Page 55 of Sins of Arrogance

I’ve never had sex, but I’ve been kissed and it was noth­ing like this dom­i­nant pos­ses­sion. The bru­tal pas­sion frees my own and I kiss him back, slid­ing my tongue against his and moan­ing.

His hands are ev­ery­where. My breasts, my stom­ach. Be­tween my legs.

I rip my mouth from his. “Too much,” I pant.

His hands still; his jaw goes taut. “I can do slow for my sweet vir­gin bride.” It sounds like he’s talk­ing to him­self. Not me.

His hands run down my hips, over the white lace panties I picked out with shak­ing fin­gers weeks ago.

“Lie back,” he com­mands.

Part of me wants to do ex­actly what he says when he uses that tone of voice. But most of me is frozen with in­de­ci­sion.

He doesn’t re­peat him­self or wait for me to com­ply, but grasps my hips and tugs me down un­til I’m ly­ing flat be­side him.

“I’ll take care of you,” he prom­ises.

I swal­low and nod.

Then he starts touch­ing me again, but this time he goes slow. His fin­ger­tips skim ev­ery inch of my skin, leav­ing goose­bumps of plea­sure in their wake.

My sides, my stom­ach, my shoul­ders and down my arms. He even traces be­tween my fin­gers be­fore rub­bing a cir­cle on my palm. Back up my arms to trail lightly over the col­umn of my neck and over the con­tours of my face.

Is this part of mak­ing love?

I never thought of my hus­band touch­ing my face on our wed­ding night. That wasn’t in any of my ro­mance nov­els.

Maybe I read the wrong ones.

His fin­gers tun­nel into my updo, knead­ing my scalp and send­ing shud­ders through my body as my mus­cles turn to goo.

When he cups my breast and brushes his thumb over my en­gorged nip­ple, I moan. “Michael.”

His hand stills and he leans down to whis­per in my ear, his voice low but im­pla­ca­ble. “You will al­ways call me Michael when you share your body with me.”

Some­thing cracks in­side me. A fis­sure in the pro­tec­tive wall around my heart.

My hus­band wants some­thing spe­cial be­tween us, some­thing as in­ti­mate as his touch on my body.

Mick be­longs to the mob, but Michael be­longs to me.

“Michael,” I breathe.

His hand trails down, down, down un­til he runs his fin­gers over the gus­set of my soaked panties. “It’s time for these to come off.”

“Mmm…hmm…” I agree, float­ing in a haze of bliss. And then I force my­self to say, “The garter has to come off first.”

But he’s al­ready slid­ing his hands un­der me to work on the tiny clasps that hold it to­gether in the back. They give way be­fore his deft fin­gers just like the tiny but­tons on my wed­ding gown.

He turns his at­ten­tion to the slide but­tons at­tach­ing my stock­ings to my garters. Then he pulls the garter belt from my body be­fore brush­ing his fin­gers over the skin re­vealed by its ab­sence.

Fin­gers sure, he rolls my stock­ings down my legs, ca­ress­ing the front and sides of my thighs, knees and calves as he does so.

With­out re­mov­ing my panties, he flips me onto my stom­ach and starts the gen­tle touch­ing all over again. I’m moan­ing and try­ing to hump the bed by the time he turns me back over.

“Now, you feel me ev­ery­where.” It’s not a ques­tion. It’s a state­ment.

“Yes, Michael. Ev­ery­where.”