Just below her navel, she lost her courage.
«Stay with me,» Caleb said against Willow’s mouth when she would have lifted her hands from his. «That way I’ll know you want it, too.»
Her hands rested over his as he slowly eased his palms down her body, seeking the womanly fullness of her hips. The frail cotton of herpantelets was little barrier to his touch. He filled his hands with her round curves and squeezed. She gasped and shivered violently.
«Frightened?» he asked softly.
«It feels…strange.»
«Bad?»
«No, it just makes me ache in the oddest places.»
«Does it? Where?»
Willow’s breath thickened into a soft moan as Caleb’s big hands flexed again, making her very aware of the luxuriant flare of her own hips.
«Is that where you ache?» he asked, smiling slightly.
She shook her head.
«Where, honey?»
Willow bit her lip and looked at Caleb, torn between passion and embarrassment. «Don’t you know?»
«I’m beginning to think I don’t know much about you at all,» he admitted in a low voice. His hands flexed and his whole body clenched at the passion coursing visibly through Willow in response to his touch. «Where does it ache, little one? If you’re too shy to tell me, take my hand and show me.»
For a moment, Willow didn’t think she had the courage to do even that. Then currents swirled and tugged at her, sending a glittering burst of sensation through the pit of her stomach, leaving behind aredoubted ache. She took one of Caleb’s big hands and slowly brought it from her hip to her navel and from there to the warm, water- washed triangle at the apex of her thighs.
«There?» Caleb asked softly.
Willow tried to look at him but couldn’t. She closed her eyes and nodded. His palm covered her as his long fingers sought the opening in thepantelets and curled down between her legs, gently seeking her softest flesh, finding it, holding her so close that not even the seething waters of the pool came between them. Her breathingunravelled in a low moan. Instinctively, she tried to protect her tender flesh by closing her legs. It was impossible. She was kneeling astride his thighs, balancing herself by holding onto his shoulders.
«Easy, little love. I won’t hurt you.»
Willow barely heard Caleb’s low voice. His hand was moving slowly, both soothing her and increasing the sensual ache. Bright splinters of sensation raced up from his touch, driving away her uncertainty, leaving only a stark pleasure that shortened her breath. Then she felt the tender probing of his finger and stiffened as though he had laid a whip across her bare flesh.
«Caleb.»
He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, forcing himself to withdraw from the sleek feminine heat he had just discovered. But he couldn’t force himself to release Willow completely. She felt too good against the palm of his hand, too soft, too hot. Nor could he prevent the languid, caressing movements of his fingers that made her even softer, hotter. Without meaning to, he probed very lightly. She shuddered but didn’t withdraw.
«Do you want me to stop?» Caleb asked, his voice rough with passion and restraint.
Willow’s only answer was a moan as something deep inside her tightened and then tightened again, making her body twist slowly against Caleb’s touch.
«Willow?»
«I don’t know the words for what I want,» she said raggedly. «But I like having you touch me. I like feeling you against me…inside me. Do you like it, too, being inside me?»
Caleb fought a silent, savage battle with his body. All that enabled him to keep his self-control was the near certainty that Willow wasn’t what he had thought her to be.
«Yes, I like it,» he said almost roughly. «But I thought you didn’t. You went stiff.»
Willow heard the hunger and restraint in his voice, and something more, an uncertainty she had never heard before from him. She looked at Caleb with luminous hazel eyes.
«I couldn’t help what I did,» she admitted. «Being touched like that…»
«Did I hurt you?»
She shook her head. «It was just unexpected.»
«Did you like it?»
«Yes,» Willow said. «It sent heat all through me, everywhere, but especially where you’re holding me now. I love your hands, Caleb. They’re a beautiful fire on my body.»
He tried to speak but couldn’t. A hammer blow of passion shook him, taking him right up to the edge of ecstasy and leaving him there, shaking. He had never lost control with a woman, but he was a heartbeat away from it now.
«Hold onto me, Willow. Hold on hard. I’m going to touch you again. There’s something I have to know.»
Willow started to ask what Caleb meant, but the movement of his hand took her breath away. Tenderly, relentlessly, two fingers pressed into her tight, sleek center. Her nails dug suddenly into his bare shoulders. At first Caleb thought he was hurting Willow. Then he felt her shiver, felt the sultry pulses of her pleasure. He smiled through clenched teeth and probed lightly, seeking her depths. He was barred from them by the taut, frail barrier of her maidenhead.
Breath hissed through Caleb’s clenched teeth at the proof of Willow’s innocence. He knew he should withdraw from her, leaving her virginity intact if not untouched.
And he knew he could not force himself to withdraw.
The certainty that Willow was no man’s fancy lady made it impossible for Caleb to release her. She hadn’t known a man’s kiss, hadn’t known the touch of a man’s hands on her breasts, hadn’t known the tender, savage fires of passion. Yet she knelt nearly naked in front of him now, accepting his presence within her innocence, and her softness caressed him in return, urging him to explore more deeply the secrets only he had ever touched.
She was his, only his, and he should not take her.
«Willow.»
Her name was as much a groan as a word, but she understood. She made amurmurous sound that was pleasure and questioning combined.
«You’re a virgin,» Caleb said simply.
Willow opened her mouth. Nothing came out but a gasp of pleasure when he moved within her.
«I — that is —» She shuddered and threw back her head, forgetting what she had been going to say.
«Don’t bother trying to deny it. I’m touching the proof of your chastity right now.» Caleb’s eyes opened. Passion made them almost opaque, like hammered gold. His voice was as rough as his touch was gentle. «What is he to you?»
«Who?»
«Matthew Moran.»
Willow blinked and tried to gather her thoughts. «My brother. Matt is my brother.»
Caleb went utterly still for an instant before breath rushed out of him as though at a body blow. Killing Willow’s fancy man was one thing. Killing her brother was entirely another.
Willow would never forgive him.
Her brother. Rebecca’s seducer, the man who murdered my sister as surely as if he had put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Willow’s brother!
Closing his eyes, shutting out Willow, Caleb tried to ease the strident demands of the hunger clawing at his body so that he could think. All he could do was scream silently inside his mind at the savage trick of fate that finally had given him a woman whose passions ran as strong and deep and hot as his own, only to make it impossible to have her, leaving him empty in ways he had never been empty before.
Slowly, Caleb began withdrawing from Willow’s body, feeling as though he were being torn in two, yet knowing if he took her, she would hate herself when she saw him standing over her brother’s body.
