Velvet Embrace

Later, when his breathing slowed, when he could once again think clearly, Dominic slowly rolled onto his side, pulling Brie with him. They lay facing each other, not speaking.

Brie gazed at Dominic uncertainly, wondering if she had pleased him, while Dominic returned her gaze, watching the color of her eyes shift like quicksilver. For the first time in his life, he was completely at a loss for words. Inexplicably, he was glad she had been a virgin, yet he could hardly believe she had given him such a priceless gift, or that she had had it to give.

With a gentle finger he traced the outline of her mouth, swollen a little from his bruising kisses. "Did I hurt you?" he asked softly, brushing an auburn curl from her damp brow.

Brie lowered her eyes from his penetrating gray gaze. "Not much," she answered hesitantly. That was certainly true. She had felt only the slightest stab of pain—and that only for an instant, and the present uncomfortable throbbing between her legs was beginning to fade. Indeed, the experience had been nothing like what she had expected, either in pain or pleasure. She had liked the heavy feel of Dominic's body and the hardness of his muscular thighs against hers . . . but she was also conscious of a vague feeling of disappointment. She had been on the brink of a great revelation, but his caresses had ended before she could discover what it meant. Now she only felt strangely frustrated. Her body was still tight with feverish anticipation, still hungering for something she couldn't even name.

Dominic watched her brows knit in fierce concentration and wondered what thoughts were going on behind those beautiful eyes. Shaking his head, he pressed a soft kiss on her brow and rose from the bed, returning with a towel which he used to gently wash away the proof of her virginity.

Embarrassed by such intimacy, Brie tried to protest, but Dominic would have none of her modesty. He brushed her hands away and in a voice filled with tender amusement, told her to be still.

When he had finished. Brie buried her flaming face in the mattress. Dominic sat beside her, his fingers lightly roaming the satin skin of her back. "I thought you told me you had had a lover before," he murmured.

"I . . . he didn't . . . we weren't . . ."

Taking her disjointed stammerings to mean what he had already surmised, Dominic sighed. "I'm sorry," he said very gently.

Brie lifted her head to stare at him. "Sorry?" She didn't know whether to feel ashamed or indignant.

Dominic repressed a smile. "Don't misunderstand me. I enjoyed making love to you, more than you could know. It's just that I'm not in the habit of seducing virgins."

"I suppose you prefer to seduce women with experience?"

His brow shot up as he gave her a teasing glance. But when Brie flushed and averted her gaze, Dominic felt a surge of tenderness for her he found difficult to ignore. Placing a finger under her chin, he forced her to look at him again. "Believe it or not, ma belle, I much prefer you. You lack practice, but the instinct is certainly there."

When she made no reply, Dominic gave her a soft smile. "Do you need reassurance? Here, feel me. Does this give you any indication of how much I want you?"

Brie gasped as he guided her hand to the dark, curling hair below his abdomen, realizing that his shaft was once again stiff and throbbing. Dominic chuckled at her response, although he himself wondered at the speed of his arousal. When she tried to pull away, he shook his head. "Oh, no, my sweet vixen," he said, his gray eyes warm with laughter. "I intend to make very sure you understand completely what goes on between a man and woman. Just so you never again mistake a boor's drunken pawing for the act of making love. Your lover must have been remarkably inept."

Brie glared at him. "I did not mistake anything. And it wasn't 'making love', it was rape. Or at least attempted rape. The only reason he didn't succeed was because I managed to hit him over the head with a fire iron."

"Good God. How fortunate for me there wasn't one available the first time I tried to seduce you."

"There was! I only wish now I had had the nerve to use it on you." When Dominic threw back his head and laughed, Brie clenched her teeth. "I never told you I wasn't a virgin."

His eyes sparkled wickedly. "Oh, no. You merely spun me a tale about an aging protector who couldn't afford the price of a new gown, and a lover who disgusted you with his fumbling attempts to steal your virtue. And that was after I found you alone in a bachelor's hunting box, wearing less than a statue of Venus. Forgive me for casting aspersions on your innocence."

There was some justice in what he said, Brie thought ruefully. And even though Dominic had spoken in his usual dry tone, she could tell he wasn't laughing at her. His teasing smile was warm and intimate, inviting her to share his humor. Brie felt her anger melting away. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and in spite of herself, she laughed. "All right, you have a point. But the story about the lover really was true." What was strange, she added to herself, was that she could laugh about that episode in her life as if it were no more than a bad joke.

"Well," Dominic said lazily, "I obviously misconstrued what you said. If I had known the truth, I would never have touched you, believe me. But the damage is done now. I suppose," he said, giving her a speculative glance, "it wouldn't hurt to show you just what you've been missing."

He was no longer laughing, Brie noticed. And his eyes had started to smolder in a way that made her feel highly desirable and more than a little wanton. She was suddenly aware of his nearness, of the heat of his body and the fluttering of her stomach. The air between them seemed suddenly charged with electric current.

Wanting to break the tension, Brie opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Dominic pressed a finger to her lips. "Hush, chérie," he said huskily. "Lie back and don't fight me. I assure you this will be pleasant. It won't hurt this time, I promise."

Pressing her back against the pillows, he captured her face between his open palms. "So lovely," he murmured before lowering his lips to hers.

Any possibility of rational thought fled when Brie felt the touch of his lips. His kiss was like nothing she had known before—gentle and wild, fragile and intense, soothing and provocative. And his hands . . . his hands stroked her gently, arousing a response in her that seemed to come from her very depths.

He caressed her until her slender body was pliant and yielding. And when at last he parted her legs and carefully entered her, she was nearly breathless. She clung to him, her breasts rising and falling rapidly, her head thrashing from side to side. He seemed to fill her, to become part of her.

He began to move slowly then, building the tempo into a tantalizing rhythm. Brie instinctively began to answer him, her hips rising to meet his deep thrusts, her nails feverishly raking his back. And when a glowing spark ignited at the very center

of her being, she whimpered. It felt as if every nerve of her body had gathered there.

Dominic could sense when she reached the edge of panic. "Yes, my passionate beauty," he whispered hoarsely against her mouth. "Let me fill you. Let it come." Raising his head, he watched the startled expression on her face change to blind passion.

Brie wondered if she were dying. Her senses seemed to slowly erupt with a wet, white heat . . . And then she was falling, falling. She surged against Dominic, crying out something unintelligible as she reached a shattering climax. She was hardly aware when Dominic's body suddenly went rigid, but she clung to him helplessly as he spent his final passion.