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And he wanted her. She had felt his desire earlier when he’d pressed himself against her and given her pleasure such as she had never dreamed possible. It was time he took her.

“I’m a virgin.” The words passed her lips easily.

“Yes, I know. That is why I cannot believe what you made me?—”

Her hand landing on his hardness cut off him midsentence. Before he could protest or slap her hand away, Sian started to stroke him, her intent clear. Her gestures would be clumsy, betraying her lack of experience, but with luck, he would understand she was willing and ready.

“I’m a virgin, but I want you all the same,” she whispered. “That is why I’m here. I want you to be the first man I welcome inside my body, the only man. Make love to me, Christopher. Here. Now.”

Each shocking word was punctuated with a stroke.

It was not long before she felt him go from stone to granite.

Hope swelled in her chest. Perhaps she would be able to make him overcome his scruples.

She had been honest about her inexperience because she didn’t want him to think she was in the habit of going to men to be pleasured, but she would not allow it to deter him.

“Jesus, woman, I swear, you’ll make a man lose his mind!” He imprisoned her wrist with his fingers. The gesture only caused her heartbeat to go faster, her resolve to strengthen. She had held him thus while he’d pleasured her earlier. “I can’t … We can’t?—”

“We can because we are going to get married.”

“We are?”

“Yes. I am old enough that my parents cannot stop me, and I will do what I know is right for me.”

When they were done, she would tell him about her plans for the future, make him see that it was not a passing fancy.

She had it all decided. For once in her life, she was not going to be shy.

For once, she would do what she wanted. But for the moment, she had something other than their wedding to focus on; there was a throbbing in her body that would leave her no peace.

With determined gestures, she freed Christopher’s rigid member.

The groan he gave when she closed her hand over him, skin on skin, was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.

She reached up to him, desperate for a kiss.

Though he had touched her with shocking deliberation earlier, she had yet to feel his lips on hers, and she needed to taste him at last, like she had in her dream.

“Sian, please don’t do this.”

Instead of lowering his mouth to her, he straightened to his full height, making it impossible for her to reach him.

He was just too tall. Sian tilted her head, not defeated.

He refused to offer her his mouth? Very well.

She would just have to kiss another part of him.

And she knew just which one. She would do to the member straining toward her what he had done to her fingers the other day.

Judging from the reaction it had provoked in her, it would send his bones to a liquid mess, making it impossible for him to resist her.

Without further ado, she dropped to her knees.

Christopher could not speak, could not move, could barely breathe.

But at the back of his mind, he knew it was all wrong.

Sian had allowed him to pleasure her with his fingers, had stroked him as intimately as a lover would, was even now gifting him with a caress he’d thought only whores would dare perform.

And that was not all. She wanted him to dishonor her, to plunge inside her untried body.

She was talking about marriage , for Christ’s sake. He should flee. He should be horrified.

Instead, he was more aroused than he had ever been.

The way she had moaned and writhed in his arms earlier, spasmed around his fingers, then, most scandalously of all, dropped to her knees and taken him into her mouth made it impossible to think rationally. His bones had become a liquid mess.

Before he could stop them, his hands came up to cradle her head, his fingers enmeshed themselves into her wild, oh-so-soft hair.

That was what her beautiful mane was made for, he decided, to anchor her in place while he thrust into her willing mouth.

How had he not thought so before? It was just perfect. A single word escaped his lips.

“Yes.”

When he heard his voice slice through the darkness, he realized he had meant to say the exact opposite. “Stop” would have been preferable—or “no.” “Wait,” at the very least. The last thing he should have done was encourage her, damn it all!

Sian didn’t stop for a moment, barely gave him time to breathe. Jesus, how long did she intend to suckle him? How would he withstand the assault?

With a mighty curse, he wrenched himself away from the warmth enveloping him. “Enough! Do you want me to spill in your mouth? Force you to swallow my seed?” he snarled, hoping to shock her into more proper behavior. “I swear you’re making it impossible for a man to do the right thing.”

As he could have expected, the little minx was not shocked or deterred in the least. The caresses over his shaft didn’t stop even if, with her mouth freed, she was able to answer his questions.

“The right thing in this instance is doing what I’m begging you to do.

” A kiss landed on the tip of his cock, sending sparks all the way to his skull.

“I want you, and I can see you want me too.” Her tongue, slow and torturous, licked a fiery path along his length.

Dear God, where had she learned to do that?

He closed his eyes. “I’ll do anything to convince you this is meant to happen. ”

Two lips wrapped around him, and he felt the delicious suckling again, stronger than before. It was too much. Bloody hell, he’d never been so desperate for release.

“You … are …”

What did he want to say? He had no idea. Nevertheless, Sian answered, proving she’d understood anyway. “I am. Take me.”

As if to leave him no choice, she engulfed him in her mouth completely, licking, teasing, moaning, showing him what she wanted him to do to another part of her—then abruptly stopped.

The loss of her heat was too much to bear.

Drunk with need, Christopher tumbled her to the ground and raised the hem of her shift all the way to her waist. She surprised him by taking it off altogether, revealing her gorgeous body to his gaze.

Was she trying to kill him? No. She was trying to make him take her and then marry her. She had just said as much.

Marry her?

He would have to worry about that part later because, right now, his brain had been reduced to fire.

If he was to think straight, he had to allow his seed to shoot out of him first. With her naked and spread open under him, he was unable to do anything; the only part of him able to function at the moment was the swollen member straining between his thighs.

“It will hurt at first.”

He had to warn her. He could not prevent the pain, but he could at least ensure she was not surprised by it—and then make her forget about the discomfort when he made her come once more.

“I know,” she rasped, her voice as hoarse as his had been. “But I also know that no woman has ever died from it.”

No, not as far as he knew. Christopher groaned. How did she always know the right thing to say?

“Are you still wet?” He hoped to God she was ready because he feared he would not have the patience to prepare her if she wasn’t.

A quick brush against her folds told him all he needed to know.

She was slick and hot, just like before.

It would seem that sucking on him had inflamed her as much as it had inflamed him.

The thought was enough to send his rigid shaft leaking.

Damn it! He had to take her without delay, or he would spill like an untried lad.

That ignominy had never befallen him, thank the Lord, and he would be damned if it happened with the first woman he actually wanted to keep seeing once he’d taken his pleasure with her.

With anyone else, he would simply have made sure never to cross paths with her again.

But he could not imagine never seeing Sian again.

“Christopher, please, take me. I’m dying.”

So was he.

He pushed in as slowly as his raging desire allowed him.

Feeling no resistance, he slid in deeper.

Of course she was tight, her body having never welcomed a man inside before, but his instinct had been right.

There didn’t seem to be any barriers to breach.

Even better, as it meant the possession would hurt her less than it might another woman.

Only when he was fully seated inside her heat did he pause to give her a moment to adjust.

“Ah!” Her cry was one of awe and triumph combined. She knew she had won, but Christopher was only too glad to let her enjoy her victory. He would benefit from it as well.

“Yes. You asked for this, you infuriating little minx. So take it.”

Heedless of what she might think of his forceful behavior, he lifted her left leg up and hooked it over his arm, opening her as far as she would go and plunging into her with renewed vigor. He was past reasoning, past caution, past everything that was not the feminine heat keeping him captive.

In that moment, what was happening felt meant to be.

It was the oddest sensation, but he allowed himself to revel in it because it was also intensely satisfying.

Sian was matching him thrust for thrust, displaying a sensual nature that had him completely enraptured.

She cried her pleasure a moment later, allowing him to at last let go of his control.

At the last moment, he pulled out. He’d been driven so close to madness that he erupted before he had time to take himself in hand, before he could aim anywhere in particular.

His seed shot out of him in great spurts, coating her stomach all the way from her navel to her breasts.

It was iridescent in the moonlight, almost pretty, as if he’d adorned her with pearls instead of being unforgivably crude.

Panting hard, feeling slightly disorientated, Christopher stared at the vision in front of him. With a faint trace of blood on her thighs and his seed cooling on her skin, Sian was marked as his in a way no other woman had ever been.

He knew then that she was right. They were going to get married.

Because no matter how much of a selfish bastard he could be—and had been at times—he would not leave her to face her family’s disapproval on her own or let her deal with the humiliation of having to explain to her future husband why she was no virgin on her wedding night.

Even more to the point, there was no way in hell he was going to let any other man touch her now.