A Child Claimed By Gold. Rachael Thomas

to make her his for tonight?

      ‘You are even more beautiful now... I want to taste every part of you.’ Just saying those words made his pulse leap with heated desire, but when she stepped towards him, her naked body highlighted by the pale light from outside, it was almost too much.

      ‘I want you to.’ She reached up and stroked the backs of her fingers over his stubble. It was such an erotic sensation he was glad he was still fully clothed, otherwise he would have pushed her back on the bed and plunged into her; all thought of making the pleasure last would have gone.

      He caught her wrist, putting a stop to her caress before it pushed him over the edge. She looked up at him and for a second he thought he saw shock, but she recovered before he could analyse it, pressing her naked body against him wickedly. He let her wrist go and trailed his fingers down her arm and then to her breast, circling the tight bud of her nipple. She wasn’t the only one who could be so wickedly teasing.

      ‘And so I shall,’ he said and lowered his head to tease her nipple with his tongue. She pushed her hands into his hair as he moved to her other breast to begin the torment again. Then he dropped to his knees and kissed down her stomach, holding her hips tightly as a spike of lust threatened his control. Gently he moved lower, teasing at the dark curls as she gasped her pleasure and gripped her hands tightly in his hair.

      ‘I never knew,’ she gasped, writhing beneath his exploration, ‘that it could be so nice, so...’

      ‘You make is sound like you’ve never made love.’ He looked up at her, each breath she took making him want her all the more.

      ‘Would that be so bad?’ She looked at him and bit at her lower lip. He frowned in confusion, wondering if this was why one minute she was a temptress, the next an innocent. Was she telling him she was inexperienced—or even a virgin? After the moments they’d just shared, and her boldness, could that really be true?

      ‘Why do you ask?’

      ‘It’s just that I’ve never... I’m a...’ She blushed, unable to finish the sentence, the temptress gone.

      ‘You are a virgin?’ Shock rocked through him, followed by something else. She’d never made love and was choosing him to be her first lover.

      ‘Yes,’ she whispered and looked down at him, her eyes full of longing. ‘And I want you to be the man who shows me what desire and passion is like.’

      He stood up and took her hands in his, looking at her as she stood naked before him, uncertainty all over her beautiful face. He shouldn’t want her, shouldn’t want to be the man who showed her the pleasures of sex for the first time, but an overwhelming need to be that man flowed through him, making him want her more, testing his control beyond endurance.

      ‘It wouldn’t change anything, Emma.’ He wanted her to be sure, wanted her to know that after this there wasn’t anything else. ‘If we have sex it will still be just tonight. I don’t want a relationship. I don’t intend to settle down any time soon.’