she had been waiting her whole life for that moment and was being richly rewarded for her patience. In the dim light from the bedside lamp, Jai’s eyes glittered with the pale ice of polar stars, but the ice that powered him burned through her like a rejuvenating drug, banishing the grief and the guilt and the sadness that had filled her to overflowing. Her fingers drifted up to curve to his strong jawline.
‘I like this,’ she whispered helplessly.
‘I like it too much,’ Jai conceded in a driven undertone, lifting her off his lap to lay her down on the bed where her strawberry-blond hair shone in the lamplight, leaning over her to cover her lush mouth with his again.
‘How…too much?’ she pressed.
‘I was trying to comfort you, not—’
Featherlight fingers brushed his lips before he could complete that speech. ‘Kiss me again,’ she urged feverishly. ‘It drives everything else out of my head.’
She wanted forgetfulness, not the down-to-earth reminder that such intimacy was untimely. Jai’s stern cautious side warred with his libido, his body teeming with pent-up desire. They were alone and free-to-consent adults, not irresponsible teenagers. He gazed down at her and then wrenched at the constriction of his tie with an impatient hand, suddenly giving way to the passionate nature that he usually controlled to what he deemed an acceptable level. The allure of her pink ripe lips was more than he could withstand.
That next explosive kiss sealed Willow’s fate, for she could no more have denied the hunger coursing through her than she could have denied her own name. There was also a strong element of wonder in discovering Jai’s desire for her. That was thrillingly unexpected and wonderfully heartening, that she could have it within her to mysteriously attract a man well known for his preference for gorgeous models and Bollywood actresses, a gorgeous, incredibly sexy man, who could have had virtually any woman he wanted. It changed her view of herself as the girl next door, low on sex appeal.
‘I want you,’ Jai ground out against her reddened mouth as he shed his jacket with a lithe twist of his broad shoulders.
Only for a split second did she marvel at that and then all her insecurities surged to the fore because she was skinny and lacked the curves that were so often seen as essential to make a woman appealing to a man. But an internal voice reminded her that Jai wanted her, and she opened her mouth beneath the onslaught of his, let her tongue dart and tangle with his, feeling free, feeling daring for the first time ever.
There was intoxication in the demanding pressure of his mouth on hers and the long fingers sliding below her top to cup a small pouting breast while he toyed with the tender peak. Her body arched without her volition as that sensual caress grew more intense, tiny little arrows of heat darting down into her pelvis to make her extraordinarily aware of that area. Her hips shifted as he pulled her top off, exposing the bare swell of her breasts, bending over her to use his mouth on the plump pink nipples commanding his attention. She tingled all over, goose bumps rising on her arms as he suckled on the distended buds. Between her thighs she felt hot and damp and surprisingly impatient for what came next.
And she knew what came next, of course she did, but her friends’ bluntness on the topic had warned her not to expect triumphant bursts of classical music and glimpses of heaven in the final stages. It would be her first time and she was aware that her lack of experience would not affect his enjoyment but that it might well detract from hers. All a matter of luck, a friend had told her sagely.
Dainty fingers spearing through Jai’s silky black hair, Willow was revelling in the intimacy of being able to touch him while still marvelling over how fast things could change between two people. Yet she had no doubts and was convinced she would have no regrets either because she had already reached the conclusion that she would rather have Jai as her first lover than anyone else.
Jai dragged off his shirt, returned to kiss her again, his wide, powerful torso hard and muscular against hers. She made a little sound of appreciation deep in her throat even as her hands skated up the hot, smooth skin of his ribcage to discover the muscles that flexed with his every movement. She couldn’t think any more beyond that moment because the craving he had unleashed grew stronger with every demanding kiss and utterly controlled her, dulling her brain with an adrenalin boost that was wholly physical.
She writhed under his weight as he traced the hot, swollen centre of her, touching her where she desperately needed to be touched so that her body arched up to him, her heartbeat thundering, her entire being quivering with feverish need. A finger penetrated her slick depths and she gasped, all arousal and captive energy, wanting, wanting…
‘Is it safe?’ Jai husked, wrenching at his trousers to get them out of his path and so overexcited he barely recognised himself in his eagerness but her response, the passage of her tiny hands smoothing over his overheated body, had pushed him to the biting edge of a hunger greater than anything he had ever known before.
Safe? Safe? What was he talking about? She wasn’t expecting any more visitors; they were alone. Of course, they were safe from interruption or the potential embarrassment of discovery.
‘Of course, it is,’ Willow muttered.
Jai came down to her with a wolfish smile of relief. ‘How very fortunate… I don’t think I could stop unless you ordered me to.’
‘Not going to,’ Willow mumbled, entranced by the fierce black-fringed eyes above hers into absolute stillness.
Jai tipped her legs back and slid sinuously between them, shifting forward in a forceful surge to plunge into her. Eyes closing, Willow felt the burn of his invasion as her untried body stretched to accommodate him and then a sharp stab of pain that jolted her even as he groaned with satisfaction.
‘You’re so tight,’ he breathed appreciatively.
The pain faded and, as it had been less than she had feared, her stress level dropped, and her body relaxed to rise up against his as he withdrew and forged back into her again. Little tendrils of warming sensation gathered in her pelvis and the excitement flooded back, kicking up her heartrate simultaneously so that even breathing became a challenge. She moved against him, hot, damp with perspiration, losing control because the insidious tightening at her core stoked her hunger for him. His fluid insistent rhythm increased, and she felt frantic, pitched to an edge of need that felt unbearable. She lifted to meet his every thrust, need driving her to hasten to the finish line and then, with a swoosh of drowning sensation, the tightness transformed into an explosion of sheer pleasure unlike any she had ever envisaged and she fell back against the pillows, winded and drained, utterly incapable of even twitching a limb.
‘That was incredible,’ Jai purred like a well-fed jungle cat in her ear, long fingers tracing the relaxed pout of her mouth and trailing down to her shoulder to smooth the skin before he pressed his mouth hungrily to the slope of her neck. ‘All I really want now is to do it all over again.’
The tension of discomfiture, of not knowing how to behave, beginning to rise in Willow ebbed. He was happy, she was happy, there was nothing to fret about. Again, though? She had assumed that men were once-only creatures in need of recovery time, but Jai was already shifting sensually against her again, his renewed arousal brushing her stomach. That he could still want her that much gratified her and she smiled up at him.
That smile full of sunshine disconcerted Jai. His conscience twinged and it took him a moment to recognise the unfamiliar prompting because it was rare for him to do anything that awakened such a reaction. ‘You do realise that this…us, isn’t likely to go anywhere?’ he murmured.
‘How
