Echoes at Dawn (20 page)

He pushed forward the barest of inches and her heat immediately enveloped him. Her swollen tissues hugged him tightly, making it difficult for him to gain entrance.

It was the single fucking most incredible sensation he’d ever experienced.

But she looked uncertain, and she was tense, her eyes wide.

He withdrew, though he’d barely gotten the head inside her opening. He reached down and stroked over her flesh, teasing, wanting to make her relax. She was slick against his fingers and she began to arch upward, responding to the gentle caress.

Once more, he found her opening and pressed forward, and she immediately went tense again. Her brow furrowed and creased in consternation and it was then realization struck him. He pulled away from her instantly, making no attempt to hide the shock he was feeling.

“Grace?”

She stared up at him, her blue eyes glossy with a sheen of tears. He felt sick. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt her and it was the very last thing he’d ever intended to do.

She was a virgin and he hadn’t known. He’d almost taken things too far, had almost pushed inside her with one thrust because he’d been so eager to be balls deep in her sweet heat. He would have torn her in his haste.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked hoarsely. “This is definitely a conversation we should have had before now.”

She flushed and started to look away as shame crowded into her eyes. But he leaned over her, his body pressed to hers as he framed her face, forcing her to look at him.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” he said fiercely. “This isn’t about disgust or the fact that I don’t want you. It’s about me making this the best possible experience for you. You’ve had nothing but pain and abuse heaped upon you. This isn’t just your first time, Grace. It’s my first time too. It’s my first time with
you
, and I don’t want us both to remember this experience as anything but something beautiful.”

“You
are
making it beautiful,” she whispered. “You make me feel beautiful. Wanted. Nobody has ever made me feel the way you do, Rio. Please don’t stop. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have trusted you enough to have been honest from the start. I just wanted you so much and I didn’t want my virginity to cause any weirdness between us. And maybe…maybe I thought you wouldn’t want me quite so much if you knew I didn’t have any experience,” she added with a grimace.

Not want her? Hell, right now the primitive caveman inside him was roaring in triumph and beating his chest like a damn Neanderthal. It was a stupid fact that he was damn glad she hadn’t had another lover. That she hadn’t ever wanted someone enough to give herself to another.

“It was a stupid thought,” he said with a scowl.

Her lips quirked upward in a grin and her eyes sparkled. She raised her hands to his face, framing it as he’d done hers, and then she lifted her mouth to his. “Then make love to me,” she murmured against his mouth. “Please.”

He slid his body down hers, pausing to tongue her nipples. “Just as soon as I make you crazy with lust again.”

“Already there,” she gasped.

But he patiently wooed her, with his mouth, with sweet words, with gentle caresses. He kissed a line down her belly and then knelt at the end of the bed so that his mouth hovered just between her thighs. One kiss. Just a simple kiss that he pressed to her quivering flesh, and it was like being hit by lightning. She arched upward, gasping as his tongue circled her clit and teased it mercilessly.

Her knees shook. Her entire body trembled as he continued to make love to her with his mouth. He kissed the mouth of her opening. Sweet, gentle kisses of apology as if to say he was sorry for hurting her. Then he pulled away and slid his finger into her opening, testing the resistance. He stretched experimentally, watching her face the entire time. When she grimaced, he withdrew immediately and then lowered his mouth to soothe away the hurt.

“Rio, please!”

He rose up and over her, his eyes serious. “I told you that you’d never have to beg me, Grace. Not for anything.”

He slid his palms over her belly and up to her breasts, cupping them both. Then he stared down into her beautiful eyes as he reached down to position himself between her thighs once more.

He slid his thumb over her clit and then began to push inside her with steady pressure. He didn’t want to just rip into her, but neither did he want to delay the inevitable and cause her more pain by drawing it out. She gave way underneath the relentless pressure and he heard her soft gasp.

She went tense all around him. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in a silent cry but then she bit down hard, as if to stifle any outburst. He swallowed and clenched his jaw as he sought valiantly to get himself under control.

He was about to crawl right out of his skin. She was hot and swollen around him, gripping him so tight that he was nearly senseless with pleasure. He’d never felt anything so damn good in his entire life.

But when he looked into her eyes and saw the tears she was valiantly trying to hold back, the ache in his chest grew until it was painful to breathe.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered.

He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her nose and then each eyelid. He kissed the corner of her eye, where a single tear had escaped, and he licked it away.

“I won’t hurt you anymore, I swear it.”

She turned her chin up, hungrily finding his mouth. “Please, just don’t stop. Don’t…leave. You didn’t hurt me. It was just a shock and then it was so overwhelming. I just got emotional.”

“Shhh, honey,” he soothed. “I’m not going anywhere.” He thumbed a tendril of hair from her cheek and then kissed her again, lingering, so tender it made him ache.

As if he would leave her. He wasn’t going anywhere until she was more than satisfied. Over his dead body would he leave things as they were right now.

There were so many questions running through his mind that he was dizzy with them. Uppermost was how in the hell did this woman ever get to here and now without having had a man make love to her? Were they all brainless idiots or had she purposely kept her distance? And if she had, why him and why now?

It was stupid and pointless to try to read too much into the fact that she’d given her virginity to him. Not to anyone else. Him. It was a precious gift that he felt savage satisfaction over receiving. No one would ever have what she’d given him. It was his alone.

“Look at me,” he said. When she complied, he kissed her once more and remained completely still. He was afraid of moving too soon, too fast, of hurting her more than he already had. “We’re going to take this nice and slow and easy.”

She nodded and he saw relief flash in her eyes.

“I’m going to rise up just enough that I can get my mouth on those gorgeous breasts of yours again. I want you to try to relax as much as possible. I want you to enjoy this. You liked it when I touched your breasts and your nipples.”

She blushed hard but nodded her agreement.

“When I did it before, you got wet. So we’re going to do that again and then I’m going to take it really slow and be extra gentle until we get the hang of this, okay?”

She teared up again, nearly ripping his heart out of his damn chest. Then she reached up with both hands and framed his face. She pulled him down into a ferocious kiss that left him breathless. It also had the unfortunate result of making him even harder inside her.

She twitched and fidgeted underneath him as if trying to find just the right spot while she adjusted to his size and just having a man where no one had ever been.

“Thank you for making this so perfect,” she said in a choked voice.

Her statement robbed him of speech. His mouth opened but just stayed there. Perfect? He stared down at her like
she’d lost her mind, but she just smiled and then kissed him again.

“I can’t imagine anyone else being so sweet and gentle. You’re an enigma, Rio. So hard on the outside, but you know what? I think you’re a giant fluffball inside.”

“Fluffball?”

He was horrified. Fluffball? Hell, if his men ever heard that, he’d be fucking toast. They would never, ever in a million years let him live it down.

And then if the other team, Steele’s team, got wind of it…It didn’t even bear thinking about. Steele would ride his ass hard for the next ten years.

Her smile grew bigger. “Yes, a fluffball. A sweet, wonderful fluffball.”

“Ah hell.”

She laughed and he supposed he could take her laughing at him over the tears she’d shown just moments ago.

“Now as I recall, you said something about my breasts,” she murmured.

He lifted a brow. “Oh yes, ma’am. I like it when you get kind of bossy on me.”

“Kiss them,” she begged softly. “I love your tongue and your mouth and when you suck on them. I can’t even explain how good it feels.”

Her words hummed like sweet music over his ears and down his body, eliciting a bone-deep shiver. His cock surged forward and he was about to apologize but she moaned softly, closed her eyes and tilted her breasts upward in silent invitation.

Relieved that the worst seemed to be over, he was more than happy to oblige her. He licked over one nipple then went for the other, giving it equal treatment.

He nibbled, sucked and licked, going back and forth until she was writhing beneath him. He doubted she even realized that she was doing all the work around his cock and he let her do it at her own pace even though it was killing him not to go at her and go hard.

She was arching her hips up, taking him deeper, her
ankles crossed at the small of his back. She was wrapped so tight around him that he swore he’d wear the indentions from her heels in his ass for days to come.

“Rio, please.”

“Please what, baby?”

“I don’t know!” she wailed. “I need…” She closed her eyes and arched her hips again. “Please.”

She was wet around him. Slick and hot and she wasn’t quite as snug before. She was close to her orgasm and he wanted to make it pretty damn awesome for her.

“Hold on to me, honey, okay? And trust me to take you where you want to go.”

Her hands instantly went to his shoulders. Her nails dug into his flesh and her gaze locked with his. Trust was shining, a light on the darkest night. It hit him in the gut. It humbled him that she was giving him so much.

He gathered her tightly in his arms and began a slow, measured thrusting pattern. She sighed and then she moaned. She let out little gasps and whimpers. She was noisy and fidgety and he loved every damn minute of it.

“More,” she demanded.

He grinned, kissed that luscious mouth of hers and then began driving into her, deep, hard, showing her that she was his.

“Oh yeah,” she breathed out. “Oh, I like this too.”

“So do I, honey, so do I.”

His muscles flexed and bulged. He gritted his teeth together, determined that she would be satisfied first. Her eyes widened, her body tightened, and her pussy fluttered around his cock, driving him to further insanity.

“Let go, honey. Go with it. Don’t fight it. Just let it happen.”

She went slick, like liquid silk, surrounding him, bathing him in her sweetness. And then he felt her spasm around him.

“Oh hell. I’m coming too. Don’t let me hurt you.”

She roared at him not to stop. He roared her name as he came in wave after wave. He was still coming several long
moments later when she went limp beneath him. He pounded into her over and over as he poured himself into her.

He leaned down, his hips still jerking as he settled over her. God, she felt good. He didn’t ever want to pull out. His cock was still twitching and leaking semen, but he was deep inside her and he’d never felt so goddamn content in his life.

He pulled her close until he wasn’t certain she could breathe, but she was against him, around him, skin to skin, and that was all that mattered.

After a moment, he rolled them to the side, ignoring her sleepy protest. The movement caused him to slide out of her warmth, and they both moaned, though he suspected for different reasons.

She had to be tender after that epic lovemaking session. He’d never spent so much time inside a woman for one sexual encounter in his life. And she’d been a virgin.

He glanced down as he came free, frowning at the smear of blood on his cock. He didn’t like to think of hurting her at all. She’d had enough hurt in her life.

“Stay on your side,” he murmured next to her ear. “I’ll go get a cloth so we can clean up and then you can sleep if you want.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled.

Smiling, he got out of the bed and went into the bathroom to clean himself off with a damp washcloth. Then he ran the water until it got hot, wet another cloth and wrung it out.

When he returned, her eyes were closed, but as soon as he slid onto the bed, her gaze found him.

“Open your legs for me,” he said softly.

Shyly, she parted her legs, lifting one upward and then bending her knee so she could prop her foot against her other leg.

She sighed when he pressed the warm cloth to her skin. There was something decidedly intimate about him wiping away the proof of his possession. The rag came away sticky
with her blood and his semen. He stared at it for a long moment, realizing the significance.

She’d been a virgin and he’d been her first. He also hadn’t thought to use a condom. Perhaps more irresponsible than not using a condom was the fact that he didn’t give a shit that he hadn’t.

In his mind, she was his. Whatever happened as a result of their lovemaking, they’d face together. Just like they’d meet head-on the dangers that pursued them.

He tossed aside the washcloth and then pulled back the covers so he could get her underneath. After she was settled, he climbed in beside her and pulled her flush against his body, tucking her head beneath his chin.

There was a lot to think about. A lot to decide. But some decisions had already been made. Such as the first time he’d ever seen Grace Peterson and decided that she was his.

He’d tracked her down. He’d sworn to protect her. She was here in his arms, in his personal sanctuary.

For him, that was akin to a freaking marriage proposal.