‘Yes.’ He steeled himself against the exquisitely languorous look in her eyes and madly scrambled for something to say. ‘How long have you been celibate?’ He hadn’t meant to ask that, but the words spilled out anyway.
She sat up slowly, pulling the sheet to cover her breasts. He curbed the urge to rip it away, feast his eyes on her—
‘My whole life,’ she answered.
He froze. ‘You were a virgin?’
The thought confused, astounded...pleased him? He pushed the last feeling away, but it kept returning.
‘Yes.’
He’d been her first. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Why did his voice sound so damned hoarse?
‘What difference would it have made?’
Her voice was sleep-husky, her hair spilling in bed-tumbled disarray over her naked shoulders. The sight of the white sheet against her tanned skin did incredible things to his libido.
He felt himself slipping under her spell again. Confusion mingled with lust and self-loathing sent him to his feet. ‘A hell of a lot!’
‘I tried to tell you—’
‘You didn’t try hard enough!’
‘But you knew...you must have realised...’
His mind raced. He’d been eager, uncouth. Like a wolf during mating season, his need had come second to none. He’d been the animal she’d accused him of being. All he’d wanted was to trap her underneath him, feast on her softness and incredible responsiveness. Nothing else had mattered but having her.
Not even the fact that she’d been a virgin.
He sank onto the bed, his thigh tantalisingly close to that tempting foot. He swallowed as fire shot through his pelvis.
‘Bastien, no one held a gun to your head. You could have stopped any time you wanted.’
The truth of the statement shamed him even more. ‘No, I’m afraid I couldn’t have.’ Because he’d been too far gone to stop. ‘But if you’d told me things would’ve been different.’
She licked her lips, sending his heart-rate rocketing. Mon Dieu, he had to find some distance or this thing happening between them would consume him whole.
Her foot flexed.
‘How different?’ she husked out.
‘I would’ve been gentler, taken more time and care.’
You still could... The thought teased the fringes of his mind. Possibilities tantalised.
Before he could stop himself he reached out and grabbed her foot.
Her breath caught and her foot arched into his touch. ‘I’m glad you didn’t. Any slower and one of us would’ve resorted to violence.’
Reluctantly, his lips twitched. Moving closer, he lifted her foot into his lap. Slowly he massaged her soft skin, fascinated by her tiny gasps of pleasure at his simple caress. The sheet slipped lower. With a firm tug he pulled it away.
She blushed. Unbidden, their conversation on the tarmac replayed in his mind, now taking on a different meaning. Her blushes weren’t a clever tool to entice a man. She blushed because she was genuinely innocent.
The thought shocked him into stillness. Questions tumbled through his mind and assumptions disintegrated, fuelling his confusion. She wasn’t the wanton seductress he’d thought her to be. She had been a virgin.
He had no right to be here with her.
As if diametrically opposed to the idea, his hand tightened around her ankle.