Page 77 of Bride of Fire
Somehow he knew it wasn’t enough.
Slipping his hand down between their bodies, he combed through her woman’s curls with gentle fingers. Resting his brow against hers, he carefully parted her nether lips.
She caught her breath, feeling suddenly too exposed, too vulnerable.
But it was too late. Already he trespassed with his fingers, awakening her with a tender touch.
Squeezing her eyes shut and biting her lip, she moved against his hand, writhing in a sensual dance that was both familiar and unknown to her.
But as engaged as she was in her own rising sensations, she felt him journeying beside her. His labored breathing, blowing across her ear, summoned her to new heights of passion.
He kissed her, and she answered with a deeper exploration, longing to taste every recess of his mouth.
And then a strange thing happened. The arrow of her lust mysteriously changed course. It had been racing with ever increasing haste, heading for the bull’s-eye at the speed of lightning. Then, as wave after wave of sensation surged through her body, the arrow arced up at a steeper angle until she wasn’t sure where it was headed.
Just when she felt it had veered completely off course, the quarrel halted at the top of its arc. Her body went rigid, frozen in time. For a wondrous, terrible, divine instant, desire hovered at the breathless point of no return.
Then, plunging faster than a bolt from a bow, she shot earthward with deadly speed. As she caught her breath in awe, shaken by shuddering flutters of release, he drove into her.
She gasped, startled more than wounded by the sudden sting of his invasion and his thick presence within her.
He gasped as well and went instantly still.
His brows collided as he stared down at her.
She knew a moment of dread. Had she done something displeasing? Would he withdraw now? Were her plans going to go awry?
“What is it?” she whispered, afraid of the answer. When he didn’t reply, she muttered, “You don’t want this? You don’t want me?”
“Nay, ’tisn’t that,” he was quick to answer.
“You’re certain?” Despite his assurances, she felt her throat thicken.
“Bloody hell, Jenefer,” he blurted, “I want ye more than I’ve ever wanted a woman. ’Tis only…”
She braced herself for the worst.
“Did I hurt ye?” he asked, his brows gathered in concern.
“What?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt ye.”
She blinked. Surely he wasn’t that ignorant. Evensheknew losing one’s virginity came with a bit of pain.
But it wasn’t as bad as thwacking your forearm using a bow without a bracer. And he looked sincerely full of remorse. So she told him, “It doesn’t hurt. Not really.”
He looked deeply into her eyes, as if to measure the truth of her words. “I didn’t know ye were a maiden.”
That made her scowl. “Wait. You thought Iwasn’ta maiden?”
Chapter 38
Morgan opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and closed it. There was no way he could answer without insulting her.
He’d made up his mind that Jenefer couldn’t be a maiden. No maiden, he’d reasoned, could be so fearless and assertive. She’d been flirtatious and demanding, as expert in her seductive manipulations as a harlot.
To realize with such immediate clarity that he was wrong—by stealing her maidenhood—was mortifying.
