Only With Your Love (Vallerands #2)(25)

His palm coasted up the inside of her thighs, encountered the touch of wetness in the tangle of hair. Embarrassed and frightened, she turned on her side. He pulled her back, his hand gliding between her legs once more. Her inner muscles constricted as she felt his fingers probing the entrance to her body.

Celia tried to control her gasps, tried to ignore the maddening urge to push her h*ps up against that warm, knowing hand. One of his fingers slipped into her swollen passage, stroking the slick inner walls. “You’re so tight,” he murmured, the tip of his finger tracing a sensitive place inside her, causing her to jerk against him with a startled gasp. “Easy, ma petite…relax. I won’t hurt you.”

As Griffin whispered reassurances to her, he lost his ever-present awareness of the outside world, the keen alertness that had never left him before. He drew pleasure from her with singleminded concentration, as if thirstily drinking water from a spring. Celia’s small hands touched his bearded face, his hair, his flexing back. Closer and closer her limbs moved to his, pressing against the unfamiliar hardness and rough texture of a man’s body. He held her slim h*ps between his thighs, while the huge, taut length of his aroused flesh burned against her abdomen.

Griffin began to enter her, and paused at the discovery that she was impossibly small. Celia writhed under the exploration of his mouth and hands, softly begging for release. Her fingers curled into the back of his neck, and she pressed her face against his shoulder, gasping with fear and need. The gesture of surrender lured him on, and he plunged into her softness with a single thrust. It was then that Griffin’s mind reeled from shock as he heard a cry of pain, felt her awkward attempts to accommodate him. The throbbing flesh that surrounded him had never been breached before.

Since attaining manhood Griffin had taken care to avoid virgins. They were nothing but trouble, and they held no attraction for him. The shock of encountering his first virgin was not a pleasant one. He should have recognized the signs—but he had been too eager for her. And she had been, after all, a married woman. Or had she? He seized her face in his hands, glaring at her furiously. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “Not Philippe’s wife, not anyone’s wife. Tell me why, damn you!”

She cringed away from him, unable to speak. Her body was racked with agony…he was too big, he was hurting her…his rage frightened her. He moved slightly and she gave a cry of distress, tears sliding out from beneath her eyelids.

Breathing in harsh bursts, Griffin released his grip on her face. “Dammit, answer me!”

She moaned and turned her head to the side, trying to block out his anger.

Griffin wondered what the hell he was going to do. For all his experience, the deflowering of innocents was something of which he had no knowledge. And he did not want to hurt her further. She pushed at his chest with her hands and twisted beneath him. “Don’t,” he said, keeping her still. “Don’t move.” He lowered his mouth to the space between her eyebrows and kept his lips pressed against that small spot.

The warmth of his mouth there was strangely hypnotic, and she began to relax.

“You should have told me,” he said. “I could have made it easier for you.” He drew her wrists over her head. “Leave them there, petite. And be still.”

Separating his mouth from her skin, he let his breath fall on her moistened forehead. Celia inhaled sharply as she felt him slide deeper inside her. The rough tips of his fingers traced over her lips, and then were replaced by his mouth. Leisurely he tasted, bit, and sucked at her lips, sometimes languid and light, sometimes hard and intense, until her mouth was warm and swollen and her entire body was tingling.

His hands brushed over her in long strokes, preparing the way for his gently questing mouth. Inch by inch he withdrew from her, and Celia gave a whimpering protest. She felt empty, restless, her body seeking more of the hard, masculine pressure. His lips coasted over the center of her chest, down her taut midriff to her navel. Delicately his tongue circled the tiny rim before dipping inside. Unable to bear the intimate wetness of his mouth there, she moaned beseechingly.

Griffin moved his body back over hers, teasing the feminine mound with strokes of his heavy shaft. She felt his hand slide under her back, and she arched willingly, allowing his probing fingers to find the base of her spine. Her breath caught as she felt pleasure spreading from her shoulders to the backs of her knees. He eased another few inches into her throbbing passage, stretching her until she clutched at his shoulders in a reflex of pain.

“Look at me, Celia,” he said huskily.

She stared into his eyes, mesmerized by the depths of shadowed blue. The ache between her legs faded, and she made no protest as he pushed forward again, filling her completely. They exhaled together, both aware of a sense that time had stopped, leaving the two of them alone in a world without boundaries. Griffin plunged and withdrew slowly, luxuriating in her soft body.

Celia held on to him desperately, knowing she should have clawed and fought him until the bitter end. It was madness to want him. But he demanded her pleasure, forced it from her with unforgivably gentle lips and hands. She slid her fingers into his hair, kept his mouth on hers while his kisses ravaged and feasted without inhibition. Her h*ps strained toward his, and with a low grunt he grasped her bu**ocks, showing her a circular movement that intensified the fire between them.

The half-sweet, half-painful rapture exploded inside her with stunning force. Helplessly she arched up to his thrusting h*ps and gasped against his chest, her mind blank except for the thought that she must be dying. Griffin lunged inside her a final time, every muscle in his long body tautening into fine-tempered steel. His beard scratched the soft skin of her neck, while the heat of his breath singed her nerve endings.