Knowing he had to suppress the violent wrench of exhilaration and anticipation flooding his veins, Quinn inhaled another harsh breath and regained command of himself.
He stood still for a moment, his gaze taking in her creamy nakedness. Her body was exquisitely lovely, not lush but perfectly shaped, even lovelier than he’d imagined. The sight ravished his senses. Moving closer, he cupped her buttocks and drew her hips to his. Her body had been primed for him for days, but he wanted her breathless and pleading for him, so he reached down to press his palm between her thighs.
Venetia stifled a gasp of pleasure, but he heard her accelerated breathing, felt her excited trembling. Her innate sensuality stirred and excited him as well.
He watched the flush of color on her cheeks spread down her throat as his fingers teased her sex. When he judged her ready, he lifted her up and encouraged her to wrap her legs around his waist while he centered his cock at her cleft.
Then bracing her hips with his hands, he pressed the blunt head of his erection carefully upward, parting her folds as gently as he could.
Venetia made no response initially, but when he encountered resistance, she caught her breath and bit her lip.
“Am I hurting you too much?”
“No. Not too much.”
“Relax against me if you can.”
When she complied, he eased farther into the heat of her and felt the expected obstruction give way. For a fleeting moment, pain flashed across her face at the intimate invasion, but then her features softened.
Quinn drove more deeply into her tight, velvety sweetness and waited for her to grow accustomed to his size. “Better?”
At his question, she moved her hips slightly, testing. “Yes.”
He couldn’t repress the shudder of hot tension that gripped him. The need to possess her was overwhelming; the raw, primitive urge to join with her, to mate with her, nearly uncontrollable. Yet he fiercely clamped down on his urges and began to move slowly, holding her gaze all the while.
Her eyes were luminous with heat and need. “I want more,?
?? she entreated after a moment.
Obliging, he surged slowly in, sheathing himself fully in her melting warmth, until he was seated deep inside her, then pulled partway out.
At his slow thrust and withdrawal, Venetia closed her eyes and arched her back, straining toward him. Soon she was shifting feverishly against him and panting, her nails digging into his shoulders as she clung to him.
There was something enchanting about how lost, how abandoned, she looked. Something magical at how their bodies merged as one, locked together, moving in a timeless, primal rhythm.
When he felt her first delicate convulsions, Quinn clenched his jaw in an effort to hold back. But when he felt her peaking, all the air left his lungs and his muscles bunched. In another heartbeat, her spasms pushed him over the edge. She was coming for him, melting around him….
At her climax, he groaned as wave after wave of raw desire washed through him. He’d wanted to keep his violence to a minimum, but the beauty of it was too much, the wait had been too long.
His thrusts grew more frantic until he finally exploded. Ecstasy crested and broke over him in powerful waves, leaving him spent and gasping.
In the aftermath, Quinn held her tightly, shocked by the intensity of what had just happened. Their harsh breaths mingling, Venetia collapsed against him and pressed her face into the curve of his shoulder.
After a long moment, though, she sighed, a blissful sound. “Can you die of pleasure?” she whispered.
Perhaps so, Quinn thought as he breathed in the sweet scent of her.
He hadn’t expected his powerful, powerless response. Their intimacy had rattled him to the core. He couldn’t remember ever feeling such pleasure as taking Venetia for the first time. And still sheathed in the hot wonder of her body, he knew a single time would never be enough.
Yet he needed to consider her innocence.
With regret, he withdrew from her body and lowered her into the water.
She kept her arms about his neck, looking up at him uncertainly. “Did I hurt your wound?”
“Not in the least.”
“Then…it was pleasurable for you?”