He felt her begin to stir beneath him. It became the most sensually evocative stretch of the female body that began at her shoulders and arched her slender spine and flexed the cradle of her hips where he received the full kick of the movement because they were still joined.
At least with that stirring she also gave him permission to move by slackening the grip her arms had around him. Using his forearms as braces to take his weight, he levered himself away from her, and shuddered at her soft quivering gasp as he withdrew other parts. The gasp didn’t surprise him. He might be wishing himself a million miles away at this precise moment, but his body certainly wasn’t agreeing.
It wanted more—already. It wanted him to begin the whole wildly exciting process all over again.
‘Say something,’ she murmured.
The soft sound of her voice brought his head round to look at her. She was lying there beside him with her cheek resting on her forearm and gazing at him through shy, dark, vulnerable eyes. His heart pitched and rolled. She looked gloriously, stunningly, achingly lovely with her hair spreading out across the pillow and her face wearing that satiated bloom.
‘I was your first lover.’ It was the only thing rattling around his head that was fit to be said.
The bloom deepened, her eyelashes flickered down in a bid to hide away from that soul-blazing truth. But not for long; not this woman who had so much spirit; she wasn’t going to let a bit of shy self-consciousness beat her. So the lashes rose up again, gave him a view of deep green, slightly mocking, eyes packed full of the new knowledge he had given to her. ‘Thank you for making it such a memorable experience,’ she said softly, and smiled.
That smile…He felt it reach right down inside and grasp hold of certain parts. The urge to roll towards her and recreate the whole magic again was so tantalising he could actually taste it.
Or taste Eve, he amended grimly, and sat up. ‘You should have told me,’ he censured.
There was a moment’s silence, a moment’s total stillness, a moment in which he felt muscles clench all over him because his gruff, curt attitude had just wiped the pleasure right out. He felt it leave like an actual entity, unfolding itself from their flesh and slipping silently through the open terrace window.
Not Eve though. She still lay beside him; he could see her slender bare feet, the sensual curl of her toes and the gold silk length of her slender legs.
‘Why?’ she challenged. ‘Is there some unwritten rule somewhere that says all first-timers must announce that fact before proceeding?’
Put like that, he wanted to laugh. But the bottom line still read like ten vicious swear words. ‘I had a right to know.’
‘You believe you had a right of say over my virginity? Rubbish,’ she denounced. ‘For what purpose?’ she demanded. ‘So that you could make the decision as to whether you wanted to take it or not?’
‘No.’ This, Ethan realised, was not going to be easy.
‘Then, what?’
The silky gold legs disappeared from his vision, the slender feet, the sensually curling toes. His eyes followed them as they slid across smooth white sheeting to snake out of his sight as she pulled herself up—not to sit but to kneel somewhere behind him. He felt her rise upwards, smelt the sweetly seductive scent of her skin, felt her sigh brush his nape, just before her arms appeared over his shoulders and long delicate fingers with nails painted hot-pink came to rest in the hair matting his chest. Her lips caught his ear lobe, her teeth gently bit, and sensation sprinkled through him like a thousand pinpricks, the tips of her breasts pressing like two hard buttons against his back.
‘It wasn’t your special moment, it was mine,’ she told him. ‘Go all Neanderthal on me and I might not let you teach me how good it can be the second time…the third…’ She bit his lobe again. ‘To infinity and beyond,’ she whispered sensually.
His short huff of amused laughter found voice this time. Eve the flirt, Eve the temptress, Eve the serpent in paradise, whom he seemed to have transported with him across half the world. Now it was Eve the dangerous seductress. Though she might have just enjoyed her first experience in making love, even now he knew he could teach her nothing. She was a natural, born to it. Special and rare.
What had that small burst of laughter been for? Eve wondered anxiously. Was he thinking she was incorrigible? Was he thinking she must be a real little hussy to make so light of what they’d just done?
But Eve didn’t feel light about anything. She was worried. She was scared in case he took the honourable path and decided her virginity came with a price tag he might be forced to pay, when all he’d really been doing had been giving in to the temptation she’d so blatantly thrown his way.
She loved him, she wanted him, but not without him loving and wanting her above anything else.
Anything? she then questioned. One woman, she amended. One unavailable woman, who had no right to keep the heart she could never cherish. Well, move over, Leona, she thought possessively. Because you’ve just lost out and this beautiful man’s heart is going to belong to me!
‘I need a shower,’ she murmured huskily against that tasty ear lobe. ‘And so do you.’
Invitation—demand. Ethan stared down at the place against his chest where his ring winked defiantly up at him. She’s all yours, mate, it seemed to be telling him. For now at any rate.
Well, to hell with it—why not? he decided. He was a big boy, he could take it when
