The Virgin Huntress (The Devil DeVere #2)(30)

“But you didn’t—” she protested with a hurt look.

“No, thank God.” He exhaled on a ragged breath.

“Did I not please you?” she asked.

He reached for her then, pulling her against his chest, kissing her long and deep. “Indeed, you did. Immensely. I feared perhaps too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because men and women are designed differently. A woman may experience her release and still go on, whereas once a man has spent... I did not please you before in our lovemaking as I ought to have,” he finished ruefully.

“That’s not true!” Vesta cried. “It was beautiful!”

“But you did not find your release with me inside you.”

“Was I supposed to have?” she asked with a look of disappointment. “I’m so sorry, Hew. I didn’t know.”

“No, love.” He couldn’t help a chuckle. “It’s for me to apologize to you. In order to please you as I ought, I must be able to withhold my own release. Yet it is not at all an easy thing for me,” he explained, caressing her cheek. “But I sincerely hope to improve greatly with practice.”

“May we then?” She regarded him with pure devilment. “Practice?”

***

Held against him, Vesta noted Hew’s erection still reared imperious and unsatisfied between them, and she ached to receive it, to feel the slide of it deep inside her, the glorious sensation of being filled by him. The sights and sounds of his pleasure had not only filled her spirit with euphoria but had awakened her own desire with a ferocity.

“Are you not tender from before?” he asked.

“Not unbearably,” she said with another mischievous look. “In fact, I am quite certain I could tolerate much more.”

“Are you now?” His caresses moved to her bare bottom. She winced. “You are still tender there, however?”

“Just a bit,” she replied with a sulky look.

“Oh no! Your breath and pout are wasted if you think to make me feel guilty, for I don’t in the least.” He gave her a look of reproof. “I refuse to apologize, for you thoroughly deserved it, my dear. However, I am quite willing to administer some tender mercy to your injured flesh, if you think it would feel better.”

“I suppose it might help,” she agreed.

When he turned her onto her belly and straddled her lower legs, Vesta felt breathless with excitement. Hot, open-mouthed kisses on the back of her neck sent rapturous ripples to her throbbing sex. He worked his way over shoulders and back, sending her pulse skittering wildly out of control at the feel of his mouth and tongue paying homage to her bottom. When his hand slid between her thighs, already slick with arousal, a searing wave of want washed over her. “Can it not be done this way as well?” She looked over her shoulder and saw his blue eyes go black with reciprocal desire. With a taunting look, she raised her hips in invitation.

“More lessons from the breeding sheds?” he asked in a husky voice.

“Well, yes,” she said, breathless and unapologetic. “I thought the stallions seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.”

“Then far be it for me to question them.” He placed a supportive hand under her pelvis and guided himself into position. He poised thus for an endless heartbeat and plunged into her with a soft moan of pleasure. She met his second heavenly thrust with one of her own, and they soon found a mutual cadence, settling into a languorous tempo, each repetition of plunge and drag heating her body and intensifying the throbbing tension. It was too much but still not enough. She arched her back, offering more of herself, and their tempo and urgency increased. Sweat slickened, they filled the air with the sultry sounds of slapping flesh punctuated by ragged gasps.

Her orgasm came upon her stealthily, the heat smoldering and flickering deep in her belly, curling and flaring into passionate flames that suddenly erupted into a full conflagration that ripped over her with a violence.

***

When she bucked under him in the first throes of orgasm, Hew threw his head back and drove into her with a wild abandon. When she exploded, her climax tore through him with an unholy vengeance, her sweet sheath squeezing and milking his manhood, reducing him body, mind, and soul to total depletion.

With every remaining ounce of fortitude spent with his climax, Hew collapsed, rolling her into his arms and nuzzling her neck. “I once wondered, Vesta, if you would be the death of me. Now I know it for a certainty. Truly a sad end, after having charged into battle, roaring ‘death or glory.’ But then again...” He paused with a grin. “I can’t imagine a more glorious way to go.”

“Nor, I.” She sighed. “Hew, that was...that was...I can find no words.”

Neither could he, he realized. He felt an unfamiliar and otherworldly sense of well-being, a contentment he’d never dared hope for. And he had found it in the most unlikely of places—with a tiny hellion named Vesta. She had awakened passions he hadn’t known existed, and now he never wanted to let go.

“Hew,” she asked. “There is something I must know.”

“What is that?” He was growing drowsier by the moment.

“Why did you wait? I mean, it’s not customary for a man, is it?”

“No, it is not,” he replied. “And I suffered greatly as a youth for my puritanical ideals.”