“Did I hurt you?” he ground out.
Stupid question. Of course he’d hurt her. He’d just taken her maidenhead with all the finesse of a charging bull.
But then she moved beneath him. Her arms, which had been resting on his biceps, slipped up to his shoulders, gently caressing the taut muscles there. “It’s all right. I want you to—go ahead.” The words were a mere whisper and he noticed she hadn’t answered his question. But his body was screaming for his attention and her permission was a powerful aphrodisiac heightening his urgent arousal. His control, usually an easy part of his sexual experiences, was shredded and fading; he could feel himself already on the edge, each small motion of her tight warm body a sensual torment to his ultra-sensitive flesh. With a muttered apology, he took her hips in his hands and set his mouth on hers, swallowing the sounds she made with his frantic kisses as he plunged in and drew back repeatedly. Her legs came up to clasp his hips and he shuddered as the movement pulled him deeper. And then the storm broke over his head and his back arched in the rhythms of release as his seed jetted deep, deep within her body, until he lay winded and still in the wake of the passing fury.
“Allison.” Kane sounded dazed. He lay heavily over her and she kept her arms linked tightly around him, her eyes closed, pressing herself into the amazing heat of his hard body, savoring the moments in which they were physically joined. But then he pulled away from her and all her strength couldn’t hold him. She winced at the drag of his flesh against her torn, tender opening, and he made a sound of frustration as he levered himself upright and left her. He stood, looking down at her, hands on hips and all she could do was lie in exhausted silence and take in the magnificence of his sculpted body for the first time.
“Why in hell didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?” His voice was a low growl. Her eyes shot to his and she shrank from the dark look in those golden depths.
“I didn’t think about it,” she said in a small voice, shifting a little to ease the discomfort between her thighs. “I was just…feeling.”
He snorted, but the ferocious scowl altered into a less forbidding expression. “Yeah,” he said. “I know what you mean.” His face softened even more, and he reached down and stroked the back of his knuckle down her cheek. “If I’d known, I would have been more gentle.”
“You were perfect,” she said fiercely. “Quit worrying about it, all right?”
“Not all right.” To her astonishment, he bent and slipped his arms beneath her, lifting her up against his bare chest and letting her hair cascade down over his shoulder and arm. He was hot and sweaty and rough with hair, and so exciting that she could feel her toes curl and her abdomen contract, despite the exhaustion that was fast returning.
He held her there a moment, inspecting her face, and then he dropped his head and nuzzled her lips again. “Next time we do this I’ll show you how it should have been done.”
She couldn’t have prevented the smile that broke free as she slipped her arms up around his neck to deepen the light kiss. And when he finally let her breathe again, she said, “Now?”
Kane gave a bark of laughter as he began to walk back toward the hallway. “For somebody who never let a man—”
“Stop!” She put a palm over his lips. “I was a virgin until a few minutes ago, remember?”
And his smile slipped a notch. His voice held a grim note when he answered her. “I’ll never forget.”
Kane took her to the bedroom she indicated, surprised somehow by how soft and feminine it was. He didn’t know why it surprised him and, remembering earlier when he’d seen her hair down for the first time, he felt vaguely ashamed that he’d misunderstood her so completely. In the workplace she was calm, quiet yet always efficient. He’d thought of her as someone, well, bland, and if he’d ever thought at all about her personal preferences, which he hadn’t, he’d have assumed they were quiet and bland as well. In the limited personal moments they’d shared in the past, he realized that she rarely turned the conversation to herself. She’d always encouraged him to talk about himself, and he’d taken full advantage of her generosity.
Now he looked around him with interest, absorbing the ambience, gleaning clues about who the woman in his arms really was. She lay in docile surrender against his chest, her head against his shoulder. As he looked down at her slender body, all he could think was that he never wanted this night to end. Never wanted to have to think of anything but the incredible pleasure her sweet body gave him.
But he did have to think of something else. She’d been a virgin. So he knew she wasn’t prepared for birth control. And he hadn’t given it a damn thought until he’d been so deep inside her there was no chance in hell he could stop. He and Allison could have created a new life.
A child. He wasn’t sure how he felt. He’d always known he wanted children, children to whom he could give the kind of childhood he’d never had. But how he felt wasn’t really the issue. The issue was that he was an honorable man. His mother had raised him that way, and since he’d met the other members of the Fortune family, he knew where the strong streak of responsibility came from. Rarely did a Fortune walk away from his responsibilities.
He thought of his mother, a teenager with twin infants, totally overwhelmed and alone in a strange city. She’d been sure her father would never accept her back again, pregnant and unmarried. Maybe some people would see it as a shirking of responsibilities, but he thought it was the ultimate act of honor to give up children for whom she knew she couldn’t provide, to hope that they’d be adopted by loving families with adequate resources that she hadn’t had.
Well, he had the resources. And no child of his would ever be given away. The woman in his arms could very well be carrying his child after this night so he’d marry her. He’d marry her. The solution was so simple! They’d get married as soon as he could arrange it.
He wasn’t going to have people counting backward on their fingers and coming up with the wrong conclusions. He’d been the butt of gossip much of his life, one way or another. No child of his was going to have to suffer the cruel talk he had.
You don’t really have a dad, do you? I bet your mom was never married at all. He forced his mind away from the remembered taunts. No, his child would never have to endure anything like that.
It was a good solution in more ways than one, he realized as he looked down at the woman in his arms. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the reasons that she might still have been a virgin at her age. But it couldn’t have been a casual choice. No, if Allison had given herself to him after so many years of chastity, then he had an obligation to treat her gift as the special treasure it had been.
Besides, he was thirty years old. Nothing would please his mother more than to have him settled and giving her grandchildren to spoil.
And she’d like Allison. No, she’d probably love Allison. She’d take one look and see the gentle, selfless spirit, the honesty and integrity, the bone-deep kindness that radiated from Allison, and she’d see what he saw: the perfect woman with whom to spend his life. Satisfaction filled him. He could already imagine her soothing presence in his home and he liked the image. He liked it a lot.
And Allison would be a wonderful mother for his children. He already knew she would be great with infants since he’d seen the careful tenderness with which she handled babies in the neonatal unit. She was soft and sweet, easygoing yet competent. He couldn’t find a better-suited woman to mother his children if he tried.
She shifted in his arms and as he pulled
