She couldn’t fight the growing rapture; she could only cling to him, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
Holding her hips steady, he pressed upward with his rampant length, urging her thighs wider to take more of him. And then he kissed her, his tongue plunging deep while his tumescence seemed to swell inside her, filling her to near bursting.
This is what I have been missing, she thought, dazed. This incredible intimacy, this joining, this merging with a passionate man made of real flesh and bone. A magnificent lover she could feel and taste and smell. His very heat ignited fiery sparks in her blood…
The primal force of it excited her beyond anything she’d ever known. The fierceness rising in her made her arch and mold to him, as if she could make him part of herself.
Gritting his teeth, visibly striving for control, he thrust upward one last time. The sensual fury that seized Raven was so intense, she shuddered and cried out, shaking in spasms of ecstasy.
Beneath her his body clenched as he was caught in the wild delirium. At the last instant, though, he lifted her up urgently so they were no longer joined. His seed spurted explosively onto her belly, while contractions continued to convulse his lower body.
Her flesh continued to pulse sweetly long after the moment of climax. Raven was dimly aware that she had fallen limply against him, her face buried in his throat. But it took longer for her to realize why he had withdrawn from her. He hadn’t wanted to get her with child.
A strange twinge of sadness pierced her, before common sense caught up with her. She wouldn’t want a child, not if it meant bringing one into the world with an uncaring father.
There had been no chance for her to discuss the matter of children with Kell, Raven reflected. Indeed, she’d been so overwhelmed by the disastrous change in her future that the issue hadn’t even occurred to her until just now. But she doubted the man she had just married would want to be a father to her child. He didn’t even want to be her husband.
Nor, after tonight, her lover.
He was lying still beneath her, his heart thudding against her breast, each beat slow and heavy. Eventually she felt him stir, felt his fingers brush a tress back from her forehead.
“Tell me, does that compare to your fantasy?”
She was startled by his question, spoken in a low husky voice. She was more unnerved to realize her answer. The passion she’d felt a moment ago was more intense, more powerful, than anything she’d experienced during her most erotic sexual fantasies with her imaginary lover. Kell had driven her to a place of wild abandonment, pushing her headlong off the dizzying cliff of desire and need.
Deploring what he had made her feel, she eased off him and onto her side, wincing at the raw ache between her thighs. “I believe I prefer my fantasy,” she prevaricated, avoiding his penetrating gaze. “Illusion is less painful.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“No…not really. At least no more than I expected.”
“Your next time won’t be as painful.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
When she reached down to draw a sheet up to cover her nudity, he stayed her. “Wait a moment.”
He rose from the bed and went to the washstand, returning with a basin and cloth. To Raven’s keen embarrassment, he tugged the sheet from her grasp and used the cloth to clean away the evidence of his seed and her virginity, first from her body and then his own.
His tenderness was at odds with his dark expression, yet other flashes of memory assailed her-of him soothing her the previous night during her drugged fever, of him gratifying her desperate carnal need again and again. The reminder of his searing sensuality set a new throbbing ache pulsing between her thighs.
She was glad when he was done. He allowed her to pull the covers up as he disposed of the basin and turned down the lamp. The red-gold glow of firelight was the only illumination when he returned to bed.
Raven stole an unwilling glance at Kell. He wasn’t her pirate lover, no matter how intimately his dark eyes reminded her of her fantasies, how devastatingly sexy his mouth was, how vulnerable he made her feel.
And the longing he stirred in her was a graver threat than even the scandal she faced. She’d hoped to salvage a shred of reputation from this disaster by wedding him, but it would all be for naught if she fell prey to the madness of desire.
He didn’t look at her as he joined her. Instead he lay back, lacing his hands behind his head, staring thoughtfully up at the brocade canopy.
“You honestly intend to embrace a life of celibacy?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes. Why do you find that so surprising?”
“Because no matter how vivid your imagination or erotic your reading material, it can’t compare to real passion. I’ll wager you will eventually come to regret what you’re missing.”
“I doubt it. My fantasies will be enough.”
He turned his head on the pillow to appraise her. “You realize, of course, that there is such a thing as passion without love?”