Virtuous(49)

“Natalie…”

Her eyes are closed, her lips swollen and slick, her cheeks rosy and warm… She’s unbearably beautiful.

I nuzzle her neck, and she tips her head, granting me full access to her sweet softness. Her scent defies easy description, but it’s bewitching nonetheless. It’s simple, clean, fresh… Unlike anything I’ve encountered before, which leads me to conclude it’s the essence of her. I roll her earlobe between my teeth, biting down just hard enough to draw a sharp inhale from her.

“Nat…” I don’t even know if anyone calls her that. The nickname rolls off my tongue as naturally as I draw air into my lungs.

“Hmm?” Her hands are doing something to my hair that makes my scalp tingle with awareness.

“We should stop this.”

She shakes her head. “More.”

“Natalie,” I say, laughing at her unabashed eagerness, “you’re killing me.”

“I don’t want to kill you. I want to kiss you.”

She has no idea what she’s doing to me, how she’s waving a red flag in front of a bull by looking at me with those sweet brown eyes gone liquid with desire and emotion.

I try to tell myself I can handle this. I can handle holding her and kissing her and maybe touching her, but nothing else. Not now anyway. Clutching her hand, I lead her to the sofa, where I sit and then bring her down onto my lap. The press of her soft bottom against my raging hard-on takes my breath away for a second before I recover and capture her mouth in another kiss that goes from zero to a hundred and twenty in a flashpoint of heat so potent I feel scorched.

I’ve never, ever reacted to a woman like this before, and it thrills and terrifies me in light of the conditions she laid out the day we met. If I ask for more than she’s willing to give, I’ll lose her before I ever have her. But with her soft and pliant in my arms, I’m unwilling to end this moment before I have more of her.

I ease her back onto the sofa cushions, pausing to gauge her reaction. For a heartbeat of an instant, I see something resembling fear in her expressive eyes before she seems to recover, reaching for me and bringing me down to resume the kiss.

If I thought the kiss in the foyer was incredible, this is something else altogether, and it truly takes every fiber of self-control I possess to keep from ripping the clothes from both our bodies and having her right here and now. Fighting off those urges is almost as consuming as the kiss itself, which becomes more erotic and more sensual with every stroke of her tongue against mine.

Her sweater is enticingly soft under the hand I lay flat against her back. I work my way under the hem and encounter warm skin that makes me greedy for more. Though it pains me to move, I shift slightly to the side without breaking the kiss and move my hand to the front of her. I’m like a teenage boy in the throes of first passion, trying to gauge whether my advances will be welcome or not. I honestly can’t tell, and remembering that flash of fear I saw earlier, I need to be certain.

I ease back from the kiss but keep my lips against hers. “Natalie, I want to touch you.”

She arches her back, pressing against my hand.

“I need you to say it’s okay. Every step of the way, I need you to tell me.”

“Yes, Flynn… Please. Touch me.”

“Polite and sexy. What a potent combination.” I ease her sweater up and over her head.

She shocks the hell out of me when she tugs at the hem of my sweater and has it off me before I can begin to prepare for the sharp punch of desire that occurs when her skin and mine come together for the first time. Holy f*ck. It’s electrifying and terrifying at the same time. She scares the hell out of me.

Her fingers continue to comb through my hair as her other hand wanders down my back, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

I’m literally burning up and beginning to sweat from the effort it’s taking to hold back, to go slow, to remember what she said about sex and marriage and rules. But I’m only human, and I want her desperately, so I kiss everything I can reach, beginning with her neck and working my way down to her chest and the upper slopes of plump breasts that are straining at the confines of her plain tan bra, which will go down in history as one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.

On her, the sexiest lingerie in the world wouldn’t do a thing to enhance her natural beauty.

“Flynn.” She gasps when my chin rubs against the tight point of her nipple. Her entire body arches into me, silently asking for more.