“Not yet.”
“Why?” she demanded, patience in another universe.
“You are a virgin.”
“So?” He was going to change that, wasn’t he?
“So, you need preparation and I’m on a hair trigger where you are concerned.”
“You have to take your underwear off to make love to me,” she spelled out slowly, like she wasn’t sure he got it.
He bared his teeth in a smile that had no humor. “And before that happens I will make sure you are ready to receive me.”
“But—”
“You will have to trust me on this.” His eyes demanded her acquiescence.
She didn’t know if she could give it. “I want you!”
“And you will have me.”
Vik’s hand slipped between her legs right then, fingers delving in the moist heat no other man had ever touched, and she cried out. He touched her in ways she’d only ever dreamed of being touched, caressed her to her first shattering climax before she even realized what that desperate feeling inside her was leading to.
She’d touched herself, but it had never felt like this. She was still trembling with spent pleasure when a single long masculine finger slipped inside her. Something shifted in her heart at the intimate intrusion.
He was not inside her, not the way she’d always imagined, but they were connected on a level that corresponded to a place inside her soul.
He pressed upward and she winced with pain.
“Hurt?” he asked, his own tone strained.
“A little.”
“It will sting.”
“Why?”
“I am going to break your hymen with my finger. It will make the actual penetration of my sex easier on you.” The words were clinical, but his tone and the concern in his expression was not.
He’d thought this through and that touched her in the same place in her soul his intimate intrusion had.
He pressed a little harder.
A sharp shard of pain stabbed her. “It more than stings!”
“I am sorry.” He grimaced. “It will be worth it.”
She wasn’t so sure about that, but trusted him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.
That trust was sorely tested a moment later when the pain increased to the point that she felt like he was invading her with a hot poker, not his finger. She gasped and tried to pull away, surprised when she succeeded in dislodging his hand.
He leaned back on his haunches, the telltale traces of blood on his finger a testament to his success.
Grateful that the pain was already morphing to a low-level throbbing rather than stabbing, she asked, “Now?”
“Not yet. There is more to do.”
The more included him stripping naked finally. In the bathroom, where he ran a very hot bath.
He looked even bigger jutting out from his body than he had with his erection tucked behind black silk knit.
He smiled at her with gentle humor. “Your eyes are as wide as saucers.”
“You’re as big as a baseball bat.”
That startled a laugh out of him. “Not even close.”
“Right.”
“Your eyes are playing tricks on you.”
Unsure where it came from, annoyance drove her stomping across the tiled floor and gave her the boldness to grope him in her fist. “My fingers are not touching.”
The sound he made was not a word.
Viscous drops formed on the tip of the flesh in her hand. She touched it with her fingertip and brought it to her mouth, licking it cautiously.
Surprisingly it was almost sweet, with only a hint of the salty bitterness she’d heard about. “I like it.”
He groaned and then jerked his body backward so his hard flesh slipped from her hand. “Bath. Now.”
“Why?”
“Can’t you just trust me?”
“I trust you more than any other man on this planet.” He might be the only man on the planet she did trust. He had to know that.
“It will make it better for you,” he explained.
“How do you know?” she demanded. “Have you had sex with many virgins?”
She found that possibility seriously disturbing.
“None,” he practically snarled as he lifted her up and set her in the bathtub with surprisingly gentle movements, considering his apparent irritation. “I read up on it.”
“Because you’re a planner.”
“Yes.” He still sounded like a man ready to take someone’s head off.
“Why are you mad?” she asked plaintively.
“I’m not angry!”
“You’re snarling at me.”
“I’m turned on.” The low growl rumbled through her.
“So am I. The bath was your idea!”
“For your benefit.”
Oh, man. “I’m sorry. This isn’t easy for you, is it?”
“Waiting?” He stepped into the bath behind her, pulling her into his lap, his hands settling on her possessively. “No, my sexy little redhead, it is not easy, but you are worth it.”
Another white-knight moment. “If you aren’t careful, you’re going to have me believing in fairy tales.”
His only answer was one languid touch to her thigh. That caress was followed by another and another and another, all over her body and each touch accompanied by the ever-present presence of his hardness pressed against the small of her back.
Her nipples were aching and sensitive, her clitoris vibrating with pleasure, and her entire body melted over his by the time his hands stilled their insidious movements.
There were no words left in her brain when he drained the tub and lifted her back to the tile floor. They dried off in silence, bodies aware and straining toward each other.
She and Vik stripped the bedding back without acknowledging that was what they were going to do, and then together they fell to the mattress covered by the single sheet.
The lovemaking was everything she had ever dreamed it would be, his sex filling her so deeply she felt like they’d really bonded into one entity in that moment.
There was still some pain, but nothing stabbing and dark, and the pleasure pushed any lingering discomfort to the bottom register of Maddie’s awareness.
This time when she climaxed, she screamed until her throat protested the strain. Vik grew impossibly hard inside her, his body going rigid just before he shouted his own release in the form of a single word.
“Mine.”
She didn’t even think about birth control until the next morning.
* * *
Viktor came to awareness in the dark, two things at the forefront of his mind. The woman he’d craved for years was now in his arms and they hadn’t used birth control the first time they made love.
The former gave him satisfaction and the latter a twinge of regret. In a perfect world, they would have a