or take.
He broke their kiss and glided downward, nuzzling and nipping her neck, back to suckle her breasts. He took his time, switching between them to caress them both with the tip of his tongue until her languid body lit on fire again. This time it was a slower burn, but it was most definitely there, hot and insistent and hinting that it could rage out of control at any moment.
When she was mewling with pleasure, when she felt sure she would shatter once again, he pulled away, gliding lower. He tugged her gown and undergarments over her hips, then tossed them aside. She was naked.
Her eyes flew open, and she stared down as he pressed warm kisses to the flat plane of her belly.
She was naked with this man. Utterly and completely naked. And he was resting his head just inches from the most secret part of herself.
“Stop staring at me as if you think I’m going to murder you,” Christian said, looking up at her through hooded eyes. “I might eat you, but never hurt you.”
“Eat me?” she said, not understanding until his mouth came down against her thigh. Surely he couldn’t mean—
But he continued his shocking exploration, adjusting himself to lie between her legs, kissing her sensitive flesh as he urged her to open her legs by pressing his hands to her thighs. She let them fall open without meaning to do so and blushed as he looked at her sex.
No one had ever done this. She didn’t even look at or touch herself. Now he was mere millimeters from her and staring at her like she was something delectable.
He looked up and his wolfish grin flashed his teeth.
“So lovely,” he murmured and then he dropped his mouth to her.
She gasped as he pressed a kiss to her sex. But the gasp vanished, as did her breath to produce it, when he spread the outer lips of her body and pressed a second kiss far more intimately. His tongue came out then and he swept it along her length, like she was a fruit to be savored.
Worse than that, her body reacted. That hard, harsh pleasure that had swept her away a moment before returned and she gripped the sheets, twisting them as she lifted her hips to meet the strokes of his tongue. She was out of control. She was completely wanton. She didn’t know what she was doing, and yet her body led the way without any assistance or guidance from her at all.
He sucked at her and suddenly there was a starburst of color that flashed
before her eyes. Her body thrashed with little quaking shivers and she…came. That was the word he had used.
He was relentless in his ministrations. Although she was crying out and arching wildly beneath his mouth, he carried on, sucking and tasting, licking and caressing until she fell back against the pillow in weak and utter exhaustion.
It was then that he maneuvered slightly. Through the fog of release, she saw that he had opened the fly of his trousers and now his member was free. She tried to see it, for she had never seen one before, but he moved too quickly. She felt him at her slick, wet entrance.
“There will be a moment of pain, Ava, when I claim your innocence fully. But once it has passed, that pleasure you have felt twice now will be common to you when our bodies become one. Please trust me in this if in nothing else.”
She flinched. Trust? How could she do so?
She might have asked him that, but he covered her mouth with his and kissed her deeply, passionately. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.
He drove forward and she cried out in pain. He felt big. Too big as her body stretched inch by inch to accommodate him. And yet, despite her anxiety at the entry to her untried body, some primal part of her still lifted to meet him, maneuvered to allow him better access. Once again her body knew what her mind did not and welcomed this joining in ways she did not expect.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, burying his face into her hair and pressing a kiss to the place where her neck and shoulder met. “It will fade in a moment. Breathe with me.”
She stared at him. He pulled back and looked down at her as he began to draw deep, calculated breaths. She slowly matched her own breathing to his, and soon they shared a rhythm.
Something almost as intimate as their joined bodies.
He turned his face away, as if that intimacy had just occurred to him as well. Then he pulled his hips back and stroked into her again. This time there was no pain and she sighed as he began a slow, gentle pace inside her body.
She did not expect pleasure to come again, not after twice, not when there had been pain at their first moment of joining, but as he thrust into her, keeping a steady rhythm, that pleasure built again. Brick by brick, it created a wall, then a tower, and just when she felt too full from it, the world shattered and she cried out.
Her release seemed to inspire his, and he withdrew from her quivering body to spend between them. For a moment, he remained over her, his body shaking in time with hers, his arms still tight around her in a warm embrace. Then he rolled away, stiff and awkward thanks to his injury, to lie on his back.
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. His face was so unreadable that she had no idea what was in his mind. Although the encounter had seemed as intense for him as it was for her, was he unhappy? He had pulled from her body, did that mean something? Would he renege on their arrangement now that her virginity was gone?
She rolled to her side and looked at him full on. “Have I upset you? Disappointed you?”
He jolted, almost as if he had been lost in thought, and glanced at her. “No,” he said. “No, I am anything but disappointed, Ava.”
“Then you shall not go back on our bargain?” she said, relief flooding her.
His brow wrinkled. “You have surrendered your innocence. There is no going back now.”
She shivered as she stared up at the ceiling far above. No going back. That was most definitely true. She had given up her one bargaining chip for any relationship. And the future without it was very hazy.
She closed her eyes and tried not to ponder that truth any longer. It was quiet in the room, warm from the fire, and after such strenuous activity and so much high emotion, she found herself very tired. As she drifted away into sleep, her last coherent thought was that she had to make this sacrifice worthwhile.
It was her only choice now.
Christian lay on his side, watching Ava as she slept. Her face was soft in the dying firelight, free of the worry and fear that had lined it since he took her.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that he had stood in the shadows on the terrace and plotted to take her. His plans, which had been so clear and made so much sense to him, now had been altered because of her. He had gone from vengeance to pleasure, a ruination in name alone to the claiming of her innocence in a most enjoyable encounter.
One that had included a connection he had not expected nor desired. In the moment he had claimed her body, he had been overtaken by a primitive sense of ownership, of protection, of claiming that had nothing to do with her quaking body or his long-neglected physical desires.
“Manipulation,” he muttered as he got up and paced away from her.
But could he truly accuse this woman, who reacted so guilelessly to his touch, who had truly been an innocent until he took that from her?
He shook his head. Whatever the answer, his path was clear. There could be no connection with her, no further moment of weakness to her wiles, purposeful or not. She was a means to vengeance and perhaps a bit of pleasure.
Nothing more.
He turned back to look at her. She was curled up on the bed, naked. He grabbed a small blanket from the chair beside the fire and draped it over her before he buttoned his trousers and moved to the door, moving slowly so he didn’t require his cane. He rang the bell, then waited there.
Within seconds a servant arrived. He was very careful not to look into the bedroom as Christian directed him to bring a tray of food and to arrange for a bath to be drawn in the adjoining room. When the arrangements had been made, he limped back to the chair beside the fire and sat, trying not to look at the sleeping woman who had somehow utterly discombobulated him in such a short time.
He would not allow her to affect him. Not in any way.
Chapter Nine
When there was a light rap on the door half an hour later, Ava sat up and looked around, her expression dazed and softened by her brief nap. When she caught a glimpse of Christian rising from the chair beside the fire, her cheeks darkened to deep red, and she quickly covered herself with the blanket he had draped over her a short time earlier.
He almost laughed at her modesty. As if he could forget every inch of that delicious body just because she hid it away for a moment.
“I took the liberty of asking the servants for a tray,” he explained as he moved toward the door. “You hardly ate anything earlier, and you must be famished.”
She nodded. “I admit, I am. Is there something I can put on quickly?”
He shrugged. “They will not come in, and I have already seen anything you wish to hide.”
Her brow wrinkled ever so slightly. “I suppose that is a true enough statement.”
She settled herself in a seated position against the pillows, blanket wrapped around her loosely, and watched him. He felt suddenly awkward, very aware of his limp, as he took the tray from the maid outside and stepped back into the room. As the girl shut the door behind him, he faced Ava.
“Do you mind eating in bed?” he asked.
“I only eat in bed under very unusual circumstances,” she said. Her eyes sparkled as she added. “These certainly fit that description—why not?”
He hesitated before bringing the tray over and setting it on the bed before her. He joined her there and began pouring her wine from the bottle that had been included on the tray.
“Would it be terribly rude of me to dive in?” she asked, eyeing the cheese, biscuits, fruit and meats that had been provided by Christian’s cook as a hardy snack for post-lovemaking.
“Please do,” he said and watched in wonder as she popped a bite of cheese between her lips and made a little rumble of pleasure.
What else he had expected, he didn’t know. He didn’t make a habit of deflowering virgins, especially virgin enemies. But somehow he hadn’t thought she would awaken in such high spirits. Should she not be flogging herself for giving away the prize of her virginity?
But if she was, she kept that secret well.
They ate together in silence for a while, which gave him plenty of time to observe her behavior even further.
Her dark hair had fallen down around her shoulders during their lovemaking session, and the firelight caught its auburn highlights time and again. She moved with a delicacy that spoke of good breeding and education, but the little sounds she made as she gobbled up her food were highly sensual.
Still, she seemed to be increasingly relaxed, even in his presence. As if now that the deed of trading her innocence was done, she could finally be free and make the best of her situation.
“You know, this room would be prettier if you gave it more color,” she said, looking around.
His eyes widened at her unexpected statement. “You are giving me decorating tips?”
“It seems as good a topic as any to fill this very awkward silence,” she offered with a shrug.
He placed his napkin on the coverlet and tilted his head. “You are afraid of silence, then?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I enjoy privacy and silence a great deal. But this silence isn’t particularly comfortable, is it? I feel like you are waiting for me to burst into tears, and your face tells me you might run screaming from the room if I did. Honestly, I speak in order to enhance your comfort.”
He stared at her, gaping. For the first time in a very long time, he was utterly speechless. A fact which didn’t seem to particularly bother the woman sitting beside him. She merely pressed a strawberry between her delightful lips and awaited his response.
A response he was spared from offering when there was a noise from the adjoining room. Her gaze flitted away from him toward the other room.
“What was that?” she asked.
“They are drawing a bath for you,” he explained. When she looked at him, he shrugged. “It will help with any pain remaining from the removal of your innocence.”
Her stare returned to his face and she stared at him, questions in her eyes. “I am not sure what to think of that,” she finally said. “Of you.”
He pushed off the bed and grasped his cane. Turning his back to her, he moved for the door. “I will check on the bath for you and fetch you when they have finished readying it.”
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