The Greek's Innocent Virgin

His smile made her shiver even as her body melted under another intimate kiss from his too knowing mouth.

Sebastian savored the essence of Rachel with a con­suming need to imprint himself on her, to make her know she was his. Her excitement was sweet and her scent so feminine it drove him wild. No woman had tantalized him like this one, had made him want her until he could taste her mouth in his dreams and feel her body when he closed his eyes.

He brushed his thumb against her pleasure spot while taking possession of slick, swollen feminine flesh with his tongue.

She gave no warning before her body went rigid in ecstasy and a scream of fulfillment burst from her lips. It continued to echo in his mind long after the only sounds coming from her mouth were tiny whim­pers of residual pleasure.

Her body was still shaking with aftershocks when he came up over her and positioned his hardness at the entrance to her hot velvet depths.

He kissed her rosebud lips, reveling in their taste as much as he had enjoyed the sweet core of her.

“I want you,'' he rasped.

Her eyes fluttered open, the expression in them soft and full of an emotion that impacted him to the depths of his soul. "I want you too, but please..."

"Please, what?" He could barely get the words out, his need was so great.

"Don't hurt me."

Ardor ebbed, though it did not leave completely as he considered her reasons for making such a request. "You believe I will hurt you?"

"No, but..."

Her innocent reactions, the surprised way she re­sponded to his every touch, her instant rejection of his mouth on her...they all added up to a truth he could barely credit. "You are a virgin?"

"Yes."

"But you are twenty-three." He could not help the shocked words from leaving his mouth.

"I have never felt this way about another man."

He looked down at her, his heart pounding in his chest and he believed her. "Then you do me a great honor.''

He bent and lifted her into his arms.

Her eyes filled with vulnerable appeal and an un­stoppable wave of tenderness swept over him. Never before had it been so important to ensure his partner's pleasure and well-being, but he was determined to make her first time one she would remember always.

He bent down and kissed her with lips gentled by the feelings coursing through him. “It will be perfect, agape mou. I promise you."

She reached up and returned his kiss, hers full of trust and a surrender as ancient as Adam and Eve. "I believe you, my love."

Did she know what she had called him?

He looked into her beautiful green eyes, glazed with passion and he did not think so, but just because she was not conscious of the words did not mean she did not feel them. He had blinded himself to her feel­ings because he thought he had to, but Rachel was as far removed from the woman who had given her birth as a nun from a prostitute.

He forced himself to take the time to arouse her all over again, to bring her to the brink of climax before carefully beginning to ease himself into her body. As silken tissues stretched around him, an incontrovert­ible truth assailed him.

Nothing but marriage would do.

The thought of another man doing to her what he was about to do was intolerable.

"You are mine," he growled as her tightness al­lowed him to gain only the beginning of entry.

Love glazed eyes stared back at him and she nod­ded. "Yes. I'm yours. I always have been."

Her mass of silky brown hair, long since fallen out of its conservative style, spread around her on the sofa cushions like a pagan goddess of old.

It took more self-control than he thought he had, but he eased into her slow inch by slow inch. The farther he sank into her body, the more fractured his thoughts became. The lack of any impediment to his progress registered only on the periphery of his mind as his own passion took control of him.

He made love to her in a state of mind-numbed need, the pleasure blasting through him greater than anything he had ever known.

She moved under him, the noises coming from her throat desperate and carnal. Again, she gave no warn­ing, but climaxed beneath him with powerful con­tractions in the swollen tissues surrounding his needy flesh. And he joined her, the world going black around the edges for several incredible seconds.

When he came fully to himself, he was collapsed on top of her. He felt weak in a way he had sworn he would never allow himself to experience.

She was crying, soft, silent tears.

"Did I hurt you?" His gut twisted in agony at the prospect.

She shook her head causing more moisture to leak out of her eyes. "It was the most incredible experi­ence of my life. Thank you."

He carefully pulled himself back from her, frown­ing at her sucked in breath as he withdrew com­pletely. "You are all right?"

"Oh, yes. It's just so different. Every little move­ment sets off earthquake tremors inside me." She said it apologetically, but he shook his head in wonder.

Did she have no idea how special a lover she was?

She was asleep before her head even rested against the pillow. He climbed in beside her, physically re­plete as he'd never been before.

He woke her in the night twice and both times she gave herself to him with delightful abandon.

Sebastian woke with a sense of having lost something important.

Himself.

Never before in his life had he experienced such intense need, such driven desire. Nor had he experi­enced the depth of emotional connection with another woman that he knew with Rachel. His body had pos­sessed hers, but she had also possessed him and left him with a need he did not believe would ever be completely slaked.

A man was a fool to let any woman have this sort of power over him, but he was helpless to minimize his reaction to her.

The only redemption he could find in the situation was that their obsession was completely mutual.

She could not resist him.

Soft warmth cuddled against his side and sensual memories of the night before came flooding back, at­testing to that. Rachel had participated in their love-making to the very depths of her being. She was an amazing lover, a woman like no other. Every man's dream.

A sense of disorientation assailed him as he re­membered a line from his uncle's letter.

Matthias had said the same thing about Andrea, that she was every man's dream in bed. The old man had written that he had continued in his travesty of a marriage for so long, not only because of the desire Andrea elicited in him. He had also been addicted to the sexual response she gave him.

Addiction. The word was too close to Sebastian's feelings for Rachel to be comfortable.

But he was not so enslaved to his libido that he would allow a woman to destroy his pride and tram­ple his masculine dignity because she was good in bed.

Wouldn't you?, a tormenting voice prompted in his head.

His thoughts in turmoil, he let his gaze settle on the small woman sleeping beside him. He could not see her face because it was covered in a cloud of brown silk, but the top swells of her breasts were revealed above the duvet and he could feel their soft­ness against his skin. Sexual desire roared up hot and hungry and he had to bite down on the urge to touch her into wakefulness.

&nbs

p; Addiction. Obsession. How different were they?

But was he addicted? He wanted, but he did not have to take. He could survive not making love. He was no slave to his passions.

Besides a virgin deserved some consideration.

That thought was a more effective checker to his tortuous want than any determination to prove his ability to control his libido. He did not want to hurt her, but thinking back to the night before, he could not remember hurting her at all. Not even the first time.

Memories began to niggle at him, impressions of the night before that he had been unable to assimilate in his rapture dazed mind. There hadn't been any blood.

A woman's virginity had to be carefully breached because it caused the rupture of a thin membrane of flesh inside her, the result of which was blood. But she hadn't bled. She also had not been sore. She had accommodated him with eager acceptance every time they made love.

She had told him she was a virgin, but the evidence was to the contrary.