A low chuckle vibrates under my cheek, and I immediately wish I had lied.
There was no way a man like him would want me in that way.
Everything he’s done so far has been to teach me. To train me. He doesn’t want that kind of relationship with me.
I am just part of his program.
His lips press to my ear. “I would love to kiss you. But if I do, you must promise to please Daddy, too. Do you promise?” His whisper makes me swallow hard and take a deep breath of relief.
I nod against him. Suddenly, I feel like I have just been asked to prom by the most popular boy in class.
“First,” he raises my face again, “a kiss. I have not kissed a female in decades, Larissa, so you will forgive me if I’m not as practiced as you may think.”
His words and his lips ignite a multitude of microscopic sparks as he presses the soft warmth of his mouth against mine.
Never in this lifetime or a thousand others would I have imagined a kiss so perfect. He kisses my bottom lip, drawing it between his own as his jaguar-green eyes stay locked onto mine. The heat in my cheeks quickly moves outward, then down my neck, racing like lava over my chest.
His tongue presses inward, opening my lips as it swoops inside to dance with my own. I swirl around him, feeling like a princess awakened by her prince’s first kiss.
He tastes like sweet tea and a hint of peppermint as his tongue winds with my own.
My head swims. I feel detached, floating, his hand pressed into the back of my neck, holding me centered and secure as my passion begins to overwhelm me.
Never have I imagined wanting to give myself so completely to someone. I have never felt anything close to this desire. It’s so deep, so primitive, that any and all other needs fall away.
The whole world lives inside this kiss.
Right here. Right now.
When he finally pulls back, I’m panting, staring into the face of a man I feel is a mixture of the father I never had and a lover I never dreamed of.
I haven’t considered his age really until now. Until this all felt so…real.
How old is he?
I shake away the thought. It doesn’t matter. He’s a marble sculpture that belongs in the Louvre, yet he kissed me.
Me. He said he hasn’t kissed anyone in…decades. I’m melting and wet and hazy like this is a fever dream.
“It has been so long since such a pure, innocent spirit has been here. The girls who arrive at my doorstep are hardened, lewd, and petulant. You, my little finch, you have changed things here.” My heart feels like it grows two sizes as he looks down and kisses me again. Both hands wrap around the back of my neck, holding me firm and secure as our kiss ignites.
It’s tongues and breaths and dreams until I can’t stand it another second, and our kiss breaks with me wide-eyed, a hardness under my rear end and the flow of my arousal soaking into the fabric covering his thighs.
“Tell me. Has a boy ever touched you? Kissed you?” He pulls back, his eyes intent and wild with something I haven’t seen before.
Jealousy.
“None. I’ve never—” Suddenly, I feel ashamed.
It’s not jealousy. He wants to be sure I know what I’m doing. Surely he won’t want me, an inexperienced girl. I have no idea how to please a man. Especially a man who looks like Sebastian.
I brace myself for the inevitable rejection, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, his lips turn up at the corners, the little lines around his eyes deepen.
“You are a gift.” He kisses me on each cheek, then my nose, my forehead, the part of my hair, and I’m swimming in the warmth of him.
“How do you know Hoover?” I ask, the sudden need to understand how I got to him from there a detail that feels demandingly necessary right now.
