The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

by emotions he didn’t know what to do with.

      His brain especially seemed to be playing tricks on him. Otherwise why would he have imagined Ana’s virginity? And why would the thought have sent such a thrill through him? Why would he be perched on the edge of the bed now, watching her sleep, wishing he could wake her up and experience their incredibly exhilarating lovemaking over and over again?

      He shoved a hand through his hair and started to rise.

      She stirred, lazily stretching, tempting the sheet down a little further. Fire roared through his veins. He had to get out of here. There were several guestrooms where he could spend the rest of the night.

      Seductive eyes opened, focused on him. ‘Is it still night?’

      ‘Yes.’ He steeled himself against the exquisitely languorous look in her eyes and madly scrambled for something to say. ‘How long have you been celibate?’ He hadn’t meant to ask that, but the words spilled out anyway.

      She sat up slowly, pulling the sheet to cover her breasts. He curbed the urge to rip it away, feast his eyes on her—

      ‘My whole life,’ she answered.

      He froze. ‘You were a virgin?’

      The thought confused, astounded...pleased him? He pushed the last feeling away, but it kept returning.

      ‘Yes.’

      He’d been her first. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Why did his voice sound so damned hoarse?

      ‘What difference would it have made?’

      Her voice was sleep-husky, her hair spilling in bed-tumbled disarray over her naked shoulders. The sight of the white sheet against her tanned skin did incredible things to his libido.

      He felt himself slipping under her spell again. Confusion mingled with lust and self-loathing sent him to his feet. ‘A hell of a lot!’

      ‘I tried to tell you—’

      ‘You didn’t try hard enough!’

      ‘But you knew...you must have realised...’

      His mind raced. He’d been eager, uncouth. Like a wolf during mating season, his need had come second to none. He’d been the animal she’d accused him of being. All he’d wanted was to trap her underneath him, feast on her softness and incredible responsiveness. Nothing else had mattered but having her.

      Not even the fact that she’d been a virgin.

      He sank onto the bed, his thigh tantalisingly close to that tempting foot. He swallowed as fire shot through his pelvis.

      ‘Bastien, no one held a gun to your head. You could have stopped any time you wanted.’

      The truth of the statement shamed him even more. ‘No, I’m afraid I couldn’t have.’ Because he’d been too far gone to stop. ‘But if you’d told me things would’ve been different.’

      She licked her lips, sending his heart-rate rocketing. Mon Dieu, he had to find some distance or this thing happening between them would consume him whole.

      Her foot flexed.

      ‘How different?’ she husked out.

      ‘I would’ve been gentler, taken more time and care.’

      You still could... The thought teased the fringes of his mind. Possibilities tantalised.

      Before he could stop himself he reached out and grabbed her foot.

      Her breath caught and her foot arched into his touch. ‘I’m glad you didn’t. Any slower and one of us would’ve resorted to violence.’

      Reluctantly, his lips twitched. Moving closer, he lifted her foot into his lap. Slowly he massaged her soft skin, fascinated by her tiny gasps of pleasure at his simple caress. The sheet slipped lower. With a firm tug he pulled it away.

      She blushed. Unbidden, their conversation on the tarmac replayed in his mind, now taking on a different meaning. Her blushes weren’t a clever tool to entice a man. She blushed because she was genuinely innocent.

      The thought shocked him into stillness. Questions tumbled through his mind and assumptions disintegrated, fuelling his confusion. She wasn’t the wanton seductress he’d thought her to be. She had been a virgin.

      He had no right to be here with her.

      As if diametrically opposed to the idea, his hand tightened around her ankle.

      She responded by flexing her foot directly into his groin.

      ‘Mon Dieu, Ana.’ Desire, fierce and hot, pulsed through him with an urgency that stopped every other thought. His gaze rose along with his temperature, moved over the smooth suppleness of her calf, her pale golden thighs, to the wet glistening of her sex nestling between the triangle of carefully groomed hair. He paused there, heady satisfaction settling inside him at the thought that he’d been her first.

      As if reacting to the heat of his gaze, a delicate shudder raked her frame.

      His scrutiny continued upward. Over her flat stomach up to the soft mounds of her breasts. The sight of her nipples fuelled his need to taste them again. Her chest rose and fell with short, frantic pants that set his own heart thundering. Her swollen lips parted, her pink tongue resting against them.

      When his eyes finally captured hers it was the look in the chocolate depths that floored him. Daring, innocent anticipation. Need. A heady combination that had him discarding her foot along with his intention to leave her be and search out a different bed for the night.

      He’d promised himself one night, after all. He’d stick to that promise. By morning he should be rid of this insane, inexplicable desire for Ana Duval. Once he had it bottled and shelved he could rest easier.

      Rearing over her, he kissed her. She parted for him immediately, her tongue searching out his with a newly gained confidence that threatened to blow him away. She was learning fast, his Ana.

      No. She wasn’t his Ana. She was just his for the night.

      The thought sent a strange bolt of displeasure through him, but not enough to stop him from groaning his satisfaction as her hands closed over his back, her fingers beginning a delicate caressing of his flesh that sent blood surging into his groin.

      He was so ready, so tortuously aroused, he feared he’d explode any second. Pulling back from the kiss to give himself a little breathing room, he dropped light kisses on her jaw, her delicate earlobe.

      And still she continued to wreak havoc with her fingers. In desperation Bastien plucked another condom from the bedside table and slipped it on. He’d promised her it would be different this time, but he wasn’t so sure he could keep that promise.

      But he would try even if it killed him.

      ‘Turn over.’ At least if he wasn’t looking into her achingly beautiful face or dreaming of kissing her senseless he might be able to pull back from the brink of this insanity that engulfed him.

      ‘What?’ Even hesitant, her voice hitched, filled with an anticipation that didn’t help his control one little bit.

      Except the thought of making love to her like this was even headier than taking her missionary-style. He cursed under his breath. He’d started this. He aimed to finish it.

      He lifted a forefinger and slowly rotated it. Eyes wide, alluring beyond measure, she reversed her position.

      If he’d hoped for a little reprieve he was sorely disappointed. Her back—slim, smooth and faintly indented with her delicate spine—taunted him. It dipped to her impossibly small waist before flaring to accommodate feminine hips and a firm, rounded behind.

      Everything about her was elegantly feminine, intensely seductive—especially the way she caught and pulled her hair over one shoulder so she could watch him watching her.

      He bent forward,