Page 18 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

He studied her for a long moment before turning to her untouched minibar. From it, he selected two miniatures and carried them over to her.

“Drink this,” he said, passing her a miniature vodka.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she managed to quip shakily.

He sat on the bed, twisting his body to face her. “It’s to help you relax.” Unscrewing the miniature in his hand, he raised it, waiting patiently for her to follow suit.

Somehow she managed to make her fingers and thumb work and tapped her bottle to his.

“To us,” he said softly, then tipped the contents of his bottle into his mouth. The strong column of his throat moved as he swallowed it.

First counting to three in her head, Marisa drank her vodka in one big swallow. Its potency as it burned down her throat and heated her chest made her eyes water and widen. “Wow, that’s strong,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Can I have another?”

He grinned, plucking the empty bottle from her fingers to place it on the bedside table with his. “No, because then you really will be drunk.”

He brought his face to hers and placed a lingering, feather-light kiss on her mouth. Moving slowly, his hands went to the sash of her robe and undid it, fingers slipping inside to part it.

His mouth still caressing hers, he slid the robe off her shoulders and arms until it lay in a puddle around her bottom and thighs, and she was as naked as he.

She could barely open her throat to say, “Can we turn the light off?”

Eyes locking back to hers, he trailed a finger down the swan of her neck and circled her shoulder.

“I know you feel shy, my angel, but you’re beautiful.

” Fingers trailed over the plumpness of her breast. He cupped the weight in his palm and murmured, “I want to see you,” before bowing his head and taking the breast in his mouth.

The sensation was so shocking that she jolted, the jolt becoming an electric charge when he sucked, a charge that connected thrillingly to her groin and reignited the small flame fear had doused.

His arms wound around her waist, and then his mouth moved up to her neck as he gently pulled her down so she lay on her back with her head on a pillow.

“That’s better,” he whispered, stretching out beside her, his face over hers.

Hand running the length of her body from her shoulder to hip and back up to cup her breast, he kissed her, enticing her lips apart with his tongue as he caressingly kneaded the sensitive flesh.

Lazily, he ran his thumb over the hardened nipple, sending another bolt of sensation to the flame now flickering in her groin.

A gasp hitched in her throat, drowned by the deepening demand of his mouth.

With the taste and scent of Rico filling her senses, Marisa sank into the kiss, her lips moving against his, her tongue making its own demands, kissing and being kissed so thoroughly that when he broke it to trail his tongue down her neck, she’d no recollection of burrowing her fingers in his hair.

Draping a thigh over hers to part her legs, he shifted himself between them and lifted his head to gaze down at her breasts.

Anxiety fought the flickering flames, and it took everything she had not to cover her breasts and curl herself into a ball.

Marisa had never been comfortable dressing or undressing in front of others, her sister the only exception, and even then she’d always kept her underwear on or turned her back to her, so to be exposed like this was terrifying beyond what she’d imagined she’d feel.

“You have nothing to be frightened of,” Rico told her softly, aware of the tension reforming in Marisa’s beautiful body. “I promise this will feel good.” Lowering his head again, he took a succulent breast back into his mouth.

Slowly, sensually, he caressed it with languorous strokes of his tongue, encircling the hardened nipple the colour of ripening cherries, gradually feeling her tension ease and her breathing subtly deepen.

When he took the breast whole in his mouth and sucked, he was rewarded with an almost imperceptible moan.

Moving his mouth to her other breast, his hand roamed her body in a gentle, unhurried exploration.

He’d never felt skin so soft, so perfect.

She had the tiniest mole on the underside of her left breast, and it sent a rush of blood to his head to know he was the first person to see it, and when he kissed it, it sent another rush to know he was the first person whose lips had touched it.

The first and the last.

The first and last to skim his hand over her flat belly and gently curved hips.

The first and last to caress golden thighs as succulent as her milky-white breasts.

The first and last to slide a hand beneath her naked bottom and squeeze the delectable flesh.

The first and last to slide a hand beneath her legs and feel her slippery heat…

It was feeling that slippery heat and remembering how she’d clasped around his fingers so beautifully in her climax that made him have to check himself, close his eyes a moment and breathe air into lungs that had tightened inexorably. None of this was for him. This was all for Marisa.

Resting his chin on her belly, he gazed at her face.

“Do you trust me?” he whispered.

She lifted her head. Her flushed stare held his as if she were probing the most secret parts of his mind. She gave a single nod.

“Then don’t be embarrassed or frightened – I promise what I’m going to do will be the best feeling on this earth.”

Her lips pulled together, her chin trembling before she gave another single nod.

“Close your eyes, my angel. Close your eyes and your mind, and put your trust in me.”

Breathing hard, Marisa put her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. She knew what he wanted to do; an act that had always repelled her just to think about it, and though she tried to close her mind, her jaw tightened, and she balled her hands into fists and mentally braced herself.

Gently, he kissed his way down and over her belly, kissed every inch of it, dipping his tongue into her navel before moving lower still.

Hands that had continued their explorations clasped the back of her thighs and raised them, parting them a little more, and now she was deliberately keeping her jaw clamped to stop herself from screaming at him to stop, fighting hard against the mortification of being so completely and utterly exposed.

His hand crawled up the bed to take hold of hers.

With limitless patience, Rico unballed her fingers and twined his own through them, and there was something so comforting in the gesture that when she felt the first probe of his tongue right in the heart of her being and nearly shot off the bed at the shock of it, she squeezed them tightly to keep herself anchored.

As hard as she tried to detach her mind from his mouth’s exploration of her most secret, feminine flesh, it was impossible. She could not switch her mind off to his tongue being inside her, and yet…

Something was happening. It felt like she was thickening from the inside out, slivers of sensation flickering through her, and when he withdrew his probing tongue, she’d relaxed enough to think that hadn’t been so bad, not the best feeling in the world, but quite nice…

His tongue danced up to the pulse between her legs she’d hardly been aware of existing until he’d awoken it on the beach, and licked.

Her eyes flew open at the shot of undiluted pleasure it provoked.

He licked it again, but this time he kept his tongue there, and then she had no idea what he was doing with his tongue because suddenly Marisa had tumbled head-first into a world of sensation and, heavens, the pleasure . The pleasure was everywhere .

The pressure of his tongue slowly increased, and Marisa slowly lost her mind.

She was barely aware of the moans coming from her throat or that her back and neck had arched and that she was writhing into him, riding a wave of pleasure that climbed higher and higher until she reached the peak and was flung into a whole new dimension of pulsating ecstasy.

Rico’s heart was thumping so hard he was sure Marisa could feel its vibrations through the mattress. God in heaven …

He would never have believed anything could beat watching and feeling her first climax, but that …

He’d never experienced anything so beautiful. The tense, frightened woman had melted into liquid.

Lifting himself, he covered her with his body. The ache to be inside and make her inescapably his was stronger than he’d have believed possible. He didn’t just ache for her. He needed her. Needed her in his life, now and forever.

Her eyes flew open and fixed onto his, and all he could do was gaze into the large brown eyes burning with her passion for him and whisper a truth he could no longer deny to himself. “I love you.”

Somewhere in the past four months, Rico had fallen for Marisa. Fallen completely and irrevocably in love.

She clasped the back of his head with both her hands. Her smile was tremulous. “And I love you.”

“Marry me.” The words came from nowhere, and yet they came from everywhere, from all the thoughts and sensations that had been building inside him since he’d first set eyes on her.

Her mesmerising eyes widened. For one heart-stopping beat, fear gripped that she would say no, but then her smile widened and she nodded.

His heart fit for bursting, he fused his mouth to hers, their tongues and lips dancing an exquisite duel that pumped hot blood relentlessly through him.

When the fuse broke, she smiled again and kissed him with a barely restrained chasteness. “Make me yours, Rico,” she breathed into his mouth.

It wasn’t just Rico’s heart that felt fit to burst, it was the whole of him.

He’d had sex with more women than he could ever count, but had never felt anything close to what he was feeling now, his arousal a fever burning through his veins.

He’d never felt himself tremble before, not even the first time.

Lifting his weight off her so only the tips of her breasts brushed against his chest, he gripped his erection and guided it to her opening.

“Relax, my angel,” he whispered when he sensed some of the tension returning in her. “We’ll take it slowly and I’ll make it good for you, I promise… Lift your thighs for me…”

Marisa kept her stare on Rico’s and tried to breathe, but terror and excitement had collided at the first press of his erection between her legs, and even as she raised her thighs, all she could think was that this was it, that the hard, weighty pressure between her legs was him .

Still holding himself, he fed his erection slowly inside her, breaching the virgin flesh, pulling back a little before pushing on, giving her all the time she needed to adjust to the feel and sensation of him slowly filling her.

The lids of his eyes were getting heavy, his features tightening, his breaths deepening, but he didn’t break the lock of their stares, not even when he released his hold on his erection and put his palm flat on the pillow next to her head.

“Open yourself for me,” he crooned softly as he used his hips to drive himself a little deeper inside her.

“You’re so tight… so tight…” His groan was low, his features now so taut that her thrashing heart melted at the restraint she couldn’t just see but feel, and when she raised her thighs a little higher, his groan seemed to come from his chest. “That’s it, my angel, let me in…

” It was as if her raised thighs spread themselves.

“God, yes, that’s it…” He drove his arousal in a little further, a little deeper, giving her all the time she needed, and as he did so, the fear began to dissipate, and Marisa felt her own arousal flicker back to life as the most unimaginable sensation slowly uncoiled inside her.

“God, this feels so good,” he groaned. “We’re nearly there, my angel, just give me a little more…. A little more… Just a little…”

He drove in the final few inches, and their groins locked together. His powerful body shuddered, and he closed his eyes, breathing out through his mouth before looking back at her through eyes almost black with desire. “Are you okay?” he dragged out.

It was all she could do to move her head. She could feel every inch of his length tight inside her, filling her, a part of her… it felt incredible.

He kissed her gently, then lowered his weight on her and withdrew, not much, but enough that when he drove his length back in, exquisite sensation built and spread.

His movements as he made love to her were unhurried but oh so very intense, and as Marisa’s body adjusted to the brand new feel of his possession, the flickering flame inside her caught alight. Rico was moving inside her and on her, and it felt like she’d found heaven.

Saturated with sensation, she gripped his shoulders and moved with him as the flame grew into a furnace.

His gorgeous features were taut with concentration…

she could feel him holding himself back, right until the furnace inside her erupted in a mass of rippling, pulsing flames that licked every part of her, and he went rigid, his neck arching back with a long, ragged groan as he let go and spurted his seed deep inside her.