A Virgin to Redeem the Billionaire, page 8
She basked in the carnal roughness. It spoke of greed and need and a desire that couldn’t be quenched. Not until they could strip naked and the hard shape imprinting against her abdomen was soothing and inciting the molten ache in her center. Her need was so acute, she felt it as a sob in her throat.
Actual pain pulled at her scalp, snapping her back to reality as he held her still, refusing to let her follow his mouth when he lifted his head. Her lips burned and her breath soughed across her parted lips.
“Oh, God,” she gasped, horrified with herself. “My father probably saw that.”
“It was just a kiss,” he murmured, arms sheltering her now.
His words hurt, though. That had been a lot more than a kiss to her, but as she blinked open her eyes, she realized he had somehow shifted them into a corner where a stolen moment wasn’t so scandalous. His wide shoulders shielded her from prying eyes, giving her a chance to collect herself.
“That’s all anyone will have seen, anyway,” he added, lips grazing the tip of her ear through the fall of her hair. “I can feel your heart racing.” His hand was moving in a soothing circle across the laces of her dress.
Beneath the fist she’d curled into his lapel, she felt the answering slam of his own heart. It was as surprising as it was elating.
“What now, pussycat?” His voice sounded almost as drugged as she felt his breath against her hair make her scalp prickle.
She kept her nose against the silk of his tie, willing her trembles to subside, but they only increased as she realized what he was asking. Stay or go?
Go where? How far? How fast?
The music changed and she heard a voice nearby.
She couldn’t stay here and act like her world hadn’t been turned inside out. She swallowed and said, “We should leave.”
Moments later, they had said their goodbyes and were in the back of his car.
The night air seemed thick, creating a bubble of pressure around them as they made the short drive in the dark. Her mouth was dry, her limbs not hers. As they walked into his building and rode the elevator upward, she had to remind herself to breathe. It wasn’t until he was closing the door with a definitive click that he openly acknowledged why they had hurried back here.
“Everything I’ve said remains the same.” He stayed by the door, sexual energy radiating off him in lethal waves. “If that’s not what you want, we’ll retire to our separate rooms.”
Her throat grew thick with a lump of hurt and her eyes stung. “Is it so hard for you to believe I’m experiencing genuine animal attraction?”
It was more than that. As much as she found him physically enthralling, she was drawn to the man behind the facade of laid-back control. He already had the power to hurt her, but also the power to make her laugh and hope for things she knew were ridiculous, but she hoped anyway.
“I’m quite sure animal attraction is what we’re both experiencing.” His words, the smoky tone in his voice, electrified her. “But I’m not going to let you use it against me.”
“I’m not trying to,” she insisted. She heard the white lie within her own words, though. She did want something from him. Trust. She wanted him to believe her. Some corner of her brain thought that if she slept with him, and demanded nothing afterward, she would prove to him that she wasn’t like the rest.
She usually had a better grasp on reality. On her own motives, but she wanted to sleep with him. That was the glaring, shocking, painful truth. She could wait until tomorrow or the next day or the next, but she would still feel this yearning. This desire to be closer. To open herself up and understand him. She didn’t want to risk waiting until Benny reappeared. Everything would be different then. Maybe worse, maybe better. She didn’t know, but it would be different.
In this moment, they were equals of a sort. She was neither innocent nor guilty. He was neither victim nor villain. They were two people with one thing between them—desire.
“I don’t want anything else in the world right now except to feel your hands on me,” she admitted baldly.
He dragged in a ragged breath like he’d been sucker punched. He pushed off the door to come toward her.
The flutters in her belly became a wobble that went all the way into her knees.
“You’re sure?” He used light fingers to brush her hair behind her shoulder, not even touching her skin, but causing her to hold very still, paralyzed by anticipation. “Because I want to put my mouth on you. I want to claim every inch of you with every inch of me.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “That.” Whatever was in her hands fell to the floor in a pair of muted thumps.
He lowered his head to set a damp, openmouthed kiss on the point of her bare shoulder. The action raised her nipples so they stung while her whole body seemed to rise and reach toward him the way a flower stretched from the earth to seek the sun.
His firm hands encircled her waist and he buried his mouth against her neck, taking erotic mock bites up her nape so she shivered and grasped at his arms to steady herself, then turned her own mouth into his neck to taste his salty skin.
“I’ll get lipstick on your collar,” she warned as she tried to nuzzle past it.
“Good.” He bit her earlobe, making her scalp tingle. A rush of damp heat flowed into her loins. “Mark me however you like.” His tongue flicked into the sensitive hollow beneath her ear.
She wanted to laugh with mad triumph at the thought. It was insane to feel this possessive, but she did. She wanted the world to know he was hers. She wanted him to know it and took hold of his tie, holding him still while she sucked the side of his neck, branding him, then licking to soothe the sting.
His teeth flashed before he covered her mouth in a kiss that slammed through her, topping her act of claiming with his own—not by being aggressive, but with the sheer power of response he pulled from her as he tenderly savaged her mouth.
He lifted his head and looked down her front, a barbarian surveying the bounty he’d captured.
This is it, she thought distantly. She would lose her virginity to him, but she felt no hesitation or regret. This was what she had always longed for, a man whose touch swept her away. An encounter that was so encompassing, she couldn’t stop herself. It was madness, yes, but thrilling and real. Pure excitement and nothing held back.
She moved on instinct to cup the back of his neck and urge him to cover her offered mouth with his own.
The world fell away in a fresh masculine growl and the erotic sweep of his tongue. Hard arms closed around her, crushing her breath from her body as she mashed her aching breasts against the hard plate of his chest.
His hands roamed hungrily across her back, one tangling in the strings at her back, the other moving the silky fabric against her buttocks so the hem tickled the backs of her thighs. She wriggled in response, feeling her skirt climb against her hips so the front of her thighs met the abrasion of his trousers. She pulled back to tug open the buttons of his shirt and brought her hands down to claim the hot muscles and silky hair she revealed.
He was fascinating. Gorgeous and hot and hard. Animalistic and responsive, pecs twitching under her touch, utterly compelling. She knew nothing more in those seconds than the feel of him under her palms. She bathed his skin with her humid breath, heard him hiss as she chased her mouth across to his tight nipple, then sought out the other one.
He gathered her hair away from her neck and dragged at it to expose her throat to his hot mouth, then gently bit the corded muscle, sending a shudder of weakness down her spine. She arched her whole body in surrender, mashing her mound into the firm ridge behind his fly.
Wild, wild, wild. Now his teeth scraped across the fabric where her braless nipples stood at attention, making her whimper at the muted threat of pain, but the sensation wasn’t nearly acute enough to assuage the ache.
He dropped to his knees, making her stagger slightly as her hands dropped to her sides, no longer holding on to him.
He looked up at her as his hands climbed her thighs, taking her dress up, watching for her reaction, ensuring this was what she wanted.
It was. Her loins were pulsing in anticipation, her stomach fluttering, all of her so hot she could hardly draw air. She nearly fell into the molten gold of his eyes and would happily incinerate there.
When her scrap of a thong was revealed, he lowered his gaze to the veil of whisper-thin silk. She’d chosen the burgundy lace for his pleasure. It had been a conscious decision, but not something she had fully acknowledged to herself at the time.
He licked his lips and her inner muscles clenched with anticipation. Heat flooded into her loins and her pulse seemed to originate there, throbbing as he traced a single fingertip across the top of her thong, from hip to hip, barely grazing her mound.
She sobbed, paralyzed by expectation, waiting and yearning and needing more.
His finger went under the narrow band at her hip and tugged.
Her breath caught and the ache between her thighs intensified. She shifted slightly, making it easier for him to ease them down.
She was panting, thinking she ought to feel self-conscious, but she was thinking only how utterly in thrall she was. Whatever level of arousal she might have felt in the past was magnified a thousand times. Need gripped her. Need to hurry, but stand still. To throw herself at him, but be whatever he wanted her to be. She was with him in this moment and letting it unfold however he wanted to make it happen.
The silk fell to her ankles and he eased one foot out, his hand scalding on her calf. He lowered his head to kiss the inside of her knee.
She staggered and reached for his shoulders.
“Lean on the sofa.” His voice was whiskey and velvet, leather and command.
She had lost all sense of her place in the universe and was surprised to find the sofa right behind her. Her hips met the firmness of it and she balanced against it. She scrambled her hands against the leather to steady herself, fingernails stabbing against the hide as he took his time stropping his cheek against her inner thigh.
“So soft,” he murmured.
She was going to die. Die of waiting and wanting. Her blood was molasses, her eyes damp and stinging as she closed them. She bit her lip, waiting and waiting and then...
A hot, wet stroke strummed exquisite sensations all the way through her.
A gasp of delight escaped her.
He set her foot on the floor, shoes spaced wide to accommodate his kneeling between her legs. She was trapped in a delicious vise then, skirt up, exposed to him and pinned between the sofa and his tender exploration. Her fingernails were likely to puncture the leather she was in such a state of agony as she stood and endured his skillful, wicked insistence on driving her utterly mad.
He took his time, seeming to take as much pleasure as she did from each caress, drawing her to a state of acute excitement, then slowing, soothing, until she was breathing jaggedly and nearly begging before he incited her toward the edge again.
Her legs were shaking beneath the restless caress of his hands. She began rising into the rhythm of his ministrations, saying his name in ragged whispers, mindless with pleasure. She couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m ready,” she gasped, spearing her hand into his hair. “Take off your clothes. I want to feel you. Do it.”
He stayed exactly where he was. He circled one arm around her hips and moved his other hand to the top of her thigh. His thumb caressed where his tongue was already making her crazy, then gently probed and laved and stole what remained of her control.
She couldn’t withstand the intensity, the pleasure, couldn’t hold back her release. He drove her to climax and it struck like a train, crashing through her as a glittering cataclysm that rocked her with waves of pleasure, making her cry out in joyful abandon, utterly at his mercy, on her feet only because he held her there.
She didn’t even know who she was after that, except a pure being shimmering in the aftermath of orgasm. She was dimly aware that his deep caresses eased and the firm arm around her hips relaxed. He rose before her, sweeping her dress over her head as he went.
She let her arms fall as he discarded the dress. She stood naked before him, wearing only her heels, still reeling. He skimmed his gaze down her trembling form, point to point, breast tips and navel, damp curls and weak knees and wicked gilded shoes.
“Do I need a condom?”
Did he ever. She nodded dumbly.
“Bedroom, then.”
“I can’t walk,” she admitted in a whisper.
He stooped and swung her up, clutching her high against his chest as he carried her like a virgin sacrifice into his room.
CHAPTER SIX
KAINE SET HER on the bed and yanked at his shirt.
She wanted to watch him, but she wanted to unbuckle her shoes. She sat up, but her hands trembled, making her clumsy.
“You can leave them on,” he said in a growl, but she was already dropping the first one to the floor.
She looked up as she worked on the second. His eyes were bright gold, his cheeks flushed, his mouth pulled against his teeth in a hunter’s feral grin. She managed to get the other shoe unbuckled and he swept it off her foot.
“This,” he said with avid hunger, cupping her face and kissing her so she melted onto her back and he followed her down. His naked chest brushed against hers, making her squirm and stroke as much of that glorious skin of his as she could reach.
He lifted onto his elbow and looked her over again, sweeping a hand from her shoulder down her side into her waist, smoothed over her hip and down her thigh. “This is what I’ve been waiting for.” He returned to squeeze her thigh.
“Me, too,” she confessed.
His hand traveled farther, came up to cup her breast and he leaned to take her nipple into his mouth, not gentle, but she liked his greed. She stroked her hands through his hair, loving that she was pushing him to the limits of his restraint. And his sucking flooded her with fresh arousal. When he roamed his hand down her abdomen and caressed between her thighs, he groaned with pleasure at finding her slick and ready. She lifted wantonly into his caress, inviting everything he desired.
When he rose to stand over her, she was ready to weep with loss, but eager for the next step. He toed off his own shoes and stripped his lower half in a sweep, taking everything at once and throwing his final sock onto the pile as he straightened.
He was beyond ready for her, hard and thick and flushed. He took himself in hand and squeezed as though trying to hold back his release. She swallowed, suddenly apprehensive.
“What’s wrong?” He was watching her.
“Nothing,” she assured him. This was just very real all of a sudden.
He drew a condom from the night table and applied it, then joined her on the bed. Kissed her and pushed his knee between hers to part her legs.
The heel of her hand went to his shoulder of its own accord, not quite pushing him away, but signaling hesitation.
He drew back and the passion in his face altered, hardened with suspicion. “What do you want?”
He looked...ferocious. Brutal, but not in a way that threatened to hurt her. More like a brutally clinical and sudden absence of passion. The fire of desire was still there behind his eyes, but it was banked. He would weigh the strength of it against whatever she named as her condition for continuing to participate.
Her chest grew tight. That wasn’t what was going on at all. In fact, the only thing she wanted in this moment was to overcome her own nerves.
“It’s okay. I want to. I do.” She drew him to kiss her, needing the mindlessness of passion to sweep her through the awkwardness of her first time.
He hesitated, then returned her kiss. Took it over to kiss her more deeply. And he touched her again, sawing his hand sweetly between her thighs, until her own hands didn’t so much move over his neck and back and chest as drag at him, trying to absorb him. She paused a few times to dig her nails into his back when a particular sensation nearly sent her over the crest, but he seemed to know when she was getting close and eased back so she was tracing restless patterns again.
He was making her crazy and the way he sucked on her tongue was positively carnal. She thought she would die if he didn’t let her climax soon.
“Now?” His face was a mask of intensity, all of him hard as iron with only a shred of civility left in his atavistic gaze.
“Yes,” she sobbed, parting her thighs in welcome.
His shoulders shook as he moved atop her and guided himself into place. Her center was so hot and needy she welcomed the pressure and the thick intrusion that stretched—
She gasped at the smarting sting and tensed beneath him. Her knees locked themselves against his hips, urging him to stillness.
He lifted his head, concern breaking through the carnal lust fogging his eyes.
“Hurt?” he asked, gruff and confused. “I thought...” He started to withdraw, but she tightened her hold to keep him where he was.
“It’s okay. It’s normal. Keep going. It feels really good.” So good. She arched on instinct, took him deeper.
It seemed to be his undoing. His gaze clouded again. His nostrils flared. He cupped her head and watched her, teeth clenched, taking it slow, making sure she was receiving pleasure, but letting all his weight sink onto her before he lifted and did it again.
She thrilled at the way he forged into her. Filled her. Made her utterly his while she took him and held him and owned him.
She closed her eyes and bit her lip and gasped at a rush of sensation so intense it was agonizing. Her hands slid to his buttocks, exploring their flexing shape as they both trembled.
He withdrew and thrust faster. Deeper. And deeper still.
Everything about the moment impacted. The way they fit, the friction of skin on skin, belly to belly, the feel of his hair roughened thighs against her smooth ones, the tension across his shoulders, the suck of his lips against her neck. He shifted, fingers finding her nipple and making her toes curl.
