“I don’t want your respect,” she heard herself say.
He faltered, but did not turn.
“I want to know what it’s like, Devlin,” she added softly, her heart racing madly, heat etching its way down her thighs, up her belly, through her breasts.
He made a harsh sound and reached for the door.
She swallowed and said, “Show me. Show me everything that you can, now, tonight—show me, not her.”
He whirled, eyes wide, face strained. “Have you no self-control?” he asked harshly.
“Why should I struggle with it?” And she saw what she had been hoping to see. Virginia walked over to him, grasped his shoulders and leaned into his hard, aroused body. “Self-control is for ladies like Sarah Lewis,” she whispered.
For one moment she saw the indecision in his eyes; for one moment she saw the battle he waged. She smiled a little and touched his cheek, her heart beating frantically, like the wings of a caged bird. “Devlin.”
At once, his arms closed around her and his mouth covered hers. Virginia cried out, and when she felt the rigid line of his erection she began to whimper. His hands moved lower, large and bold. His powerful body was rigid with tension. “Hurry,” she managed, as the daze of lust heightened and grew. “Devlin, hurry!”
She was suddenly in his arms and he was laying her down on the bed. “I have never met a woman like you,” he said, their gazes locking.
She tried to grin at him and failed. “Good.”
He didn’t smile, either. His eyes were ablaze. He pushed her open thighs apart with each knee and said, “I wanted this last night.”
She remembered instantly and she cried, “Yes.”
He released her hands and abruptly ripped her nightgown in two.
Stunned, Virginia stilled, almost afraid, and she saw him look over every inch of her naked body, from the small globes of her breasts with their hard, stiff tips to the delta between her spread thighs, and there, his gaze lingered.
She began to flush, as she had never been exposed like this before. She felt frighteningly vulnerable. She felt powerless—she was at his mercy—and oddly, it made it impossible to breathe. She could only yearn, her desire impossibly heightened.
“You are so beautiful…little one,” he murmured thickly, finally lifting his eyes to hers. “I won’t hurt you.”
Virginia knew she would never forget his eyes. She knew she had been a fool to worry about Fiona. She knew, somehow, instinctively and without a doubt, in that single span of time, that this man wanted her the way he would never want another woman. She knew his desire rivaled hers.
His mouth seemed to twist and Virginia gasped when he cupped her sex. “This belongs to me,” he said softly, a warning.
She could only nod, shocked by the barbaric statement. Then his hand eased and she felt his fingers sliding over each full lip and into the crevasse between.
Virginia cried out, eyes closing, arching helplessly up against him. “Devlin,”’ she chanted. “Oh, Devlin, do help me!”
His explorations increased, his fingers opened her wide, sliding over slick recess after slick fold, until Virginia was certain she could not stand it. Then she felt his mouth.
At first she thought she was mistaken and she stiffened, paralyzed, eyes flying open—surely he was not kissing her there. She half sat up and saw, shocked, that his head was between her thighs, and there was no mistaking now that it was his lips nibbling hers.
Then she felt his tongue.
A caress beyond any other.
Virginia’s vision blackened.
That tongue moved deep and sure, patting the turgid nub of flesh hidden in the broader folds there. Virginia began to faint, the desire so great it was overwhelming her every sense, her ability to breathe, the ability for her blood to go to her brain.
“Come for me, little one,” he murmured. His tongue flayed her swollen flesh like a silken whiplash, insistent, brutal, soft, determined.
The blackness lingered and then she was hurled past it, into brilliant light. Virginia held him, sobbing in sheer joy, in stunning pleasure, in ultimate ecstasy. She sobbed and sobbed as he flayed and flayed until finally, she began to float.
She didn’t know how long she floated outside of herself in the clouds, but slowly, she became aware of her body again. Every inch of her femininity remained swollen and inflamed, his tongue continued to caress her flesh, his lips moved ceaselessly, in a raw frenzy, as if he were kissing her mouth. Now, with the pleasure, there was pain.
