It wasn’t often she caught Corran by surprise, but he definitely blinked. ‘What, never?’
‘No.’ She moistened her lips. She had started, so she might as well tell him it all. She couldn’t be any more embarrassed anyway.
She went back to plucking at the grass, not looking at him. ‘I’m a v-virgin. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to have this time by myself. I know it can’t last for ever, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to…to…lose my virginity,’ she finished in a rush.
‘It would just be a temporary thing,’ she hurried on before Corran could speak. She was desperate to get it all out before she lost her nerve completely. ‘I know I’m not your type. It’s just…I wondered…’ Moistening her lips, she took a determined breath. ‘The thing is, I wanted a lover, only I wasn’t sure how to go about finding one and I just wondered, well, I thought…’
‘…that I would do?’ Corran suggested when she ran out of steam.
But he didn’t sound offended and, when Lotty risked a glance at him, she saw that the dent at the corner of his mouth had definitely deepened. Warmth bloomed deep inside her.
‘Well, there isn’t anyone else out here,’ she pointed out, just so that he knew that she wasn’t planning to get too involved.
‘No, there isn’t, is there?’
Reaching out, Corran ran an unhurried knuckle down Lotty’s cheek, and her throat tightened at the tenderness of the gesture from the hard hand.
‘Why don’t we start with a kiss and take it from there?’ he suggested.
‘OK.’ Lotty tucked her hair behind her ears and cleared her throat. Now that it had come to it, she was terrified and excited and very nervous that she wouldn’t do it right.
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been kissed before either?’
‘Not really.’ How could she explain to Corran about the lonely pedestal she lived on, or how closely protected she had been by her grandmother all her life?
‘Incredible,’ he said, his eyes searching her face. ‘Like a princess in a fairy tale, locked away, waiting for a kiss…’
Lotty’s gaze slid from his. ‘Something like that.’
Corran shook his head in disbelief as he laid his palm against her cheek. ‘Are you going to ask me, then?’
The air was soft and sweet but Lotty shivered at his touch as he slid his hand down to her throat.
‘Please would you kiss me?’ she asked politely, and then he did smile. He really smiled, and something blossomed inside her. She had dreamt about seeing Corran smile like that, about seeing the hard mouth soften and the cold eyes warm, and the cheeks crease with amusement, and her heart contracted at the sight.
‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ he said, but he still didn’t kiss her. Instead he twisted his fingers around the scarf and drew it slowly from her throat. Lotty felt the coolness of the silk sliding over her skin and she closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the fizzy rush of anticipation and nervousness.
At last…at last!
Corran’s lips touched the corner of her mouth, and her eyes flew open in dismay. ‘Is that it?’ she said, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice.
‘No.’ His smile deepened. ‘That’s not it. That’s just the start. Come here,’ he said, pulling her close so that he could trail tantalising kisses along her jaw to her earlobe and then down to the pulse that was beating frantically in her throat.
Lotty arched her head back instinctively and her fingers curled in the grass. His lips were so warm, so sure as they made their way back towards her mouth, and then he was torturing her with slow kisses on the other side. It was agonizing. It was wonderful. Lotty’s senses were spinning with the wicked, delicious pleasure of it even as she burned with frustration.
And then his mouth reached hers at last, and the pleasure rocketed into a new urgency, a hunger that had her hands lifting instinctively to his shoulders so that she could hold on to him. His lips were warm and sure on hers, while his tongue teased until she parted her own and he took her with him as they sank down into the grass so he could kiss her in a way she’d only ever dreamed of before, long, long kisses, hungry but unhurried.
Lotty gave herself up to the sheer sensuous pleasure of it. Beneath her, the grass prickled her neck but she didn’t care. She felt only the warm weight of Corran pressing her down into the ground, his hard hands sliding insistently over her thigh, slipping beneath her top to trace patterns of fire on her bare skin. It felt so good to be able to touch him too, to run her own hands over his back and feel the flex of his muscles beneath his shirt.
‘I like this,’ she gasped at one point, and Corran smiled against her skin.
‘I can’t believe you’ve never done this before,’ he said.
‘Am I doing it right?’ she asked, suddenly uncertain, and he lifted his head to look down into her face, touched and amazed by her innocence. Lotty might be no expert, but she was so sweet and so eager and she felt so sinfully good.
‘You’re a natural,’ he told her, and a smile lit the beautiful grey eyes.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Would you kiss me again?’
‘Why don’t you kiss me?’ Corran rolled onto his back and spread his arms. ‘I’m all yours.’
Lotty smoothed her hair behind her ears, the way she always did when she was nervous, but she leant over him and looked down into his face for a moment before lowering her mouth to his. She was tentative at first, a little unsure, but he lay still and let her discover just what she could do.
And she could do quite a lot. Corran had to clench his hands to stop his arms clamping around her and rolling her beneath him once more. He didn’t want to frighten her, but she was sorely testing his control. She was lying right on top of him, tracing the angle of his cheekbones with light, butterfly kisses, kissing her way to his ear and then back to his mouth. Who would have thought that those sweet little kisses could be quite so tantalising, quite so sexy, quite so exciting?
When he couldn’t take any more—and Corran thought he had done pretty well to last as long as he did—he brought his arms up and held her protectively while he eased her beneath him once more and kissed her hard, once, twice and a third time, more lingeringly, because he couldn’t resist it.
‘More,’ said Lotty, winding her arms around his neck when he tried to lift his head, so he kissed her again.
The kiss went on a long, long time, and Lotty abandoned herself to it until Corran levered himself away from her.
‘I think it’s time we went back,’ he said unevenly.
‘Oh,’ said Lotty, disappointed. ‘That’s it? We’re stopping?’
Corran pulled her to her feet and brushed the grass off her. ‘We’ve only just got started,’
