She shook, her body trembling as each wave of release passed through her.
Dante lifted his head and kissed her hip, the space just beneath her belly button. Her stomach. Between her breasts. Then he settled between her thighs, his hardness probing the soft, wet entrance to her body.
He cursed and paused, reaching beside them and picking up the condom box. He fished inside of it for a moment, producing a small packet that he tore open quickly. He rolled the condom onto his length with deft efficiency, and she was grateful he hadn’t asked her to do it.
Then he was back over her, pressing into her. She felt a brief, searing pain as he pushed inside of her, her body stretching to accommodate him.
He paused for a moment, his dark eyes blazing, his expression pained.
She shook her head. And he didn’t speak. Instead, he thrust into her to the hilt, his body coming up hard against hers, making contact right where she needed it, pleasure erasing the pain, slowly, but oh so perfectly.
He retreated, thrusting home again, establishing a steady rhythm that built up tension inside of her again. It was deeper this time, reaching farther inside of her, calling up the need from somewhere new. It was shared desperation, shared need.
She met each thrust, working with him, moving with him, toward completion. Everything blurred, blending together, the room beyond Dante turning fuzzy, insubstantial.
His movements became erratic, evidence of his fraying control, and hers began to shred, too. Her grip on the world loosening. When they fell, they fell together, raw sounds of completion filling the room as they reached the peak.
She held on to him tightly, trying to keep from getting lost in it all. Anchoring him to her.
When his muscles stopped trembling, he let out a long, slow breath and pressed his forehead against her chest. She wrapped her arms around him and held him there. Held his body against hers, skin to skin, every inch of him against every inch of her.
She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to face reality.
But she knew that they would have to.
But not yet.
CHAPTER TEN
DANTE cursed himself. To hell. To any level of hell. He’d heard every reference about his name in connection with the place of suffering and damnation that the media could possibly create, and this time, he found it appropriate.
He belonged there for this.
He had let her lead, but what he hadn’t realized was that she hadn’t known the dance.
A virgin. A damn virgin.
He should have known. He should have seen it in every wide-eyed glance, in every sweet, perfect blush. In the way she didn’t seem to know the sort of power her body could wield.
But he hadn’t, or worse, he’d ignored it. That black part of his soul rising up to choke out the control, choke out the small seed of human decency that had still rested inside of him.
He avoided women who didn’t know the game. Who didn’t understand that with him sex was only about one thing: release. Even if the woman had had a hundred partners, he had to be sure she understood that.
But a woman who had no experience with sex? She was not the kind of player he picked for the game. Ever.
The voice in his head whispering that Paige was different was silenced completely.
“Dammit, Paige,” he said, his voice rough.
“Oh, no. Don’t do that please.”
She scooted away from him and burrowed under his covers. In his bed. Like she was planning on staying the night, which he was sure she was. Women didn’t stay the night with him. They never had. Not once.
They met in hotels. They got the itch scratched. They left. A long encounter lasted a couple of hours. Never more.
“Don’t get upset about you not telling me you were a virgin?” he growled.
“Yes!” She threw her arms up and brought her hands back down on the covers. “It’s stupid. You’re not a mustache-twirling villain who just ripped away my maidenhead. I knew what I was doing.”
He moved into a sitting position on the edge of the bed and forked his fingers through his hair, his heart pounding heavily. Too quickly. He hadn’t gotten his control back yet. “I cannot even wrap my head around that sentence.”
“I wanted it. I told you I wanted it. You asked me to say it, and I did. I wanted to sleep with you. I wanted you to be my first. No, you know, that’s not even it. It wasn’t about first. It was about wanting you. End of story.”