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‘Oh,’ echoed Tara as a shimmer of incredible sensation swept over her. Was this what had been spoken about with such venom when she’d been growing up? The most wicked thing in the world which could bring with it terrible consequences?
He lowered his lips to hers again and the sweetness of his kiss made her heart want to burst from her chest. How was it possible to feel this good? She closed her eyes in ecstasy as he began to kiss her breasts, his tongue flicking against one nipple so that it peaked into his mouth as if it had been made for just that purpose. She quivered as his fingertips skated over her skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake as he explored her breasts and belly and the jutting bones of her hips. Suddenly she wanted to touch him back in the same intimate way but she was shy and scared—wondering if her inexperience would put him off and bring this all to an abrupt end.
She thought: Am I going to be passive about this, or am I going to be a participant? For the first time in her life, couldn’t she just go with what she wanted to do rather than thinking about what was the right thing to do? Fired by a fierce tide of hunger, she whispered her hand down his spine and then drifted her fingertips to the flat planes of his stomach. Did he sense she was going to move her hand further down to explore his hardness for the first time? Was that why he gave a low laugh of expectation?
In the soft light she could see the pale pole of his hardness contrasted vividly against the burnished hue of his olive skin and Tara wondered why she wasn’t feeling the fear she had expected on seeing an aroused man for the first time in her life. Because this felt perfectly natural, that was why. This was what was supposed to happen between a man and a woman.
Tentatively, and with the lightness of touch which made her such a good pastry-maker, she started to stroke him—but he endured the exploratory skate of her fingers for no more than a minute before shaking his head.
‘If you carry on doing that, this will not end well,’ he growled softly, reaching out for a foil packet on the locker and tearing it open with impatient fingers. Then he lifted her up to position her over him, so she was intimately straddling him, his tip nudging against her new-found wetness.
Tara gasped as he splayed his hands over her breasts, his thumbs playing with her thrusting nipples, which instantly made her want to squirm with pleasure—although she wasn’t exactly in the ideal position to do any squirming.
‘Ride me, Tara,’ he urged huskily. ‘Ride me.’
She didn’t get a chance to tell him she didn’t really know what he was talking about because, suddenly, he was pulling her down onto him so that his erection was pushing deep inside her, as if he was done with talking and couldn’t wait a second longer. Pushing up right into her so that he filled her completely, and the warm rush of unexpected pleasure was slightly offset by the unexpected shock of what was happening to her body. She could feel her muscles tense and the briefest split of pain. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she found Lucas staring up at her with an expression of disbelief on his rugged features and something else.
Was it regret?
Or was it anger?
‘You’re a virgin?’ he bit out.
Breathlessly, she nodded.
He said something she didn’t understand—she thought it might be in Italian, though what did she know?—and it sounded incredulous. He put his hands on either side of her hips and for a moment she thought he was going to remove her from his body and tell her to get out. But he didn’t. With a look of intense concentration on his face, he flipped her over onto her back while he was still inside her, displaying a skill which spoke volumes about his experience. And once she was on her back he smoothed away the wild disarray of curls from her face and stared down at her.
‘I think I’d better be the one in charge from now on, don’t you?’ he said thickly.
She nodded, terrified of saying the wrong thing. Terrified he was going to stop. Because she couldn’t bear that—not when those amazing feelings were building up inside her again and he was bending his head to kiss her more deeply than before. And she was floating now. Floating off into a sweet and strange new world where nothing existed except the sensation of Lucas Conway thrusting deep inside her, his mouth capturing hers in kiss after kiss. He moved slowly at first and then faster—as if her body was sending out an unspoken command which he correctly interpreted and acted upon.
She didn’t think it would happen. Not the first time. She might have been innocent but she’d read all the magazine articles, like everyone else. And when it did, her orgasm was nothing like she’d expected. Because how could she ever have anticipated that something could feel this good? As if the sweet spasms which were racking her body had transformed her, so that for a moment she felt as if she’d redefined what it meant to be human.
Her fingers dug into the damp skin at his back and she kissed his neck over and over again as his own movements changed. His thrusts became more urgent and she heard his shuddered groan just before he collapsed on top of her. She wrapped her arms around him and in that moment she felt as if she’d tumbled into paradise and never wanted to leave. But nea
rly six years of a boss-employee relationship couldn’t be dissolved in a couple of minutes and the unmistakable balance of power between them hadn’t changed. So she lay there perfectly still and waited to hear what Lucas had to say.
CHAPTER FOUR
TARA STARED OUT at the sodden morning to where the previous night’s storm had left the garden completely battered—as if some giant malevolent fist had pummelled the shrubs and flowers and left them leafless and sad. Gloomily surveying the damage to her previously well-tended shrubs, she found herself wondering if Lucas was in the air by now. If he was already beginning the process of forgetting her. Probably. No doubt it would be a speedy process in his case—less so in her own, she suspected—as she remembered the awkward words which had followed their passionate bout of sex.
It had been the worst conversation of her life—though of course she’d been too young to remember her grandmother telling her that her mammy was dead, which she supposed she must have done. Worse even than the time she’d discovered the truth about her tarnished legacy—not from the person who should have told her, but from a sniggering trio of bullies on a freezing cold school playground in the rural wilds of Ballykenna.
Nope. She sighed as she turned away from the window. It had been an all-time low to hear Lucas’s chilly statement as he’d coolly detached himself from her satiated and naked body and rolled to the other side of the bed, his voice as distant as the great space which had suddenly appeared between them. And, just as she must have done twenty times over—she found herself reliving that post-sex scenario, word by excruciating word.
It had started with Lucas. A flat, hard assessment which had allowed no room for manoeuvre.
‘That should never have happened.’
The trouble was that on one level she had agreed with him. It shouldn’t. While on another level...
The flip side of the coin was that she’d been lying there, basking in emotion and reaction and a million other things besides. She’d felt fulfilled and relieved—yes, relieved—grateful that she was capable of feeling all the stuff other women felt and that her body was functioning just fine. For a few crazy, misplaced minutes before her boss had spoken, she’d actually been thinking that maybe she could go to New York with him, after all. That perhaps they could carry on doing...well, doing this. All right, it hadn’t been the most conventional beginning in the world—but the world wasn’t a conventional place these days and who was to say they couldn’t have some kind of relationship, even if it didn’t last? But Lucas hadn’t wanted to hear that. He hadn’t wanted to hear anything which smacked of eagerness. Presumably what he’d wanted was an unflappable response which echoed his own sentiments—one which reassured him that she wasn’t about to start reading something into a foolish act of passion which meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
‘No,’ she’d said slowly. ‘I suppose it shouldn’t.’
‘I can’t believe what we just did. I just can’t believe it.’ He had shaken his tousled dark head. ‘I should have—’
‘Honestly, Lucas, you don’t have to explain,’ she had butted in quickly, her voice sounding much sharper than usual and he’d turned his head to look at her in surprise, as if thinking she didn’t usually talk that way to him, which of course she didn’t. But then, they weren’t usually lying buck-naked in bed, were they? And because she couldn’t bear the thought of him voicing any more regrets and leaving her with nothing but uncomfortable memories of her first ever sexual experience—which happened to have completely blown her away—she had somehow forced a smile to her lips. She’d even managed a half-shrug, glad that her expression was mostly hidden by the thick fall of her curls. ‘Things got out of hand, that’s all. It’s not a big deal. Really.’
