to luxuriate in circling and stroking, driving her crazy.
She bit at his lips, dying, wild, loving his touch and him for giving her this amazing build of pleasure, this incessant desire for physical contact with a man.
He said sinful things about what he wanted to do to her, sucked her nipple and said, “Let me kiss you here. I want to lick you. It’ll be so good, Jaya—”
“No,” she gasped. Her horror was pure, latent shyness, but the idea of him doing that was so wickedly intriguing her arousal spiked to something she couldn’t contain. Convulsively trying to close her legs, she could only squeeze his wide, masculine hips, unable to stop what he was doing. She couldn’t catch back her uninhibited response. Her only choice was complete surrender to him and her body’s sharp need.
Her reward was a deep throb of sheer joy expanding through her in shuddering waves. Her throat filled with a cry of release that was more than just physical. It was emotional triumph. Freedom from the past. Joy at a man’s touch.
CHAPTER THREE
INCREDIBLE TENDERNESS MADE her slither in sweet lassitude beneath him, loving the hard strength of him, the disheveled intensity holding him tense as she ran her fingers into his hair. She made him lift his head so she could look at him.
It was painfully intimate to let him look into her eyes when she had just shattered so completely. His hand stilled where he still had it tucked against her mons and an internal ache made her long to beg him to continue stroking her.
“Thank you,” she whispered, hoping he put down her shiny eyes to arousal.
A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. “Stick around. There’s more where that came from.” He punctuated with a gentle, deliberate caress that slid low and penetrated her pulsing channel.
She tightened, part of her reaction instinctual resistance, but the sensation of clasping his thick finger was so delicious she moaned and lifted her hips a little, encouraging more.
“Ah, Jaya...” His hot mouth opened in a wet kiss against her neck and he deepened his possession of her.
“Wait,” she gasped, still clasping his head and this time clutching him close with her arms hard on his shoulders while she stared at the back of the sofa. Was she really going to do this? Her body was on fire while her mind was cleaving in all directions.
He removed his hand from her underpants and she moaned in loss.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, skimming his lips against her jaw before he lifted his head and removed her hand from his hair. “You don’t have to rip my hair out. This has gone further than you wanted to, I get it.”
“No, I—” Disconcerted, she dropped her twitching fingers to his shoulders, sorry she’d hurt him, sorry she’d lost his exquisite caresses. She didn’t want this to end, not yet. This was her chance to get over her past. “I have a pill in my room. One that, um, prevents a pregnancy after, um, unprotected sex.” Please don’t ask me why I have it.
Her voice faded toward the end. She was grossly unsure of herself and given how he’d pulled away, maybe he wasn’t all that invested. He became very grave as he pondered what she’d said, making her hold her breath.
“I always wear a condom.”
Disappointment sliced surprisingly deep. She swallowed and nodded. “I understand. It’s okay. Like you said, this isn’t something we intended, so—”
“No, I mean I’m clean. I’ve never gone bareback so you don’t have to worry I’d give you anything.”
“I...” Had tests. Again, she didn’t want to think about Saranya taking her to the doctor once she’d got her out of India. That dark time was being overcome, here, tonight, with this man. “I’m clean, too.”
He searched her face. She recognized the glaze of concentration in his eyes as a passionate force. It nearly squeezed the air right out of her.
“Swear to me you’ll take that pill.” His lips barely moved.
“My family would take out a contract on me if I had a baby outside of marriage.”
He held himself in steely control and she could almost hear the computations of risk against desire. “I don’t want to be a father. Ever. If you’re thinking this might lead to something—”
“No!” she insisted, casting for the right words. “It’s like you said about not wanting to think about certain things. I want something different in my mind.” A new memory. A good one. “A baby would be a disaster. But I want to feel...you,” she ended in a whisper.
His nostrils flared as he drew a deep breath, his nod brief and sharp before he pulled away, gathering her up as he found his feet. The strength in him as he lifted her and held her cradled to his chest made bells ring in her ears, but she found herself curling her arm around his neck and burying her face into the masculine scent in the crook near his shoulder.
What she had said was broad enough to be true in many ways. She wanted to think of men differently, but there was a part of her deeply enthralled in the now. She could barely form a thought beyond her need for physical contact with this man.
He set her on the bed and straightened, not turning on the light. Only the faint glimmer from the pool deck through the windows penetrated.
She hugged her knees as she watched him slide his belt free and toss it away, toeing off his shoes at the same time.
“Are we taking turns? Because I’m dying to see you,” he said with enough ragged edge on his voice to make her shiver.
She looked down at her crumpled uniform, her shirt open, her bra still loose across her chest. Shyness was the only thing holding her back from undressing, she realized with a glistening lilt of joy. Not fear, just natural self-consciousness about undressing in front of a man.
As she hesitantly drew her shirt off her shoulders she confessed, “You’ve seen a lot of women. I don’t know how I’ll compare.”
Down to his briefs as he peeled away his socks, he said, “I’m not very sure of my ability to hang on until I’ve given you everything I want you to have. I do not want to be the selfish bastard you compare every future lover to.”
He wouldn’t be, not by a long shot. And even though a quick coupling was probably better for her, given her hang-ups, she doubted it was a good thing to say. Besides, he stole the shirt she was trying to fold and lifted her bra away, dropping both to the floor. The air-conditioned room made her curl her toes, incredibly self-conscious of her naked breasts and beaded nipples as she forced her hands to remain beside her hips.
Sitting there in the half-light, staring at his muscled frame, she was accosted by a pull in her abdomen, but it wasn’t fear or misgivings. It was longing. She wanted his hot, muscled body on hers. She wanted to feel those hard thighs between her own without cloth between them.
He started to remove her sandals and she kicked them off herself, letting him ease her onto her back in a sprawl under him as he loomed over her. The brush of his skin against hers was brand-hot, making her quiver with disconcertion. But the reassuring stroke of his hand up her waist to cup her breast calmed her nerves even as his expert touch sensitized
