her touch, a great golden cat on the edge of control. Boldly, she reached for him, cupped her other hand around the bulge in his trousers.
“Veronica …”
“I’m a grown woman, Raj. I know what I want.” She took a step closer to him then, her bare breasts coming into contact with his naked chest. “I need this,” she told him. “Yes, you’re the first after my loss, but that’s why it has to be you. I do trust you, and I’m afraid I’ll never find the courage again if you don’t—” She sucked in a breath, her voice on the edge of breaking. It took her a few moments to regain control. “If you don’t make love to me. Please, Raj.”
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. She could see the column of his throat move as he swallowed. “God, you’re killing me,” he groaned.
She pressed her lips to his breastbone, gloried in the silken feel of his skin beneath her mouth. He didn’t stop her. Deliberately, she unsnapped his trousers. Pushed them down his hips until they slid the rest of the way on their own.
Finally, finally, she could cup him in her hand, nothing between them. He was so hard, like marble. So soft, like silk. She stroked him, squeezing softly.
“You win,” he said on a sharp intake of breath. “You win.”
And then he hooked a hand behind her knees and swept her into his arms. Carried her to the bed and lay her across it. Automatically, her legs went around his hips as he followed her down. Her body throbbed for want of him. He cupped a breast in his hand, tweaked her nipple as he kissed her again.
Then she felt him. Slowly, inexorably, he slid into her body. It burned, and she suddenly gasped with the pain of it.
He stopped moving. “Am I hurting you?”
She realized she was gripping both his biceps in her hands, her nails digging into him. Tears pressed at the back of her lids and she swallowed them down.
“It’s been a long time,” she said. “It’s, um, more difficult than I’d thought it would be.”
He swore softly. Started to withdraw.
“No,” she cried out, tightening her legs around him. “I need you, Raj. I need you.”
His breath sucked in, as if he were in pain, too. Which, she thought, he probably was, though it was a far different pain from what she was experiencing.
“We’ll take it slowly,” he said, and her heart swelled with feeling.
He put his hand between them, found her. Sweet, singing need began to hum in her body again as he stroked her. Softly, sweetly, as if he had all the time in the world. As if there was no dawn and no sunset, no appointments, no pressures. As if she was the world and he her servant within it.
It took longer to hit the peak this time, but she did, her body opening to him as he took the opportunity to slide farther inside her.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Kiss me,” she said.
He did, his mouth so warm and giving that she lost herself in the kiss once more. She could feel him moving again, and though her body tightened a bit at the intrusion, the pain was far less than it had been.
She didn’t know how long they lay entangled like that, but finally Veronica tilted her hips up and took him the rest of the way inside. She could feel him throbbing deep in her body, could feel the tight control he wielded over his needs as he held himself so still.
“Poor Raj,” she whispered. “What a project I’ve turned into for you.”
“You aren’t a project,” he said fiercely. Protectively.
She loved the conviction in his tone, loved how honorable he truly was. The feelings swirling in her heart and soul were beginning to confuse her. Frighten her. Deliberately, she shoved them away.
“Make love to me,” she said.
He began to move so slowly once more, until she was a mass of tight nerve endings and shuddering tension. Until she was begging him to take her faster. He took his time obliging her, but when she didn’t shrink from him, when she didn’t cry out or flinch in pain, he turned up the intensity.
Again and again, he took her higher, their bodies straining together, sweating, skin sliding on skin. Exquisite. Torturous.
The pain was still there, but so slight she hardly noticed. The pleasure was far, far stronger.
And then it crested until she cried out, her entire body shuddering beneath him, wanting still more but unable to last a moment longer. His control was so exquisite, so perfect, that she knew when he gave himself permission to follow her into the abyss. He lifted her to him, his body pumping into hers one last time before he was still.
He propped himself up, careful not to crush her. In the darkness, she could still make out his features. Could see the troubled expression he couldn’t mask.
“Thank you,” she said, because it was all she could think to say.
“Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine.”
Physically, that was true. Emotionally was another story. So many emotions crashing in on her. She’d made love with him, and though she didn’t regret it at all, the weight of the feelings she’d been carrying for so many months—wondering if she were damaged somehow, if she would ever feel as if she were whole again, if she would ever be able to be with a man without dissembling—was immense.
“You don’t sound fine,” he said. And then he rolled over and took her with him until she sprawled half on his body and half off.
“It’s a bit overwhelming,” she admitted.
“I get that a lot,” he said smugly, and she knew he was trying to make her laugh.
It worked, damn him. “Arrogant bastard.”
His fingers stroked along her spine. “Seriously,” he said after a few moments. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said on a sigh. “I am.”
It was not his finest moment. Raj lay awake long after Veronica had dozed off and contemplated the mess he’d made. What the hell had he done?
He’d never, ever slept with someone he was guarding. It had been wrong to do so, and yet he’d been powerless to resist her request.
Hell, he hadn’t wanted to resist. Since the moment he’d seen her from the bar of the hotel, he’d wanted this woman with the kind of craving that abhorred him. The kind of craving that drug addicts used to justify their excesses.
That thought did not cheer him in the least.
But she’d been all gorgeous, sexy femininity, with an alluring laugh and a come-hither look that fooled every man she bestowed it upon. He’d known better than to fall for it, yet he had.
Beneath the facade, she was amazing. Serious, smart, funny and sad. Sadder than any woman he’d ever
