Nan Ryan (24 page)

His eyes were closed, the long dark lashes resting against his high cheekbones. His firm jaws were flexing as he suckled her. His heavy beard was pleasantly tickling her skin. Every nerve ending in her body thrumming with almost unbearable excitement, it was as if she were outside herself, watching. A fascinated voyeur. Seeing the two of them as well as feeling what he was doing to her.

The fleeting glimpse she got in the lightning flash might have been of a dark, dangerous, highly sexual predator feasting ravenously on a pale, helpless, shamelessly aroused maiden. A strange and disgraceful image, yes. But erotic beyond belief.

In her heightened state of arousal, the princess felt as though she would have allowed this big black-bearded beast to devour her if he chose to do so. She couldn’t have stopped him. Didn’t want to stop him. Wanted him to do anything and everything to her. For her. With her.

The stimulated princess soon realized that the scalding fire she felt in her nipples had spread to her lower body. When the next flash of lightning came she saw that Virgil’s tanned hand was between her open legs, spreading the heat. Darkness returned and she could see nothing. She could only feel.

She felt his warm lips against her bare belly and his long, dark fingers caressing that slick, throbbing bud of flesh between her parted thighs. She couldn’t believe the intimacy and the ecstacy.

His low masculine voice coming to her from out of the deep shadow, he said softly, “Feel good, baby?”

“Yes, yes,” she choked. “Don’t … don’t stop.”

The tip of his middle finger, slick with the fiery wetness flowing from her, slid around and around that tiny tingling button of flesh which was now—to him and to her—the center of the entire universe. Virgil let the tip of his finger glide up to the very beginning of her swollen cleft, he cupped her, then gently swept the soft flesh and ginger curls aside, bunched his fingers together, and slowly moved them back down until his middle finger slipped inside her.

She gasped, stiffened, as his loving hand pleasured her, his finger penetrating slowly, gently, his thumb again skillfully rubbing that fiery spot where she had just learned she most relished being touched. They stayed that way for a time, he caressing, thrilling, bringing her steadily closer to the peak of passion. She, lying on her back beside him, her left leg cocked outward, her bare bottom surging and lifting to meet his stroking hand.

When Virgil was certain she was as hot and as ready as he, he leaned down, kissed her open lips, shot to his feet, hastily took off his boots and socks, then gave his open trousers a forceful push, shucking them quickly.

Lighting flashed.

Princess Marlena saw him standing above, totally naked. She trembled. Tall and lean and tanned all over, he was the epitome of masculine grace and steel-muscled power. Beautiful. God-like. Awesome. His thrusting erection was almost frightening in its shocking enormity and promising potency.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured, and came down on his knees between her legs. Carefully he lowered his body to hers, keeping his weight balanced on a braced arm.

He kissed her and whispered, “Let me love you.” He captured one of her hands, drew it between their bodies, placed it on his pulsing erection. “
Help
me love you, baby. Help me.”

Shocked, thrilled, the princess held and stroked that throbbing power in her hand for a long moment, not wanting to let it go, wishing she could hold him this way forever. She had no idea that Virgil was in sweet agony and terrified that if she didn’t stop stroking him, he would climax before ever being inside her. He gritted his teeth. His belly contracted. He held his breath.

And then, for the first time in her life, Princess Marlena guided a lover’s hard pulsating flesh up into her soft wet warmth. Both sighed when he easily slid in. Virgil placed a kiss on her lips as he began the slow, sensual movements of lovemaking. As it had been when she held him in her hand, Virgil could hardly keep himself from coming immediately. But he was determined he would wait for her.

He looked into her eyes and thrust slowly, deeply, going almost all the way in. Then pulling almost all the way out, leaving only the smooth, mushroom-shaped tip inside her. It had the effect he had hoped for.

“Please,” she whispered, scratching his flesh with her long nails, pulling frantically at his biceps, wanting him back inside, needing him back inside.

He gave her what she wanted. He slid back into her and pumped leisurely, rhythmically, flexing the muscles in his bare buttocks, loving the feel of her gripping him, holding him. When she began to toss her head and arch her back and tilt her pelvis up to meet each piercing thrust, Virgil changed the pace of their loving. He rocked into her faster, hammered harder, drove deeper.

And she loved it.

Their rapid breaths and sighs and groans loud in the small enclosure, they went at it with total abandon. If he was an experienced, exciting lover, resolved to give her the ultimate in sexual pleasure, she was the eager, apt pupil, willing to learn what he could teach her, greedy to take all he had to offer.

The princess bucked and ground her hips and squeezed him tightly and thought she had surely fully attained carnal heaven. Until, that is, heaven really began.

When it happened, her closed eyes flew open in shock and fear. “V-I-R-G-I-L!” She gasped, “Oh, oh, I’m … Virgil, I … I …”

“I know, baby” His answer was a low caress as he pounded rapidly into her. “Let it come. I’ve got you, I’ll stay with you. Give it to me, baby. Give it all to me.”

As promised, he did stay with her while she frantically clawed at his shoulders and upper arms and murmured his name again and again. Helplessly, she writhed and rocked and shuddered in the throes of a wild, deep climax. And when she started to scream as the ecstacy became so powerful it began to verge on pain, he let himself go and joined her in paradise.

The princess bit his shoulder with punishing teeth when she felt the hot liquid of love spurting deep inside her. Virgil groaned with satisfaction and collapsed atop her, his face resting on her breast, his midnight black hair ruffling against her chin.

The princess smiled foolishly, wrapped her arms around him, and held him fast as their thundering hearts began to slow. Hoping he wouldn’t move away immediately, she hooked her left foot around the muscular calf of his leg and placed a spread hand on his head to hold him to her.

To her delight he seemed more than content to stay just as he was, his bearded face on her breast, his hand on her thigh. Those magical moments following the fiery lovemaking were the sweetest she’d ever known. Princess Marlena realized now that she had never really made love before. Nor had she ever really been made love to.

This was the very first time.

The shattering climax she’d just experienced was her first one ever. She’d had no idea that this incredible zenith to which she had ascended was actually a part of lovemaking between a man and woman. A big part. The best part! Now she knew why the palace maids giggled and whispered about the joys of married life.

Smiling, sighing, stretching like a contented cat, the princess stared unseeing up at the low, rocky ceiling above, totally sated and totally happy.

For her, this uninhibited lovemaking had been an incredible awakening. She had known only one man intimately, her deceased husband. Early in their marriage, she had let him know she found lovemaking rather tedious. So she had been spared, save for an occasional late-night visit.

Now, here she lay, naked in the arms of a dark, rugged stranger. Their legs entwined, arms around each other, they lay directly in front of the cave’s entrance where any passerby could see them. She didn’t care. Let the whole world see.

She didn’t want to move an inch from this magnificent lover with whom she had eagerly engaged in shocking sexual intimacy, the kind of which she had, until today, been totally ignorant.

And it was wonderful.

26

In the afterglow of
lovemaking, a totally relaxed Princess Marlena realized that this was one of those rare moments that come but once in a lifetime. A sweet, precious interlude that she would never forget. The sights and sounds and smells surrounding her would, she knew, stay with her forever.

When she was an old woman with failing eyesight, she would still be able to see the craggy rock ceiling above her. And the lean, masculine body partially draped over hers. And the dark handsome head resting on her breast.

She would always be able to hear the pleasing sound of Virgil’s deep, slow breathing mingling with her own. And the neighing of the nervous black stallion prancing back and forth outside. And the raindrops hissing against the dry, thirsty ground.

And, if she inhaled deeply, she would smell again the intoxicating odor of the rain on the desert. And the clean fragrance of the silky black hair ruffling her chin. And the subtle scent of sex. A scent that was as new to her as the glorious intimacy in which she had just participated.

Princess Marlena sighed softly.

She felt no guilt. No shame. After the wild passion they had shared, she was confident that Virgil Black was in love with her. It was not surprising. Every suitor she’d ever known had fallen in love with her after just one kiss. She had given Virgil Black much more than a kiss. She had given him her body and her soul. Surely, after taking both, he was mad about her.

Lying contentedly beneath her dark lover, the princess was unaware that she was still frightfully ignorant and innocent when it came to matters of the heart. And body. It never occurred to her that she might be mistaken about Virgil Black loving her. Such a possibility never entered her head. He loved her. She knew he did.

The princess
was
wrong.

Dead wrong.

“Sorry about that, Red,” Virgil said finally, easing himself off her. “Guess I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”

Stunned, unable to believe her ears, the princess stared at him, speechless, for a long, uncertain moment.

When he rose to his feet, she nervously sat up. At last, she said, “But … but … why? Why are you sorry?” She swallowed hard and asked the real question. “Aren’t you … in love with me?”

Leisurely hunching into his black trousers, Virgil paused with his hands on the fly’s buttons. He shot her a glance of incredulity and replied with blunt honesty, “In love? With you?” He shook his handsome head and grinned. “Jesus, Queenie, you’ve got to be joking.”

Horrified, hurt, the princess squeezed her legs tightly together and threw her arms up to cover her breasts. She sat there on the cave’s stone floor shaking with emotion. She was temporarily unable to grasp what he was so callously saying.

She hadn’t heard him correctly. That was it. It had to be. Not in love with her? That simply could not be true. She didn’t believe it. It was too awful, too insulting to believe. How could this man with whom she had just shared such incredible ecstasy tell her that she must be joking about his being in love with her?

For a few agonizing seconds, her misery was so intense it was physical. Her naked chest felt as if it might explode from the burning ache there, and her bare stomach clenched spasmodically. She bit her lips to keep from screaming in agony. No one had
ever
hurt her like this. She had never suffered this kind of misery that left her dazed and defeated.

But she didn’t stay overwhelmed long.

Her royal blood rose quickly to the surface, and her crushing pain was replaced with blinding anger. The princess snatched her denim trousers up off the floor, shielded her body with them, and shot to her feet to face him.

Shaking with rage, she shouted loudly, “You bloody bastard! You monstrous cad! You miserable excuse for a human being! You—you—”

“I’m all those things, Red,” Virgil, nodding, agreed with her. “Always have been. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“No, you shouldn’t have!” She was sobbing now, furious, heartbroken, and humiliated. “And you should be horsewhipped and hanged for it!” Tears pouring down her flushed cheeks, her tone was lethal when she warned, “If you ever touch me again, Black, I will kill you. And I am
not
joking about that!”

“Fair enough.”

Irritated that this foolish woman was carrying on so over nothing, Virgil found the whole thing rather absurd. She was shrieking and sobbing as if she were a trusting young girl whose sweetheart had seduced her and then said he didn’t love her. Utterly ridiculous. And tiresome. She was obviously one of those women who could turn on the tears when it benefited her. Or thought it would benefit her.

He exhaled heavily. “Please, Red, stop crying. I told you it won’t happen again.”

“No, it certainly will not, you heartless son of a bitch!” Her tear-wet eyes flashed with fury, and she continued to call him every bad name that came into her head.

“We’re even now,” he finally cut in, rankled by the continuing insults. And annoyed that she had the power to rankle him. No woman ever had. That startling realization compelled him to behave childishly. To give her a dose of her own medicine, to insult her.