He thrust back into her, this time with greater force. Why had she never done this? she wondered as her head was driven back into the pillows. Why had she waited when the pleasure was so exquisite, so addictive?
Then he withdrew and thrust into her again and she knew why—because she had wanted to save herself for the one who was special, the one who could make her feel this good. Zoltan made her feel this good.
Zoltan was the one.
She had saved herself for the very best.
And with every thrust of his hips she knew that to be true; with every thrust of his hips she knew she would never find a higher place.
But she found it now, when the slide of him inside her turned incendiary, and she combusted in a shattering explosion that featured the sun, moon and stars.
It could have ended there, but she heard his roar, felt his shuddering climax, and it drove her still further through the galaxies until he launched her again into nothingness and the sky gave way to the glow of a tiny kernel of knowledge.
She loved him.
Something had shifted the sands beneath his feet. Something had shifted the foundations of his very world while he wasn’t looking.
Something?
Or someone?
For, while Zoltan’s body pulsed with the post-release hum as he lay back against the pillows, his breathing slowly steadying, his mind grappled with the impossible. She was perfect in every way. How could she be? Yet she had responded instinctively to his every move, naturally and sometimes even wantonly, despite being uneducated and unrehearsed, and her unskilled reactions had stoked the fire raging inside him, higher and higher, until he had even felt himself consumed.
When had that ever happened before?
How could she, a virgin before this night, do such a thing? He had expected to pleasure her, to make this coupling as easy as possible. Never had he expected that he would find paradise himself.
He turned to her, touched the fingers of one hand to the line of her cheek, wanting to put into words how he felt but unsure how to go about it, surprised when he felt moisture there. He sat up. ‘Did I hurt you?’
She shook her head, blinking away the tears. ‘I had no idea. I didn’t know it could be that good.’
‘Usually it’s not,’ he said, sliding one arm beneath her. Then, because some part of him realised that honesty could be couched in better terms, he went on. ‘It’s never been that good for me. Never before.’ She looked up at him, her dark eyes wide and a tiny frown between her brows, as if wondering whether to believe him or not. Suddenly she shuddered in his arms and her eyes and lips squeezed shut, a woman battling to keep control.
‘Aisha,’ he said, smoothing her brow with his free hand as tears insisted on squeezing past her closed lids, ‘I did hurt you. I’m sorry. I was trying to be gentle.’
She shook her head, tried to turn away, but he gathered her closer into the circle of his arms. ‘No. I was thinking about Mustafa and what he said he’d do to me. Zoltan, if you had not come I would still be there. If you had not saved me, it would be him in my bed. It would be him.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh God, it would be him in my bed.’
He tried to gentle her with his hands as his own heart grew weightier in his chest. ‘He cannot hurt you now.’
‘He would have.’ She sniffed back on the threat of more tears. ‘He had an old woman examine me,’ she said, her voice thready and thin. ‘He wouldn’t believe me until she had poked and prodded and confirmed what I had told him. Only then he believed. Only then he left me alone.’
Her voice cracked on the last word and this time she dissolved into tears. He pulled her in, cradled her head against his chest and let her cry, her tears ripping at his soul.
He did not deserve her thanks. She had been right all along—he was a barbarian. He—who knew Mustafa better than anyone—had paid no heed to what she must have suffered at his half-brother’s hands. He had seen her rescue as a way of evening the score between them. And once she had been in his hands he had asked her nothing. He had demanded everything.
Worst of all, he had not believed her.
He was no better than his half-brother and that knowledge tore at his gut. He dropped his head to hers, pressed his lips to her hair. ‘I am so sorry, Aisha, that I did not believe you. I was so wrong.’
He lifted her tear-streaked face to his, kissed her damp eyes and the tip of her nose. ‘Can you ever forgive me for the way I have treated you?’
She blinked up at him, her soft lips parted, looking so lost and vulnerable, so very kissable, that he felt the kick all the way down in his groin. She gave a tentative smile, touched a slim hand to his chest and down his side, her fingers curling deliciously into the flesh of his buttock. ‘Maybe,’ she said hesitantly, taking his hand, putting it to her breast, her eyelids fluttering closed as his hand cupped her breast, his thumb stroking her nipple.