‘Ever,’ Pippa concluded.
‘You’re telling me that you’ve never spent the night with a guy you’ve just met before?’
‘Yes, but not just that,’ Pippa interposed a shade irritably for he was being exceedingly slow on the uptake when she wanted him to get the message faster than the speed of light. ‘Apart from the fact that I’m not promiscuous—’
‘Hey…hold it there, I was not making a judgement,’ Andreo slotted in, lying in his teeth for he never, ever got involved with women who slept around.
‘But that…well, that I’ve never slept with a guy before…I’m, er, you know…’ Pippa shot an almost pleading glance at Andreo but, while showing every sign of granting her one hundred per cent of his attention, he did not seem about to help her out ‘…a virgin…’
‘A…a what?’ Andreo frowned in evident bewilderment. ‘Did you just say what I thought you said?’
Bearing a close resemblance to a stone image at that point, Pippa nodded, twin high spots of self-conscious colour blooming over her cheekbones. He looked really shocked and she had not been prepared for that reaction.
‘But you’re not a teenager.’ Andreo seemed to be sinking into deeper shock with every second that passed.
‘So?’
A virgin. She was a virgin. He was blowing it. He ought to be taking this confession in his stride, not staring at her as if she had just leapt fully formed out of a medieval painting. She looked so anxious and she was blushing like mad and something inside him just twisted. In one bold movement, he rose upright and moved forward to come down on the bed beside her.
‘It’s not a problem,’ Andreo asserted, fishing below the spread to gather her back into his arms but with rather more circumspection that he had utilised moments earlier.
It was not a problem, he told himself. Why should it be a problem?
‘Honestly?’ she pressed unevenly.
Lust fought with innate decency inside Andreo and the guy he liked to think he was surfaced for the first time in longer than he cared to recall. ‘You need to think about this—’
‘No, I don’t.’ Pippa closed her arms tightly round him and resisted the urge to scream that she had spent all her adult years thinking and thinking and thinking and hardly ever just doing. The very feel of his long, lean body next to hers made her heart speed up. She gazed into dark golden eyes enhanced by spiky black lashes and breathing normally became a distinct challenge. In fact just looking at him unleashed a flock of butterflies in her tummy and that was followed up by a wanton, warm, melting sensation that pierced deep enough to make her blush and squirm.
‘Why me?’ Andreo framed, inching down the spread while he kept her preoccupied and burying his hungry mouth against the delicate ridge of her collar-bone where a tiny pulse was flickering like crazy. The very scent of her soft skin enthralled him.
Jerking, she gasped in oxygen like a drowning swimmer and then buried her face in the cropped luxuriance of his black hair. Her entire body was humming like a race car engine revving up and she couldn’t concentrate. ‘I don’t know…’
‘Yes, you do…’ Andreo co
untered.
And he was right, she registered in dim surprise. She wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything or anybody: it was that basic.
Andreo thrust the spread from his path and paused to admire the succulent pink nipples he had uncovered. ‘You’re exquisite…’ And he rubbed those stiff, swollen buds with knowing fingers before lowering his dark head to lave them with his tongue.
Her spine arched up to him and she cried out in sensual shock at the sheer intensity of sensation. Her fingers dug into his hair and she flung her head back. He toyed with the tender tips while he kissed her again with erotic thoroughness, very much a male staking a claim and taking his time. She wrapped her arms tight round him, crushing her sensitised, tingling breasts into the hard, abrasive wall of his chest and letting her hands trace the breadth of his muscular shoulders and the long, silky smooth line of his strong back.
‘I promise I’ll make it good, cara,’ Andreo swore, pulling back from her and springing upright to shed his well cut trousers.
Soft mouth voluptuous and red from the hungry urgency of his, she stared at him. From his superb torso to his taut, flat stomach, lean hips and powerful thighs, he was all hard muscle and sleek bronzed skin: magnificently male. His boxer shorts could not conceal the virile evidence of his male arousal. Untouched by an atom of her self-conscious shyness, he skimmed off that final garment and all the curiosity she had never owned up to possessing was fully met. Eyes wide, face burning, she dropped her head again. For goodness’ sake, how on earth…?
He tossed back the spread beneath which she had again taken refuge. She connected with smouldering dark golden eyes and suddenly she was stretching up to welcome him back to her, her body tight and hot and restive in ways she did not even understand.
‘How virginal is virginal?’ Andreo husked.
‘On a scale of one to ten…ten being the ultimate…probably almost ten,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Your skin is as translucent as porcelain.’ Andreo explored the pert mounds of her small breasts, lingered to tease her distended pink nipples with his expert mouth. ‘You’re so delicate, so sensitive there. I love that.’
She couldn’t lie still beneath his ministrations. Heart thundering, she arched into his caresses, eager for more, shameless in pursuit of that ever more seductive pleasure that built and built to a level that was almost a torment. ‘Kiss me…’
He savoured her lips, let his tongue tangle with hers, laughed with earthy appreciation as she dragged him down to her with impatient hands, hungry for the weight of him over her, the firm, hard pressure of his mouth, and denied it.