Barbara Taylor Bradford’s 4-Book Collection. Barbara Taylor Bradford

of an unusually thrilling nature. He wrestled with the problem, torn by indecision.

      As if she had somehow managed to read his thoughts, as if instinctively she understood he had perceived her lack of experience in bed, Francesca now brought her hand up to touch his chest, and lightly she began to finger one of his nipples. Slowly she trailed her fingertips down his chest and onto his stomach. They hovered there, moving across and then up and down, delicate, erotic, tracing patterns. A shiver ran through him, and when her hand slipped down to rest between his legs, tentatively, with uncertainty, he almost leapt out of his skin. Her touch excited him to such an extent he had to bite his inner lip to stop from crying out with pleasure, and he felt his hardness growing even though she had removed her hand.

      Victor Mason was entirely undone. He was incapable of leaving her. He pressed Francesca into the pillows and started to devour her mouth so fiercely his teeth grazed hers. Moving his body so that he was lying on top of her, he pushed his hands under her shoulder blades and lifted her up to him, crushing her. And he made up his mind to one thing; since he was the first, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was, then he was not going to make a hash of this, spoil it for her as another man might in his selfishness, impatience and lack of knowledge. She was not going to have problems with sex ever in the future, as so many women did, because some dolt had perpetrated a bad, difficult or unrewarding initiation on them. He was going to love her well, and truly, and with every part of himself. He would bring her to the fine edge of rapture and beyond that into ecstasy, before he took her and satisfied himself. Her loss of innocence at his hands was going to be beautiful, radiant, filled with joyousness, and also as painless as he could possibly make it.

      For all her inexperience, Victor realized there was a basic sensuality in Francesca, and this thrilled him, for he was sensual himself and needed a woman to respond to him on the same level. Knowing that her sensuality had not been truly awakened, he slowly brought it to full flower, kissing her, caressing her, prolonging this stage of their lovemaking. He carried her to new heights, soothed and gentled her quivering body when she grew over excited, and started all over again when she was calm. In the most subtle of ways, with care and delicacy and sensitivity, he created in her a state of voluptuousness that was making her faint and breathless.

      Suddenly he had a need to see her face and he lifted his head and gazed down at her, and caught his breath. Never had he seen a woman looking more beautiful than she did at this moment. Her supine body, spread out before him, was so languid and relaxed it seemed to have a unique kind of fluidity, her long legs stretched out gracefully in a half curve, her superb arms flung above her head. To him she appeared more willowy and supple than ever, a long-stemmed flower, and glorious, with her hair fanning out behind her like skeins of silk, and her matchless skin was dappled to a dusky gold by the blazing firelight. She was exquisite in her fresh young beauty and innocence and purity. He felt a tightening in his loins, a further quickening in his blood, and he raised himself on his elbow, studying her intently, watching her eyelids fluttering as he caressed her shoulder, ran his hand down over her outer thigh.

      It was then that Victor experienced a deep yearning in his heart, an unrecognized and unfamiliar yearning he did not truly comprehend at first. But with a swift flash of insight into himself, he thought: Is this more than sexual attraction? Have I fallen in love with her?

      Francesca stirred and opened her eyes, and looked up at him, her adoration spilling out from her face. He stared back at her, held in fascination, his eyes impaled on hers. They were searching, questioning, burning with a longing that sprang from the inner recesses of his heart and not his body, and he was moved in a way he had not been moved in years. Momentarily he was thrown off balance by the deep emotions tearing at him. His throat thickened and he felt unaccustomed tears behind his eyes.

      Francesca watched the intense feelings washing over his face, swamping his dark and brilliant eyes, and she recognized them immediately, knew at once what they meant, for they mirrored her own. She held her breath, hardly daring to move, and thought: He loves me. I know he loves me. Her heart began to flutter and all the love she felt for him rose up in her, and she knew she must tell him. She opened her mouth to speak, but Victor bent forward and kissed her deeply, silencing her. He held her close and said, ‘My darling, oh my darling,’ and he enveloped her with his body and found her mouth again. She cleaved to him, returned his wild, impassioned kisses, and stroked the nape of his neck and shoulders, and ran her hands down his back.

      Her touch scorched him, sent the heat flaming through him. His blood raced, his heart thundered in his chest and his desire was rampant in him, made his head swim. And he needed to know every part of her, to make every inch of her his, and his alone. He brought his lips to her breasts and kissed her sensuously, and slid his hand down over her stomach until his fingers were entwined in the golden silk between her thighs. Slowly, and with infinite tenderness, he sought the core of her femininity enclosed in its protective velvet petals.

      Francesca was quivering and moaning gently under his loving hands, excited in a way she had not imagined possible even in her wildest fantasies about him. Victor was arousing her to a point of agitation and she was over-wrought, and yet she did not want him to stop. She wanted his hands, his lips, his body, wanted all of him, wanting him to prolong the exquisite sensations trickling through her. He was dazing her, blinding her, thrilling her beyond belief. Suddenly she caught her breath, trembling uncontrollably, and a stronger fiercer heat flooded her, and she gave herself up to him. He was learning her intimately, and with thoroughness, and he drove her on and on relentlessly, until she was gasping and caught on the brink of the most rapturous feeling she had ever known.

      And Victor, besotted with her, enthralled by her, was being carried along by the onrushing tide of their mutual passion. He brushed, his lips across her thigh, and as he caressed the core of her it felt as if a rare exotic flower had suddenly bloomed under his hands, one that was slowly unfolding its sun-drenched buds to him. Tremors rippled along her thighs and he shifted his body, moving lightly on the bed. He brought his head down and kissed her with delicacy, until spasms replaced the tremors and she cried out, ‘Oh Vic! Oh Vic!’

      He continued to kiss her until the spasms lessened and then he lifted his head and slid up onto her body, and took her to him with great swiftness, plunging into her with such force he felt the impact himself. He hoped this unexpected domination of her at the height of her excitement would dim the pain. But she did stiffen under him, and she stifled a cry with a quick gasp, and held herself tense. He gripped her, his hands under her back, and he moved into her more forcefully, knowing this was the only way to lessen the pain, to sweep her up and away from it to new heights.

      Gradually Francesca relaxed as the sharp flaring pain receded, and she felt a different and more marvellous warmth spreading through her as Victor began to thrust deeper and deeper into her. And her heart crested with ecstasy as he took complete possession of her, made her truly his.

      She was liquid fire under him and he was being consumed by the heat emanating from her. He took her harder, loving her with a fervour he had long forgotten, with the strength and virility and wildness of his youth. He felt her body arching up to meet his clamorously, and she blended into him, moved with him, found his new rhythm, and he was dimly conscious of instinctive movements from her. Her arms tightened on the small of his back and her legs went around him automatically, so that he could love her more thoroughly and with all of himself. He was trapped now in a velvet vice, the possessor being possessed. He was hot, his body burning up with hers, and then he felt as though he was falling, falling through space, spinning down the slope, taking the long downhill run with the speed of light. Faster, faster, his speed increasing, breathless as he hurtled on into the blinding glare … white snow … white heat … infinity. Oh God, oh God, I love her, he screamed silently to himself. I’ve always loved her from the very first day …

      Victor lay on top of Francesca, shudders still rippling through him, his face buried in her neck. She smoothed his shoulders lightly, gentling him as he had gentled her earlier, waiting for a calmness to settle over him. At the very last moment he had moved against her almost violently and had gripped her arms so tightly she had winced in pain. Then the shuddering had started and he had erupted with a frenzied burst of passion, calling her baby again and again, and begging her to take all of him.

      Francesca