One Night with Prince Charming (Aristocratic Grooms #2)(18)
Author: Anna DePalo

“My sentiments exactly,” he said, and then strode with her around the partition to where the bed was. “See, we have a lot in common.”

“Besides riding and fishing?”

He paused in the act of placing her on the bed. “Oh, Pia, sweetheart,” he said huskily, a wicked glimmer in his eye, “isn’t that what tonight is all about—fishing and riding?”

Pia felt a full-body flush sweep over her. As she came down on the mattress, she propped herself up on her elbows to stop from lying completely on her back.

She swallowed, unable to say anything.

Holding her eyes, James undid the remaining buttons on his shirt and cuffs, and then pulled fabric from his waistband, stripping off his shirt and undershirt.

Pia soaked up the sight of him. Taut muscle rippled underneath the planes of smooth and lightly tanned skin.

She hadn’t been mistaken. He was fit and in top shape.

He made short work of the rest of his clothes, working methodically until he was naked.

His arousal stood in imposing relief against his toned frame.

Pia sucked in a breath. “You’re very beautiful.”

James gave her a lopsided smile. “Isn’t that my line?”

It occurred to her that while she’d viewed pictures of na**d men, this was the first time she’d seen one in the flesh. And again, James was beyond her expectations. He was impressive—tall and built as well as fit. The flat planes of his abdomen tapered down to…a definite sign that he wanted to couple with her. Right now.

A tingle went through her, a tightening of anticipation.

As if in response, he pulled her toward him on the bed and began kissing his way down her body.

Pia looked up at the white plaster ceiling, her hands tangling in his hair, and thought she’d die of pleasure.

James kissed the jut of her hip and then worked his way down the soft skin of her inner thigh to the sensitive spot behind her knee. He lifted her other leg and turned his head to nip and brush the pliant flesh of her other thigh.

With one finger, he traced down the cleft at the juncture of her thighs, and she moaned, her head twisting until she pressed her face into the coverlet beside her.

James muttered sweet encouragement as he lowered her leg and caressed his hand down her thigh.

Then he bent, picked up his pants from the floor and fished out a packet of protection. He donned the sheath with economical moves. Stretching out beside her on the bed, he gathered her to him and soothed her with his lips and hands as he muttered soft endearments under his breath.

Pia was lost to the sensation and emotion sweeping her. She was petite and felt surrounded by him.

When James shifted over her, parting her thighs and settling against her, she worried about being able to accept him. But within seconds she was again consumed by the desire flaring between them.

“Touch me, Pia,” he said hoarsely.

He sipped and feasted on her lips, his hands readying her with a gentle kneading. Pia responded in kind, meeting his mouth and trailing her fingertips over the corded muscles of his back.

This was the moment she’d waited a lifetime for. He was the man she’d waited for.

James nudged her, and Pia concentrated on relaxing as he sucked on her lower lip.

Lifting his head, he muttered, “Wrap your legs around me.”

Oh, sweet heaven. She’d never been plastered, open and exposed, to an aroused male before.

She concentrated on what she’d imagined countless times in her fantasies, where her partner’s features had always been indistinct but he’d carried an aura so very much like James’s.

She did as he instructed, and James grasped her h*ps in his hands.

He looked deeply into her eyes and then gave her a quick, gentle kiss.

“Let me take you, Pia,” he said throatily. “Let me bring you pleasure.”

She arched toward him, and in response, he buried his head in her neck and penetrated her.

Pia gasped, and then bit down hard on her lip.

James froze.

Moments passed and they held still. The thumping of his heart sounded against hers.

He lifted his head, his expression puzzled, and also shocked and doubtful.

“You’re a virgin.”

He stated it with surprise.

She wet her lips. “W-was. I think past tense is appropriate.”

She felt full and stretched, almost to the point of the unbearable, where pleasure met pain. It was a strange sensation that she tried to get used to.

“Why?”

She swallowed, and then whispered, “I wanted you. Is that so bad?”

James closed his eyes, his muscles remaining full of tension as he rested his forehead against hers and then muttered a self-deprecation. “You’re so unbelievably tight and hot. Sweet like I’ve never experienced… Pia, I can’t—”

Afraid he’d pull out, she clamped her legs around him. “D-don’t.”

After a moment, some of the tension eased out of him—almost as if he was reluctantly admitting defeat.

“I’ll try to make it good for you from now on,” he muttered, as if the words were torn from him.

“Yes.”

He moved slowly then, his hands pressing the right spots and easing the tension in her body.

Pia focused on relaxing and concentrated on the sensation of his movements.

Slowly, slowly, she felt a small spark, and then a faint tingle. She was awakening, her body coming to life under his sure ministrations.

Eventually, as she relaxed further, tension built. She felt herself reaching for a release that she’d never experienced with a man before.

James stroked between their bodies, his fingers pressing on her most sensitive spot.

Within moments, she cried out with pleasure and then crested before she knew it. She was carried on a wave of sensation as feeling after feeling swamped her.

Her body undulated around James of its own accord, massaging him into his own frenzy of need.

“Have mercy, Pia,” he groaned.

It was too late, however. With a hoarse oath, he grasped her h*ps and pumped into her.

She came for him again. And then with a final thrust, he took his own release.

As James slumped against her, Pia hugged him and suddenly became aware of tears in her eyes.

He’d taken her across the final barrier to realizing herself sexually as a woman. Their joining and her first time couldn’t have been more wonderful.

Pia closed her eyes, and of their own accord, exhaustion and sleep claimed her.

The next time she blinked up at her ceiling, he was gone.

In a moment, Pia was brought back to the present. She realized she wasn’t staring at her ceiling, but at her apartment wall.