sank down beside her. She had always had a tart tongue and willful nature, but he got the distinct impression that the past few years had given her a new level of confidence to go along with that. Add in the discovery of her own sexuality, and she might very well be more than any sane man ought to tangle with.
“Lizzy—” he began, only to be interrupted before he could get the thought out.
“Hank, surely we did not come into your bedroom to chat,” she said, reaching over to fiddle with the buttons on his shirt.
Hank brushed her hands away and tried one more time to focus on having a sensible discussion. “Lizzy, just how experienced are you?”
Her hands, already back at work on his buttons, stilled. She met his gaze evenly. “You want to talk about my track record with men?”
Hank detected a dangerous note in her voice, but he plunged on. “I think we should. Not how many or anything like that That’s none of my business, actually.”
“I’m glad you can see that much at least.”
He swallowed hard. “I was just wondering...have there been any?”
“I’m twenty-four, Hank. What do you think?”
He thought if she’d run across a man she wanted since leaving Los Piños, she wouldn’t have hesitated to sleep with him. The gleam in her eye suggested it would be wise not to suggest that.
“I think,” he said softly, “that a straight answer is called for. Your experience or lack of it makes a difference in where we go from here.”
“Is this one of those technical discussions, then?” she inquired ever so politely. “To determine if delicate, virgin-appropriate behavior is warranted?”
Heat flooded into Hank’s cheeks. “Something like that.”
To his astonishment, a smile suddenly broke across her face and she flung herself into his lap.
“If that isn’t the sweetest, most caring thing anyone has ever done,” she said, peppering kisses across his face. “Next you’re going to want to talk about birth control, aren’t you?”
Hank sighed. “Yes.”
She knelt and straddled his thighs, framing his face with her hands. “Okay, here it is. I have never, ever slept with a man. I am taking birth-control pills. It seemed like the sensible, responsible thing to do. Does that cover everything?”
“Sensible?” He seized on her choice of words. It wasn’t a word he would have associated with the impetuous Lizzy. “Were you anticipating—” he hesitated and chose his words carefully “—something like this?”
“I’m twenty-four,” she reminded him again. “You never know when the right man might come along.”
“I see.”
“Hank?”
“Yes?”
“How much longer is this conversation going to last?”
He heard the thread of impatience in her voice, recognized the flare of fire in her eyes. “Oh, I’d say we’re pretty much at the end of it.”
“And you’re not backing out or anything?”
He pulled her to him. “No, darlin’. Not if my life depended on it.”
He covered her mouth with his and wondered at the way the taste and feel of her made his pulse jump and his blood heat. Surely other women had had the same effect, but at the moment he couldn’t think of a single one who had. Maybe that’s what truly scared the daylights out of him. He knew—had always known—that once a woman like Lizzy got into a man’s blood, she’d be there forever.
Yet mere was no way at all, no way in hell, he could walk away from her now without ever knowing the way her body would come alive at his touch, without tasting for the first time the pebble-hard nipple of her breast, without feeling the slick, moist heat of her surrounding him.
One by one, he stripped away her clothes, allowing himself to feast on the sight of her. He’d seen her in the skimpiest of bikinis, but it wasn’t the same as watching her blouse slowly slither away to reveal a lacy, sexy bra in purest virginal white. It wasn’t at all like watching her shimmy out of that scrap of a skirt to reveal lacy bikini panties in startling, come-hither red.
Sweet heaven, she was perfect, with her full breasts and narrow waist and hips that flared just enough to entice a man to bury himself inside her. Her skin, when he reached for her, was burning hot to his touch, a wonderfully alluring mix of silk and dangerous fire.
But it was the look in her eyes that captivated him. Part saucy wanton, part innocent, it was the look of a woman with no second thoughts and anticipation very much on her mind. She was his for tonight at least, and he would never forget the precious gift she was bestowing on him.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, his voice low and husky. “So very beautiful.”
“Am I?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“As if you didn’t know.”
“Okay, you’re not the first person to say it,” she admitted. “Just the first one who mattered.”
Hank was awed by the implication of that and by the trust she was placing in him. “I’ve always thought you were beautiful,” he told her. “I just wouldn’t allow myself to think about it.”
“I was so afraid you would never look at me as a woman, that I’d always be the pesky kid next door.”
Hank chuckled. “Lizzy, I think you were born grown-up. I never thought of you as a kid—that was the scary part I used to be terrified someone would take advantage of that.”
“But never you,” she said softly.
“No,” he agreed. “Never me.”
“Hank?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I think we’ve waited long enough.”
“Yes, darlin’, I think we most assuredly have,” he agreed as he removed the last of her clothes and set out to teach her everything he knew about making love.
He was slow and patient and dedicated with his caresses, until the fire burning inside her had her writhing beneath him, her body coated with a sheen of perspiration and jolting with his every touch as she strained toward a first-ever climax.
“Not just yet,” he whispered as he knelt above her. “We’re going on this ride together.”
He entered her then, taking care to be sure that the pain was quick and over almost before she knew it.
“Oh!” she protested, then “Oh, my” as he eased deep inside.
Hank couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from her face as emotions raced across it, from anxiousness to anticipation
