Innocent Cinderella. Julia James

speak, she thought with a kind of desperation. To end this while it was still possible for her to do so. Before all that she was feeling—wanting—overwhelmed her.

      Because she did not do things like this. It was a principle, a cornerstone of how she lived. Or was it simply that she had never before known real temptation? Real desire?

      And now that she knew, her whole being was crying out for fulfilment by the man who had awakened her to fulfilment’s possibilities. Because this might be her only chance for it to happen.

      One night, she thought, her mind suddenly reeling. One night. Oh God, is that really so much to ask?

      His fingers brushed her hair away from her neck, and she felt his lips touch its tender nape, moving slowly—easily, on her skin. It was the lightest of pressures, like the brush of a butterfly’s wing, but it made her whole being shiver with instinctive, uncontrollable longing.

      But as her back arched helplessly, achingly, in response, Jake took his hands from her shoulders, swiftly and deliberately setting her free again.

      For an instant, she stood motionless, still holding the boned taffeta bodice over her breasts. Then her body’s urgency—need—took over and she let the dress slip down, baring her to the waist, then to the hips, until finally it slid to the floor and she stepped out of it.

      She turned slowly to face him, her silk and lace briefs her only covering.

      Jake looked back at her, his expression totally arrested, the lines of his cheekbones, his mouth and jaw sharply, even starkly delineated, the blue eyes burning.

      He took an unsteady breath, then began to shake his head, his lips shaping a word she knew would be ‘No.’

      With a little sob, she flung herself towards him, her entire body one desperate plea. As she pressed herself against him, the towelling robe grazed her hardening nipples, sending a sharp ache of longing coursing like wildfire through her veins. And deep within her she felt her muscles clench almost savagely.

      Her arms reached up round his neck, drawing him down to her and to the first kiss she had ever offered him of her own accord.

      His mouth found hers, exploring its trembling contours without haste. Possessing them, as one hand twined in the soft fall of her hair, letting it slide through his fingers as they kissed. The other hand clasped her hip, pulling her closer as his lips parted hers, his tongue delicately, sensuously probing her moist, inner sweetness.

      He raised his head at last, looking down at her, turning her slightly so that she was leaning back in his arms as he planted a trail of kisses down the line of her neck and into the vulnerable hollows at its base, making her pulse leap and dance.

      His hand found one soft breast and cupped it, teasing the awakened and quivering peak with a fingertip before taking the small, scented mound gently into his mouth and continuing the delicious torment with his tongue, forcing a gasp from her throat at this unaccustomed, bewildering delight.

      At the same time, his hand strayed lightly down her slenderness, whispering over her skin, discovering without haste every slender curve, angle and hollow, and as he did so brushing away the last fragile barrier to his total exploration of her.

      Marin swayed in his arms, eyes closed, her uncovered body totally pliant, the breath catching in her throat as his fingers reached her thighs, gently stroking the silken inner flesh before beginning a more intimate quest. A small stifled cry, half protest, half hunger, escaped her as for the first time in her life she experienced a man’s touch like cool gossamer against the scalding heat of her. Her body moved, lifting instinctively, helplessly in response to the subtle pressure of his caress, and she felt the melting rush of a desire as wanton as it was unfamiliar.

      Her legs suddenly seemed unable to support her and she caught at the lapel of his robe, trying to steady herself, shocked at her unguarded flesh’s primitive reaction to its first real experience of carnality. To the sweet, languorous weakness which seemed to be invading her entire being.

      Jake said her name, his own voice hardly more than a sigh as he picked her up in his arms and carried her into his room. To his bed.

      She felt the softness of the pillows at her back, the crispness of the sheets against her skin. But as he began to take off his robe Marin turned away quickly, reaching for the switch of the single lamp glowing on the night table, her inherent shyness tightening her throat at the thought of seeing him naked, and in reality instead of imagination.

      Of actually being with him naked.

      But Jake was too quick for her, leaning across as he lay down beside her to capture her wrist and bring her hand back to his body, flattening it against his chest, the swift thud of his heart mirroring her own accelerated pulse rate.

      He whispered, ‘Sweetheart, I need to see you. To look into your eyes. And I need you to see me too.’

      And, gathering her to him, he kissed her again, his mouth irresistibly demanding as it moved on hers, the force of his erection hard against her thighs.

      Sensation crowded upon her, making her dizzy. The cool beguiling scent of his skin was all around her, the taut muscularity of his shoulders beneath her hands as she held him, returning his kisses with undreamed-of urgency.

      Jake let his lips drift slowly down her throat to her breasts, suckling them gently as his tongue resumed its delectable arousal of their rosebud peaks. She felt the throb of aching need reverberating through her whole body, echoing deep in her loins, and she put a fist to her mouth, damming back the tiny, betraying sounds that would reveal the depths of her craving for him.

      His mouth moved downward, across her breathless midriff to the satin of her belly and the indentation of her navel, his tongue tracing its whorls with minute accuracy.

      His hands slipped down her body, moulding her slim hips then sliding beneath them, cupping her buttocks as he raised her towards him so he could kiss her thighs and rub his cheek lingeringly against their smoothness. Before bending to her again with new and devastating purpose.

      Marin could hear the thunder of her quickened heartbeat as a small, frantic voice in her head told her, no, this couldn’t be happening. He would not, could not, really be intending to…

      Because, if so, she must stop him now—now…

      Or it would be too late.…

      Only to feel his mouth warm and sensuous as it caressed the silken mound at the joining of her thighs, silently coaxing her legs to part and allow him the ultimate access he sought. Making her realise that denial was no longer an option, even if she could force some kind of protest from her dry throat.

      And then all thinking halted, her mind going into free fall as she allowed him to have his way. She became aware of nothing but the devastating mastery of his tongue as it flickered on her, seeking her tiny nub of sensitive flesh, teasing it until it had swollen into an agony of total sensation.

      Then, just when she thought she could bear no more, finding that his caress had changed. That he was now skilfully laving and stroking all the burning, secret places of her womanhood, probing their slick, moist depths, making her writhe beneath him in a ferment of sensation bordering on anguish.

      Just before he returned slowly and quite deliberately to her little erect bud, tantalising it softly to a renewed pitch of intensity that she had not realised could exist or that she could possibly experience.

      Before he drew her with an infinity of expertise to some unimagined brink and held her there as her head thrashed on the pillow and a silent scream rose in her throat.

      Before, between one heartbeat and the next, he finally took her across the edge into the unknown. The unbelievable.

      Her amazed body arched beneath his mouth as the first throbbing convulsions of a pleasure that was almost pain imploded inside her. She heard herself cry out loud, a harsh, broken sound, her body shaking uncontrollably with the violence of the spasms tearing through her as they reached their zenith, then began by degrees to subside.