Virgin Seduction

'I would like to see you,' she said.

And he kissed her instead, and murmured against her mouth, 'You will…but not now.'

'But why?'

So he kissed her again, and more and more deeply until, overwhelmed, she sank back onto the bedspread and reached hungrily for him, already panting and gasping and arching her body toward him as she drove her fingers into his hair. He drew back, then, and stared down into her dazed, midnight eyes. 'You have to trust me,' he said.

Trust me… .What choice did she have?

She was lost in a world she could not have imagined, a world of senses and sensations, some so exquisite and lovely she wanted to reach for them, hold them in her hands like a child grasping at soap bubbles. Some so overwhelming she was in awe of them, frightened by their power, like one standing on the edge of a waterfall. She was lost, and yes, she was frightened, too. But there was a delicious, shivery excitement to her fear. Because there was Cade.

Yes…she trusted him. There it was…as simple and glorious and mystifying as that. She trusted him with all her heart and soul. Her body was no longer hers to command-she was his, now, completely, only clay in the potter's hands.

A potter? No. Though she had no scale by which to judge such things, to her it seemed he must be an artist…a master. His hands…his mouth…they commanded and consumed her…controlled and demanded, molded, manipulated and presumed. But never, never did they cause her pain. Only the most exquisite joy and unimagined pleasure. Twice more she felt the strange and wonderful sensations as her body first seemed to grow hot and huge and intense as the sun, then come suddenly apart into a cascade of a thousand pulsing infant stars, once when he had drawn apart her thighs with his hands and kissed her…kissed her the way he kissed her mouth, deeply, with his tongue…just there, where she was already so hot and swollen and sensitive to the slightest touch. The feeling then…it was so intense she cried out and arched and trembled in his hands, not knowing whether she struggled away from, or toward the terrifying sensations, only certain she could stand no more than this-more than this, and she would surely die.

Then…and now it seemed too quickly…he was holding her tightly and she was rocketing over a precipice and falling, falling, breath forced from her lungs in pants and cries, and her body throbbing inside and burning, tingling all over, in every part of her, and she understood finally what Cade had meant when he had said, 'A small one.'

She trusted him. Completely. And when at last he drew her legs wide apart and knelt so carefully between them…when he had taken Salma's bottle of soothing oil and poured some in his hand, then stroked it gently between her legs and deep, deep inside her…when he leaned over, bracing himself on his hands, and looked a question and a promise deep into her eyes…she gazed back at him from under half-closed lids that had somehow grown too heavy to lift…and smiled.

She trusted him. But she gasped when she felt him fit himself to her softness; she couldn't seem to help it. She gasped again when she felt the first intense, steadily building pressure. And instantly he was there, taking her face between his hands and stroking her cheeks, her eyelids, her temples with his thumbs. Taking over her consciousness, whispering urgently into her mouth, ' Stay with me…relax, sweetheart…don't tense up on me now…'

She nodded, let her breath out and opened herself to him.

By slow and careful degrees she let him come into her body, and she accepted the mounting pressure with something akin to triumph. Was this pain? She did not know, and anyway, if it had been she would not have let him know. She simply did not care, for this was her husband…from this moment he would forever be a part of her. She could never have imagined such a fierce and all-consuming joy.

Oh, but now, as the pressure in her body was increasing almost beyond her ability to endure it, so was another kind of pressure altogether. She could feel it coming, feel it filling her throat, making her chest jump and quiver… making her breath whimper and her eyes sting. She tried to stop it, but it came anyway, like that other tumult her body could not control.

'I am sorry,' she gasped, and her chest was heaving, her voice high and broken with panic. 'I do not mean to cry-I do not want-it does not mean-please do not think you are hurting me. I do not know why-I cannot seem to stop it-'

She had trusted him in all else, she should have trusted him to understand this, as well.

For he only whispered, 'Shh…it's okay,' and she could hear a smile in his voice as he kissed her and stroked her puddled eyelids. 'It's just emotions… go ahead and cry if you want to.'

Then, strangely, she began to laugh instead. But it was a different kind of laughter than any she had ever known…laughter mixed with tears, gentle, wondering laughter. Miraculously, he seemed to understand that, too, kissing her tears, then her lips, again and again, mixing his laughter with hers.

'You do not have to stop,' she murmured, awed and sated by the feel of him inside her.

'Yeah, actually, I do,' he said with an odd, breathless little chuckle. He lowered his head to touch a tiny kiss to the end of her nose. 'That would be…about as far as I can go-in more ways than one.' He kissed her again, her mouth this time. She could feel tension vibrating in his arms, could hear it in his voice, as if his jaws were clenched. 'I'm afraid…I've had about all I can take. It just feels…too good inside you, sweetheart. I think…you're going to have to let me have that feeling, now…'

Before she could even really understand or prepare, she felt him gather himself…felt him pull back and his muscles bunch and harden…felt him surge into her with a force that drove the breath from her lungs. Dazed and a little frightened, she was simply caught up and swept away by the strength and power of his maleness…and for the first time understood the extent of his control, the depth of his restraint, the price of his gentleness.

This was Cade-her husband-imposing and magnificent and powerful.

Yes, but vulnerable, too. Along with her understanding of her husband's maleness, for the first time she understood her own femininity as well. Understood that this man she had married might be bigger and harder and physically stronger than she was, but that she was powerful, too. Because, all his wonderful strength and vitality he must pour finally into her. She had the power to make this strong man tremble…to make him vulnerable.

That realization came to her in a great wave of that strange protective tenderness she'd felt for him, out there in the rain. Only now she knew what it was.

But… this can only be love, she thought in wonderment. Yes, it must be. It is true. I love him.

Another wave of emotion swept over her, this one cold and terrible, full of longing, and it made her hold on to him with a kind of fierce desperation as his big body surged and emptied into hers.

Cade, I love you! Her heart cried it, but she could not say it out loud. She loved him. She knew it, now. And that made it all the more terrible that he did not love her.

* * *

The evening had long since eased into night and the flashlight had burned itself out hours ago. Leila's breathing was soft and even in a darkness thick as wool when Cade slipped out of bed and made his way- with a confidence born of regular practice-to the bathroom. With the door closed he felt for the matches on top of the toilet tank and lit the candle he'd left there…oh, hours ago, now…stuck in a coffee mug with its own melted wax. How Leila had loved that.

He closed his eyes and gripped the edges of the sink with both hands as images swamped him…memories so recent, so sharp and clear he could actually see her now, right there, lowering herself into the bathtub, wincing a little when her soft feminine parts touched the barely warm bubbles. He'd felt such anguish, and had thought of bruised fruit and crushed flower petals, but then she had looked up at him and smiled that irresistible dimpled smile of hers, and a moment later he'd slipped into the tub behind her and what was meant to be the aftermath of something had become instead the beginning of something even more.

Even now, exhausted and drained beyond all endurance, just remembering the feel of her soap-slippery bottom fitting itself between his legs, and himself sliding between hers…yes, somehow, both at the same time…her body arching and his hands filling with the sweet, hot weight of her breasts…even now, remembering that, his groin ached and his head swam with desire. How could it not?