Page 32 of The Virgin's Dance with the Devil
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then tapped his fingers lightly on the door.
It was too late for him. He couldn’t walk away if he tried.
The door opened a crack. The shadow of a face appeared.
The door opened fully to reveal a dimly lit room.
Standing on the other side of the threshold, Marisa.
His heart wrenched.
All her makeup had been removed, her hair released from the tight bun she’d had it tied in. Wrapped around her body, a silk robe that fell to her knees. Her pretty feet were bare. She smelled of toothpaste and delicate soap.
Shyly, she held a trembling hand out to him. Feeling like a vampire of myth, he took it and crossed the threshold.
Marisa’s heart was racing too hard and fast to feel the individual beats.
Rico was there. In her room. He was there to make love to her.
After this night, there would be no going back. She would bind her body to him as tightly as her heart was bound, and suddenly she was terrified.
Where she’d led him silently into her room, he led her silently to the bed.
Legs wobbly, she sat on its edge. She looked at him and, mouth dry, swallowed.
He knelt before her and gently cupped her cheek. “Don’tbe afraid,” he said quietly. “We don’t have to do anything. If you just want me to hold you, then I’ll hold you and nothing else.”
She covered the hand on her cheek and gave a shaky smile. “I don’t want to be a disappointment to you.”
His forehead creased. “Marisa…” He pressed his forehead to hers. “You could never be a disappointment to me, don’t you understand that? You are everything to me.”
“But you have so much experience and I…” She shrugged helplessly, thinking of all the hours she’d spent over the past four months researching Rico’s past sex life. She’d done it as a means to strengthen her resolve not to fall for him, but it had achieved nothing except to feed a jealousy she’d been hardly aware of forming. “How could I not be a disappointment?”
He brushed his mouth to hers in a tender, tender kiss and speared his fingers through her hair. “If you had any idea how incredible it feels to know you’ve chosen me to be your first, you wouldn’t ask that.”
“I didn’t choose you,” she confessed in a whisper. “My heart did.”
“And I will take as good care of your heart as the rest of you. You’re mine now, Marisa, and I am yours.”
Her heart ballooning, she smoothed her fingers over his forehead. “Will it hurt?”
“I will do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t.” His fingers dragged the length of her hair. “I’ll make it good for you, I promise.” He placed another tender, tender kiss to her mouth before getting to his feet.
Wrapping her robe tighter around herself, she gazed at him and then slowly shuffled back until she was resting against the headboard. And then, her pulses skittering madly, she watched him undress.
He’d come to her room without his mask and bow tie and with the top buttons of his white shirt undone. Havingdiscarded his tuxedo jacket, he undid a few more buttons of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Socks and shoes removed, he put his hands to the fastening of his trousers and locked his stare back to hers. With just a few movements of his fingers, his trousers were undone and sliding down his legs to the floor, leaving him in only a pair of snug charcoal boxers. The outline of his erection was visible in them. When he tugged the boxers down his hips, it sprang free like a jack-in-the-box and injected her with a fresh dose of terror.
She’d known he was big by feel alone, but seeing it in the flesh… The world suddenly spun around her, and for a moment, she thought she was going to faint from fear. The drumbeat in her ears was deafening.
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.
