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'Yes. Are you frightened?'
'Not while you're here, Guido…'
'Forget Guido,' he told her curtly. The old impatience was back in his voice, the sudden removal of his arms a shock of rejection. Pain shafted through her and all at once she started to shiver.
Nico's hands cupped her face, his, 'Saffron, don't,' releasing the tension inside her so that she cried as though she could never stop, silent, ceaseless tears that filled her eyes and soaked his shirt.
For several minutes he simply let her cry and Saffron was dimly conscious of the comforting warmth of his skin beneath her cheek, the stroke of his thumb as he brushed away the tears that were gradually easing.
She felt no fear in his embrace, no sense of panic when he gently traced the outline of her lips and then covered them with his own. She could feel the male warmth of him through the thin barrier of their clothes, her senses started to stir and she responded, stiffening suddenly as a mental image of Guido came between her and the man holding her in his arms. His fingers were lightly caressing the shape of her spine, but she was barely aware of his gently arousing touch. Sickness shivered inside her, the palms of her hands were moist with perspiration.
'Saffron.' There was regret and understanding in the way he spoke her name, slowly releasing her.
'No.'
From somewhere she found the courage to make the small, explosive protest, her hands going to Nico's shoulders, small fingers biting tensely into the solid muscle.
'No, don't leave me, Nico,' she whispered, adding pleadingly, 'Make love to me now.' When there was no response, she continued huskily, 'Don't you see? All I can remember is Guido; all I can feel, smell, hear...' She was starting to tense again, her eyes clinging despairingly to Nico's in the darkness. 'Please?' she begged, her mouth trembling. 'Please, I don't want that to be the only.. .'
'Saffron—God, you don't know what you're asking!'
The muted undertones carried a vehemence that sent anguish curling down to her toes, but she refused to acknowledge the pain of yet another rejection.
'Am I so undesirable?' she demanded brokenly, 'so sexless that you don't want me?' Her eyes searched his face again, and finding .no response she added bitterly, 'Or is it that you can't bear to touch me now that Guido ...'
She heard his stifled curse and then she was in his arms, held close to the hard contours of his body. 'Never say that again,' she heard him say grittily against her ear. 'No man worth his salt would let such a consideration stand in his way, and besides, Guido did not rape you. You are still a virgin, and it is for this reason .. .'
'Because I'm a virgin! Am I then to go a virgin to my death?' she asked him in a voice that trembled with resentment. 'Does my virginity somehow make me less desirable, less physically arousing? I want you, Nico,' she told him recklessly. 'I need you, I...'
'No, you don't,' came the grim rejoinder. 'You want someone to make love to you to banish the memory of Guido—I or any other, even half desirable male would do, and if I had the slightest atom of sense ...' He looked down at her, cupping her face, his eyes hot and hungry. 'God, I want you, Saffron,' he groaned thickly, sliding his fingers into the short curls framing her face, 'and you're making it impossible for me to remember that I shouldn't have you.'
Saffron made no response. She knew instinctively that she needed the healing balm of Nico's lovemaking to destroy the memory of Guido's assault, and she knew just as instinctively that Nico would never physically abuse a woman, no matter what he might be or what his mission in life was.
When his mouth touched hers, she met his kiss with an eagerness that made him moan in protest, transforming his gentle possession of her lips into a white heat of mutual need that completely transcended anything Saffron had known or thought to know in the past.
His skin when she slid her fingers beneath his shirt felt hot, almost scorching her fingers, the pulsating fever of his body leaving no room for fear or second thoughts. In a gesture that was purely instinctive she moulded herself against him, glorying in the sudden tensing of his muscles, the tightly controlled shudder that ripped through him as he lifted his head and stared at her through the darkness.
'Oh God, Saffron!' He said her name unevenly as though he was holding himself under tight control and unable to gauge how long that control would last out.
Saffron didn't want it to; she wanted his possession to be total and final, not tempered to accommodate her situation and inexperience. She wanted them to meet in equal need and desire; to lose herself completely in the bittersweet surrender of her body and forget all the whys and wherefores of what was happening.
'Saffron.'
This time there was resignation, and something else, that stirred a fever in her blood, in the way he said her name. Her lips parted willing beneath the hungry pressure of his; his kiss was totally devastating, and she quivered under the assault of his mouth a warm, insidious helplessness flooding through her, leaving her completely pliant and responsive.
His hands slid round her back, lifting her slightly so that she was lying against him, the warm sure touch of his fingers on her spine causing small explosions of pleasure inside her. Her own hands reached hungrily towards him, sliding inside his shirt, exploring the breadth of his shoulders and then trailing experimentally through the dark hair matting his chest. She heard his swiftly indrawn breath with a small gasp of pleasure that she actually had the power to move him, the tentative, almost feverish kisses she pressed against the warm, damp skin of his throat an indication of her growing urgency to experience everything there was to experience before it was too late. She was like a small child who had deliberately refused to open a single Christmas present before the appointed time, who suddenly foresaw the possibility of them all being removed, and now couldn't wait to unwrap the lot.
'Dear God, Saffron! Have you any idea of what you're doing to me?' Nico's piously unsteady demand, muttered into her ear, caused small convulsions of delight to course through her, and when he started to remove her blouse and bra she was achingly eager to be rid of them, to feel his hands against her bare flesh, to have those long skilled fingers appeasing the almost unbearable ache in her breasts, already swollen and acutely sensitive to his touch.
When he had removed her clothes he took her mouth in a long drugging kiss, not touching her at all, except to clamp her against him, his eyes so dark that they appeared black as he looked slowly down the length of her body and muttered hoarsely, 'Dio, I must be out of my skull, but God help me, I want you. You're like an ache in the gut, a fever in the blood, Saffron, and you'll never know how many nights I've slept alone, wanting you like this in my arms, sweetly naked and wanting me.'
His words were like a magic incantation, banishing any lingering doubts about what she was doing, fanning her burning need to experience his possession before her life was extinguished.
'Undress me, Saffron.' The husky command was punctuated with ardent kisses as the warm male mouth slid moistly along the line of her throat, strong teeth nibbling softly at her earlobe, and tightening possessively on her shoulder when she complied with his request. There was something undeniably erotic about removing his clothes, about the new freedom to place random kisses against whichever part of his body she revealed as she unfastened and pulled off his shirt. Her fingers touched tentatively on the belt of his jeans and she paused. In the darkness she felt him tense, his husky, 'For God's sake don't stop now,' inciting her to struggle with the stiff leather until it suddenly gave way beneath her probing fingers, partially exposing the taut flatness of his belly, hard and arrowed with dark hair that felt crisp and alien to her touch.
All of a sudden he was breathing differently, the even rhythm broken, the sudden urgent possession of his hands as they caressed her breasts thrilling and just slightly frightening.
'What are you trying to do to me,' he moaned against her throat, 'drive me mad with frustration? Can't you tell how much I want to have you touch my body? Don't you know...' He tensed suddenly, all the passion dying out of his touch. 'Of course you don't,' he said in a flatly mocking voice. 'How could you? You're a virgin. I can't do this, Saffron,' he continued, tight-lipped. 'Don't…'
