The Virgin's Choice

She heard him gasp, then he grabbed her hands in his own. “All right,” he rasped. His voice was raw. “All right.”

“All right?”

“God help me—” He crushed his mouth against hers, hard and hungry. Cradling the back of her head, he shoved her against the wall, kissing her so deeply that she nearly gasped from the exquisite, anguished pleasure. She felt his hardness against her, felt his body so much stronger and more powerful than her own. But she was no longer afraid. She kissed him back, her hands gripping his hair as she gasped for breath, tilting back her throat.

He kissed down her neck, his hands moving over her thin cover-up, murmuring words of desire that she could not hear clearly, but she still heard them ringing through her body. Cupping her breasts with his hands, he bit the edge of her throat and shoulder, causing sparks of fire to spread down her body, making her shiver and shake.

With a ragged gasp, he pulled away, abruptly meeting her gaze. “You’re cold.”

Without waiting for a reply, he lifted her up against his chest, carrying her from the shadows of the cool lanai out into the sun. She blinked at the intensity of the blinding light glaring off the white sand. He set her down on the warm sand of the beach, lying down beside her.

She looked up at him, dazed with emotion and sensuality. His face was in shadow, his dark head haloed by the sun, bathed in golden light.

Lowering his head, he kissed her, covering her with his body. As he ran his hands over her thin cover-up and the bare skin of her arms, she felt the weight of his body over hers and was suddenly flushed with heat.

Leaning back on his haunches, he lifted his muscular arms and pulled off his black T-shirt. Dropping it to the sand, he reached for the belt of her cover-up.

She put her hand over his. “No,” she gasped. “We can’t. Not out here.”

“Here,” he said.

“But—”

“This place is ours.”

He kissed her, and his lips were so persuasive, moving against hers with aching sweetness as his tongue flicked against the corners of her lips, she could deny him nothing. She meekly submitted to his demand, barely noticing as he undid the belt of her thin cotton cover-up and pulled it off her body.

His hands moved over her bikini, beneath the tiny squares of fabric, cupping her breasts, rolling her aching nipples between his fingers. Locking his eyes with hers, he reached for the strings of her bikini and pulled them open.

She realized she was naked before him, lying on the sand. The heat of his gaze was too intense, and as he reached for his own shorts she squeezed her eyes shut. She felt the hot sun against her naked body, the sprinkle of cool mist from the pounding surf.

Then she felt his naked body over hers. He was so hard, so masculine, with muscular legs that were rough with coarse hair. His knee pushed between her thighs, separating them as he kissed her. She could feel him pressed between her legs, hard and huge, as he cupped her breasts with his hands. He suckled first one nipple, then the other, teasing with his tongue until she gasped with agonized pleasure.

Slowly, he kissed down her body. He licked her belly with tiny swirls of his tongue, flicking inside her belly button as he held her hips down with his large hands. He lowered himself farther down her body, spreading her thighs apart.

Her pulse was a rush of blood in her ears, louder than the cries of seagulls or the waving fronds of palm trees sighing against the sky above.

His breath was hot between her legs. It was shocking, wicked, but she could not fight him. Her body was his. Her head was spinning. She stretched her hands out on the sand, desperate to hold on to something, anything, to keep her body from flying off the earth and into the sky. She felt his hands move on her skin between her thighs. He couldn’t be thinking…he couldn’t…

Spreading her wide, he took a long taste of her with the full width of his tongue.

With a gasp, she arched off the sand. The sensation of pleasure from this intimate, forbidden act was an assault of pleasure against her body. He moved in a swirling dance, working her most sensitive spot with his tongue. Lightly, then firmly, then lightly twisting again.

Tension coiled deep inside her as her breath came in increasingly hoarse gasps. Her vision was going dark from the stars in her eyes.

“Look at me,” he whispered.

She couldn’t.

“Look at me,” he demanded, and she had no choice but to obey.

The image of his dark head nestled between her thighs, looking up at her, as she saw his face against her naked body, caused a surge of electricity to sizzle through her body. Her hips lifted off the sand.

Then he rose to his knees, and she got her first full look at his naked body.

Xerxes was breathtaking. Beautiful, in the strength of his muscled form and shape, in the stretch of dark hair tracing down his hard-bodied chest to his taut, flat belly and his lean hips. She saw the hard, enormous, jutting evidence of his desire for her and squeezed her eyes shut, suddenly afraid.

He covered her with his body, reaching across to gently brush tendrils of hair from her face. “Don’t be afraid.”