The Lover

“I can’t bear it….”

“Aye, you can….”

His triumphant mouth dredged another keening moan from Sabrina as stabbing pleasure flooded her. Madness, she cried silently, mind and body aflame. She arched up to him shamelessly, shaking with silken tremors.

“Better,” he breathed. “Tremble for me, sweeting. Moan for me. Give me your passion….”

A blinding wave of pleasure broke over her, cresting again and again. Racked by shuddering, Sabrina dissolved into throbbing, impassioned need.

In the breathless aftermath, she lay dazed and quivering with sensual exhaustion, yet Niall wasn’t done with her yet. Stretching his sleek, heavy body over hers, he gently suckled her turgid nipples, intensifying the slow-ebbing pleasure.

It was a long moment before he raised his head. His face was hard, taut, like a man pressed beyond his limits, his voice rough and rasping as he questioned provokingly, “Are you still disappointed, lass?”

No, Sabrina, thought. It had been wicked and wonderful…raw pleasure and aching delight. And yet…Niall had given nothing of himself, his heart or emotions. “It was…adequate, I think,” she murmured hoarsely.

He laughed darkly in triumph, mistaking her hesitation for another lie. Bending, he whispered, “Kiss me, sweeting,” and took her mouth in an act of sweet possession.

He kissed her as a lover should, tender yet impossibly demanding. He made her forget the ache in her heart by rekindling the ache in her body. As he positioned himself between her thighs, she was agonizingly aware of how hot and hard and huge he was against her swollen sex. His mouth still captivating hers, he fitted his hardness to her softness and pressed home, his thrust slow and careful, as if he remembered how new she still was to such lush carnality.

Sabrina gave a gasp of pleasure as blessedly he filled her. She wanted this man. Nothing else existed beyond the thunder of her heart, the wild hammering in her blood, his magical caresses, his hard body…

Instinctively she hugged his sinewed thighs with her own, opening for him, welcoming him with wildness and warmth. Through a haze of desire she heard his harsh whisper in her ear, telling her how hot and tight it felt to be buried deep within her. And as his rhythm increased to urgent need, she could feel the explosive tension build anew. She strained to hold the sleek shaft inside her, but he withdrew to plunge again, stoking the scorching flames ever higher, till she could no longer bear the blinding desire.

As her convulsive shudders began, Niall was gripped by the same fiery talons of sensation, caught in the same fierce tempest. When her climax burst upon her, his restraint shattered. Seizing a rasping breath, he lost control as she did, unprepared for the raw, searing pleasure that ripped through him. With a harsh groan he stiffened, then arched fiercely, surging wildly as he met his own sensual madness. His body shuddered into hers, drenching her with his warmth. His teeth clenched, he shut his eyes as the throbbing, peaking splendor washed over him in heated waves.

Chest heaving, he collapsed upon Sabrina, barely remembering to shield her from the force of his weight.

His breath was a soft mist on her flushed cheeks as they lay entwined afterward, suffused with warmth and desire. His palm drifted over her bare shoulder, lazily stroking her skin.

“I would hardly call that a disappointment,” he murmured with a soft laugh.

Totally pliant, Sabrina exhaled in a sigh. It amazed her that she could find the strength to whisper a hoarse reply. “I confess astonishment…I should think it would take a great deal to arouse a jaded man’s lusts.”

“Especially a jaded man’s lusts. But you succeeded admirably.”

She made a soft, noncommittal sound.

“Have you any notion how such a wanton response inflames a man?” When she gave no answer, Niall’s dark lashes lifted languorously, so that he could see her. “When you let yourself surrender to passion, you become quite a woman.”

“It was…wicked.”

“Perhaps, but I prefer the brazen tiger in my bed to the prim and proper mouse.”

So did she. She vastly preferred the reckless, foolish, even sinful lass she was with him to the plain, passive spinster. In his arms she was a woman, desired and desiring.

Grasping her chin in his fingers, Niall turned her face up to his. “You look like a lass who’s just been pleasured—thoroughly, passionately. You look beautiful.”

When she closed her eyes in denial, his fingers tightened on her shoulder. Why did it matter so that she believe him? he wondered. He had never felt it imperative to prove himself to any woman. But then, he had rarely experienced the wild hunger that had seized him a moment ago, or the shattering satisfaction afterward. Sabrina was different from the countless lovers who had come before her, but it was not merely the novelty or her innocence that had captivated him. It was the honesty of her response. The intensity of her desire, wild and unbridled. Her defenselessness just now.

Niall felt an odd jolt in the region of his heart when her searching glance swept his face, uncertain and vulnerable.

He pressed his lips tenderly to her forehead. “It will take time, sweeting, but you will learn to accept your wanting. To accept my wanting.” His finger forced her chin up. “I want you, lovely Sabrina. I want to see your bonny hair fanning across my pillow. I want to see your face flushed and damp from loving me, your eyes hazed with desire I’ve just sated. I mean to have you, in every way a man can have a woman.”

Desperate to hide the deep ache his gentleness aroused, she buried her face in Niall’s shoulder so he couldn’t see the turmoil of emotion that was tearing her apart inside. She wanted to weep at the powerful and strange feelings coursing through her…tender feelings she would never tell him about.

It would be too easy to love him, she thought wildly. Too easy to expose herself to savage hurt.

And yet the possibility existed that it might already be too late.