Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) (12 page)

Pierce stilled and withdrew his hand, letting it rest on the soft triangle of silky black hair between her thighs. He took a deep, shaky breath, and then another, his chest heaving like a bellows, before he could draw in enough air to speak. "I think there's a little something you neglected to mention."

"It's nothing," Nikki panted. She released her death grip on one arm and reached down to take his wrist, trying to push his hand back between her legs. "It's not important."

"It is important." He moved the wrist she was tugging on, bringing his hand up under her chin to lift her face to his. "Nikki," he said, peering down at her in the dim light with a look of infinite tenderness on his handsome face, "why didn't you tell me you're a virgin?"

She was silent for a long moment, her eyes closed, her hand still clinging to his wrist, fervently praying he wouldn't see her embarrassment. "Does it matter?" she said at last.

"Only in how we go about this."

She opened her eyes. "Does that mean you still want to?"

"Good God, yes." He hugged her to him with the arm under her shoulders, giving her a quick, hard, possessive kiss.
How on earth can she think I don't want to?
"Yes. More than ever."

"More than ever?" she asked, puzzled.

"Do you have the faintest idea what it does to a man to find out he's the first?" His lips turned up in a wry, self-deprecating smile as she gazed up at him without answering. "No, I guess you don't. Well—" he ran a fingertip down the long elegant line of her throat as he spoke "—let's just say it appeals to all his less-evolved, baser male instincts and let it go at that."

Nikki managed to lift a delicate eyebrow. "His?"

Pierce grinned his pirate's grin. "All right. Mine," he acknowledged, skimming his finger over the soft skin of her upper chest, down between her breasts to her navel, smiling wolfishly as her skin quivered in response. "It appeals to all
my
less-evolved, baser male instincts," he said as he outlined the silky triangle of hair at the base of her abdomen. "All those testosterone-fueled instincts civilization has supposedly bred out of the male animal but really hasn't." He flattened his hand over her mound in a blatantly possessive gesture, as if to show her what he meant, and bent his head to kiss her. "How'd I get so lucky?" he murmured against her lips.

"Lucky?"

"Not many women in this day and age are still virgins at... what?" He lifted his head to look at her. "Twenty-three? Twenty-four?"

"Twenty-four," she muttered shortly, and tried to draw his mouth back down to hers before he could pursue the subject any further.

He resisted. "Why?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Why, Nikki?"

"I really don't think it's any of your business." She gave him a narrow look meant to discourage further inquiries. "Unless you're willing to answer a few questions about your past in return," she added, thinking that would make him back off.

"I'll answer any questions about my sex life you'd care to ask," he said,
"after
you answer mine."

She clamped her lips together, unwilling to tell him why she was still a virgin at the advanced age of twenty-four. It made her sound so... pathetic.

"Why, Nikki?"

"Because nobody ever asked me, that's why," she burst out finally, realizing he wasn't going to let it go until he had an answer. "Because I've always been so tall and skinny and... and socially inept that no one ever wanted me." She turned her head, not wanting to see the pity on his face.

Pierce was silent for a stunned moment, trying to make sense of what she'd said.
No one wanted her? Was she crazy? How could she think any man could look at her and not want her?
It made absolutely no sense for her to— "Those unrequited crushes in high school," he muttered, as understanding slowly dawned. "And that idiot fiance of yours." He nodded to himself. "Okay, I'll buy that. You were one of those gangly, awkward teenagers. A foot taller than all the guys, right? And probably painfully shy because of it." He smiled tenderly as he pictured it in his mind's eye. "I can see how that might have limited your romantic experience when you were a teenager. But what about later?"

"Later?" she said, without looking at him.

"Last I heard, the Marine Corps was full of men. Don't tell me none of them ever asked you."

"Military life is easier if you're just one of the guys." Nikki shrugged against the pillow. "And I've been one of the guys all my life."

Pierce snorted in disbelief. "Some guy," he said, and slid his hand between her thighs to emphasize his point.

Nikki caught her breath and lifted her gaze to his. Did this mean he still wanted—

"I want you more than ever," he said, answering her unasked question.

Nikki shivered with a combination of delight and arousal and a sort of fearful anticipation and reached up to twine her arms around his neck. Their lips met in a soft, sweet, deliciously warm kiss that seemed to last for days, and then Pierce pulled away gently, kissing her cheeks and eyelids and the palm of each hand as he unwrapped her arms from around his neck.

"What I'd like to do is fall on you like a hungry hound," he said, giving her a look that left no doubt in her mind about the truth of his statement, "but a woman's first time should be extra special." He rose from the bed. "You wait right here while I see what I can do to make it that way."

"You don't have to do any—"

He put a fingertip to her lips, stopping her. "I want to," he said, his eyes blazing with passion and tenderness as he stared down at her. He leaned down and kissed her again. "Don't move a muscle until I get back."

Nikki disobeyed him, sitting up and reaching for the sheet as he turned away. She pulled it over her breasts and lay back down, smiling mistily as she watched him move around the room, deliberately setting the scene for her deflowering.

He was glorious in his nudity. Utterly unselfcon-scious and more perfect than any man ever made. His shoulders were wide and rounded with muscle, his back was broad and smooth, the deep cleft of his spine dividing it neatly in half. His hips were narrow, his buttocks tight, his legs long and lean, the thighs as hard and muscled as any professional athlete's.

He went to the fieldstone fireplace opposite the bed first and set a match to the kindling and logs that were always stacked in readiness, then lit the half-a-dozen candles placed all around the room, bathing them in the warm golden glow of firelight. Opening a huge seventeenth-century oak armoire, he rummaged through a vast collection of compact discs until he found the one he wanted. In just a few minutes, the same artist they had danced to in the club began to sing softly about love and passion. Quickly, then, he moved to air-conditioning controls, adjusting them to compensate for the warmth being generated by the fireplace, then crossed over to the open glass doors. After closing them, he pulled the sheer under curtains together to shutout the night.

"Now, my dear," he said, turning back to Nikki with a mock leer, "I have you at my mercy."

Nikki gulped, trying not to stare at his erection, and instinctively clutched the sheet more closely to her breasts.

"You moved," he accused as he approached the foot of the bed. "Naughty girl," he chided, shaking his finger at her. "I told you not to move." He reached out and took the sheet in his fist. "Do you know what I do to naughty little girls who disobey me?"

Eyes wide and shining with excitement and anticipation, Nikki shook her head against the pillow.

He tugged on the sheet, silently demanding that she release it, dragging it, inch by inch, down her supine body, teasing them both with the slow unveiling of her feminine charms. "I drive them insane with desire," he said as he pulled it over the hard, pebbled tips of her breasts. "I make them crazy with lust and passion." He drew the sheet lower, down over her flat little stomach and the soft flare of her hips. "I make them delirious with need," he promised as the soft percale brushed over the silky black hair at the base of her abdomen and the long, sleek muscles of her thighs before exposing her rounded knees and the smooth skin of her calves and the delicate bones of her feet. "I make them beg for mercy," he said, and dropped the bunched material to the floor.

"Please," Nikki whispered in a choked voice.

Pierce leaned over and grasped her ankle. "I think I'll start here," he said evilly, and bent his head to kiss the tip of her big toe.

Nikki gasped and her foot jerked in his hand.

He held her firmly, intent on doing as he'd promised and caressing every inch of her long, gorgeous legs with his mouth. Intent, too, on impressing upon her just how lovely he found her long, lanky body. He kissed her insteps and nipped at her ankles. He ran his lips over her calves and nibbled on her knees and took little cat licks all along the smooth skin of her thighs. And all the while he whispered to her, murmuring hot, breathless accolades to the unique beauty of her long legs and the special silkiness of her skin. And then, finally, on his stomach between her thighs, he pushed them apart and draped them over his shoulders. Opening her soft, feminine folds with his fingertips, he bent his head to give her the most intimate kiss of all.

Nikki gave a muffled shriek and fisted her hands in his hair, squirming and panting, pleading incoherently with him to please stop... and to never stop. She shrieked again, long sweet moments later, writhing helplessly when she climaxed for the first time.

"Please," she said breathlessly, trying to pull his tormenting mouth away from her body by tugging on his hair. "Please, Pierce, you're making me crazy."

"I want you crazy," he murmured into the soft skin of her thigh. "It's good when you're crazy," he said, but he let her pull him slowly higher, planting numerous moist, openmouthed kisses on her stomach and ribs until, finally, he reached the quivering mounds of her breasts. They were incredibly soft and delicate under his lips, topped with small rosy nipples, drawn tight with need. "Beautiful," he murmured as he cupped them in his big hands. "Perfect." Plumping them up, he bent his head to taste them more fully.

Nikki sighed and gentled her hands in his hair, curving her fingers around his skull to hold him to her, silently urging him to take his fill as she smoothed the damp golden curls that fell over his ears and caressed his strong neck. He let her drift for a moment or two, let her luxuriate in the orgasm he'd just given her, let her savor his lavish attention to her breasts. And then he took one tight little nipple into his mouth and bit it gently.

Nikki moaned and arched up off the bed. "Please," she said again, hardly knowing what she was saying. "Please, Pierce, I need..."

He lifted his head and looked at her, his blue eyes gleaming with lust and other, more complicated, emotions. "What?" he murmured. "What do you need?"

"You," she said. "I need you. Inside me. Now. Please. I don't want to wait any longer."

"Neither do I," he whispered, and gently disengaged himself from her clinging arms to reach for the condoms stored in his nightstand. He lifted himself away from her to deal with it and then, only seconds later, eased himself back between her thighs. "Now," he said softly, and took her wrists in his hands. He pushed them down, flat against the mattress on either side of her head. "Look at me, Nikki," he commanded, his voice low and rasping.

She stared up at him, her gaze locked on his as he slid his palms up over hers and threaded their fingers together.

"Mine," he said as he slowly began to enter her.

She felt his shaft probing at the wet, heated entrance to her body, pushing at the fragile barrier of her virginity, and she arched up to meet it, head-on, gasping just a bit as he broke through and filled her to the hilt.

"Okay?" he murmured raggedly, determined not to move until she was ready for more.

It took a moment or two for her to get used to the feel of him inside her—a moment or two when his body trembled violently and he thought he would die from the strain of holding back—and then she smiled and sighed.

"Yes," she said, her pale green eyes glowing with satisfaction and surrender and a sense of wonder that anything could feel so good. "Yes."

"Yes," he echoed, his eyes reflecting the same sense of satisfaction that shone in hers, as well as a particularly masculine blend of triumph and possession. "Oh,
yes."

He began to move, slowly at first and then faster as she started to breath more rapidly, responding to him with soft cries and gasps, meeting each of his thrusts with one of her own. Finally their bodies were rocking in unconscious time to the music that pulsated through the room, moving together in the oldest dance of all. Pierce groaned loudly at the end, holding her slender body tight against him as he stiffened in release. Nik-ki's second explosive climax of the evening was underscored by the joyous sound of Michael Bolton singing "Love Is A Wonderful Thing" and her lover breathing the word "mine" over and over in her ear.

8

P
IERCE TENSED,
breathing out through his mouth as he slowly flexed the powerful muscles of his shoulders and chest and straightened his elbows. He did it eleven more times, moving just as slowly and powerfully as he had the first time, regulating his breathing to coincide with his movements, until finally, he straightened his arms completely and returned the weighted bar to the rack above his head. He levered himself to a sitting position, one foot on either side of the narrow weight bench, and wiped his face with the towel he'd slung around his neck, wondering if he was going to be so masochistic as to force himself to finish the entire routine when what he really wanted to do was go back to his room and crawl into bed with Nikki.

And not just to make love to her again, either, he told himself virtuously.

Not that he didn't want to, Lord knew. Even after having made tempestuous, tumultuous, body-and-soul satisfying love to her three times in as many hours, he was still edgy and half-aroused and more than ready to rise to the occasion at the slightest encouragement.