LITMIR.BIZ

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to unfasten the closures to his robe—a traditional garment that had been laid out for him by his valet, and beneath which he was naked. Unable to take her gaze off him, Sophia watched with her heart in her mouth as he removed the ornate robe and then came towards her.

      He was all male muscle and sinewy strength, long limbed and lean, his body possessed of all the classical male beauty of a Greek statue. She could see the scar on his thigh that she knew must be from a fall he’d had during a polo match that Alex had once mentioned to her. How she had hoarded all those little bits of knowledge about him, how she had clung to them as her own precious pieces of him, and how her sixteen-year-old self had hated herself for her weakness in doing so when he had turned his back on her to go to another woman. These were dangerous thoughts, taking her back to a time and place when all she had wanted was to give herself to Ash. Her heart started to race, the sudden surging ache deep inside her a growing wash of liquid heat that caressed her desire every bit as fiercely as she had once dreamed of Ash caressing her body. A small sound of female need strained against the taut muscles of her throat that were denying it a voice.

      There was no need for her to question whether or not Ash was ready to consummate their marriage; she could see for herself that he was. Her heart was beating so fast she felt as though it might burst with her need to reach out and stroke her fingertips along the hard length of his erection in eager virginal exploration and delight.

      A man—another man who was not him and who did not know that it was merely a practised gesture—would not be able to help having his male vanity aroused by the look that Sophia was giving him, Ash acknowledged. He fought against what it was doing to him, even though he knew it was a look she must have given innumerable men before him. Not that he had any right to expect a past sexual exclusivity from her, and nor did he do so. They were both adults with their own individual sexual histories. Histories, yes, but he would not tolerate infidelity from her now that they were married.

      It was that thought, the thought of another man touching her now that she was his wife, that took him to her side, to untie her robe and push it from her shoulders, his hands sculpting the soft warm flesh of her body with a feather-light touch. So much lush sensuality was almost too much, Ash thought; it could overwhelm a man until he was trapped in his own desire to possess her. But that would not happen to him, he assured himself, and yet within him there was an urge, a need, to bury his face in the rich dark cloud of her hair, to breathe in the scent of her and then to change that delicate fragrance to something stronger and more elemental as he aroused her. He wanted to stroke his hands all over her, to draw the rigid peaks of her nipples between his fingers until she gasped with the urgency his touch aroused; he wanted to dip into the soft wetness of her sex and taste the juices of her desire for him, and only for him. He wanted … He wanted to possess her as no man had ever possessed her before, Ash recognised, that knowledge thundering through his mind.

      He was a man, she was a woman. He had married her so that he could conceive a child with her. It was only because of that that he felt this intense desire to fill her senses and her body. Nothing more than that. It was time he did what he had come to her to do and stop listening to unwanted and illogical thoughts.

      For all her lush curves, she was delicately boned and softly light in his arms as he lifted her and carried her to the bed.

      His hands tightened on the narrowness of her waist as he laid her on the bed. He reached out and cupped her breast. Her flesh was silky soft and warm, her nipple immediately rising to his palm in stiff supplication.

      He rolled her nipple between his forefinger and thumb, seeing her stomach go concave as she sucked in her breath and trembled.

      She certainly knew all the pretty little tricks of making her partner feel desired. Well, two could play at that game. He curled the tip of his tongue round her other nipple and then teased it with darting strokes of deliberate arousal. Her whole body trembled, her thighs softening in instinctive invitation. He released her breast to stroke his hand down over her belly and then tease the vulnerable inside of her thigh with the gentle stroke of his knuckles.

      Any minute now he was going to possess her. Her body knew that and wanted it, Sophia admitted, but her senses, her emotions, hungered for an intimacy that went beyond mere physical pleasure, no matter how skilled the giver of that pleasure was. She was lost, caught up in the powerful demands of a need that had its roots in the very deepest part of her sexual psyche. A longing she couldn’t hope to control forced its way past everything she had told herself this act between them must be in order for her to retain her pride. She wanted, craved, ached for more than Ash’s skilled touch against her flesh. She wanted the potency and the passion of his kisses.

      Ash started to move between her thighs. As though the words were sprung from some trap deep within her, she heard herself begging him, ‘Kiss me, Ash. Kiss me.’ Reaching for him, sliding her hands into his hair, she pulled his face down towards her own, opening her mouth against his as the fiery hunger of her need spilled through her.

      So much passion, too much passion. He should resist, pull back, but the sweetness of Sophia’s taste, the quick eager flicking movements of her tongue tip against his lips as though it was a hummingbird unable to survive without the nectar of his kiss, pulled him down, down into a place where his own senses couldn’t deny the savagely sensual urge she was creating within him to take her mouth and crush it beneath his own until they were one breath.

      Wasn’t that dangerous? Because he was afraid that if he kissed her he … He what? He wouldn’t be able to stop? No, of course not. Could he prove that to himself? Of course he could.

      ‘If kisses are what you want then kisses are what you will have,’ he told her against her mouth as her lips trembled beneath his and the sweet boldness of her daring became an inferno of pulsating need that possessed every inch of her body.

      Ash was leaning over her, his hands tangling in her hair as he kissed the side of her throat slowly and gently, and then nibbled on her ear, his thumb stroking the sensitive secret place just behind it.

      A soft sound of delight bubbled in Sophia’s throat, her eyes wide open and dark with an arousal she made no attempt to hide as she looked at him.

      She was the most sensual woman he had ever touched. Everything about her was a hot sweet tide of melting female desire that begged him to complete her. No woman had ever looked at him with such open need, turned to him with such confidence in his ability to satisfy that need. No woman had ever unleashed within him an answering torrent of unstoppable longing for her.

      He shouldn’t have kissed her. But he had and now he couldn’t stop.

      He cupped her head to hold her still beneath him and then plundered her mouth in a kiss that stamped her with his possession as surely as though he had penetrated her and filled her body with his sex, until her own sensuality stormed through her, demanding her submission to its needs and to him.

      Sophia couldn’t contain her own aroused need and delight. Her hands were on Ash’s forearms, her fingers curling round them, her body arching up to his in a blatant offer that, driven by his own compelling need, Ash was incapable of refusing.

      As the white-hot power of her unleashed passion poured through her, Sophia felt the first surging movement of Ash’s body within her own. A fiercely wild sense of joy gripped her. She moved with him, eager for his full possession.

      Ash thrust deeper into her and then stopped, in stunned shock and disbelief, as his body fought against what his brain was telling him, the effort it took him to leash his need causing his body to throb with unsatisfied desire. There was a barrier in his way that shouldn’t have been there, the barrier of virginity. His brain recognised that. His body, though, ached and pulsed, his flesh demanding that he allowed it to complete what it had started and satisfy its need. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not until he knew what was going on.

      Lying beneath him Sophia was filled with the urgency of her own unappeased need. He couldn’t stop now. Not now when she needed and wanted him so much. Lost in her own desire Sophia had forgotten all about her virginity, but now with Ash pulling back from her and her body still crying out for him she realised what was happening. She had to stop him leaving her. She had to. Female

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