‘Polly!’ She heard him grinding out, the fierce, stark sound of his voice shocking her into immobility as in it she recognised the curtness and the grimness she was so used to hearing from him.
‘For God’s sake…’ His voice was thicker now, not angry as she had first thought but…tortured almost. ‘If you don’t…’
If she didn’t what? She could feel herself starting to tremble as she waited to hear him tell her to stop touching him, reality suddenly imposing itself on her in starkly jagged pangs of self-consciousness. But as she made to move away from him, her face starting to burn with the hot realisation of just what she was doing, Marcus suddenly reached for her, begging her hoarsely, ‘Polly, don’t stop—look at what you’ve done to me.’ And, as he moved slightly away from her, Polly realised why he had been so careful not to close that final distance between them. Heat scorched through her body as she witnessed his open arousal. This was the male form in all its dark, dangerous beauty, she recognised shakily. This was man at his most primeval, his most potent…and just seeing him made her want to…made her feel…
Deep down inside her Polly was conscious of such hungry yearning, such a sense of emptiness waiting to be filled, such a need, that she actually felt the intensity of it make her eyes burn with anguished tears. Longingly she swayed towards Marcus, her whole body curving in an arc of supplication and invitation, her eyes heavy with the knowledge of her love and wanting.
Immediately Marcus reached out to take her weight, holding her so that the heat of his body against hers, its power and its arousal, felt like a soothing balm to the aching heat that both consumed her and reinforced some deep inner emptiness.
As he bent his head and cupped her face with his free hand Polly turned so that her lips brushed his hard palm.
‘Marcus…please…’ she whispered, knowing he would understand just what it was she was pleading for.
‘Polly…’ She could hear the torment in his voice. ‘Have you any idea how long I’ve waited for this, wanted you like this?’ she heard him telling her thickly as he picked her up and carried her through into the bedroom.
‘But not even in my wildest dreams, my most intimate sensual imaginings, did I come anywhere near the reality of this…’ he told her rawly as he placed her on the bed and laid his head on her soft small belly. He kissed her skin, stroked it, both feeding and stoking the hunger she felt for him at the same time. Every touch, every kiss inflamed her even more, pushing her to sensual heights of pleasure she had never known existed.
His mouth against her breast, his tongue, sent little trails of fire running right through her. Twisting frantically underneath him, she cried out in ecstasy as he sucked fiercely on her breast. Pleasure like this was like a forbidden kingdom to her and she was almost afraid of entering it, of giving in, of giving herself up to what she was feeling; but to try to stop now, when her body was crying out for him, was impossible.
Mutely she tried to convey to him all that she was experiencing and feeling, reaching out for him and drawing him closer to her.
‘It’s been so long,’ she heard him saying hoarsely as he covered her body with his own.
‘Yes. So very long.’
He felt like hot velvet against her. Hot velvet encasing smooth liquid muscle.
Polly sucked in her breath as her body arched for his entry, quivering, waiting…wanting…eager and yet a little afraid. It had, as he had said, been so long.
It was nothing like her memories of the way it had been with Richard. There was no comparison, nor did she want there to be. This was her first time as a woman. Her first time with a man and not a boy. Each smooth thrust took him deeper into her body, closer to where she wanted him to be, and Polly clung to him in apprehensive exultation as each wave of pleasure took her nearer to fulfilment. His movements were different now—hotter, faster, and then deeper and slower, and her own body was picking up their rhythm, moving in counterpart to it.
It was like singing, soaring, floating, flying, catching the wind and riding with it—a joyful pain of love, an outpouring of it that seemed to burst from every pore of her body.
Polly had no words, no sounds, no thoughts to express the magnitude, the magnificence of what she was experiencing.
She felt the deep climactic shudders wrenching Marcus’s body, the hot burst of his completion deep inside her triggering off the seismic quakes of her own fulfilment.
Dreamily Polly tried to bring herself back down to earth. Marcus was saying something to her; smiling, she nestled closer to him, too exhausted, too blissfully content to listen properly or comprehend. It was more than her senses could take on board just to know what had happened, what they had shared. Conversation was completely beyond her, an impossibility.