“Now…” Andreas clasped her hips firmly, his thumbs pressed hard against the soft angle of her bones. He cursed in his own language as his eyes blazed over the trembling of her swollen breasts and the moist, parting of her mouth. “Yes…”
His eyes fluttered shut as Andreas groaned and shuddered his own release in a succession of hot, pulsating thrusts that seemed to fill her tightness, stretching her even further to increase their intoxicating pleasure, drawing out the very essence of him.
Kizzy writhed licentiously as she felt him come deep inside her, and both their cries filled the air as her body surrendered once again to wave upon wave of swirling, blinding, shocking orgasm.
Chapter Nine
“Dear God, why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”
Andreas lay staring blankly at the ceiling, one arm crooked underneath his head, the other cradling Kizzy’s soft limbs in the heat-hazy silence of dusk. His heartbeat was returning to normal after the most incredible sex he had ever experienced, and his muscles were now beginning to relax. He closed his eyes briefly as he recalled how taut his body had become before he had entered her, and how the crushed-berry color of her lips and nipples had almost driven him to take her too quickly. Hard, fast, immediately.
Somehow he’d managed to hold back—control had never been a problem for him in the past, but something about this woman was bewitching him like no other. He had summoned all his strength to slow things down, to take his time, savor her tight, silken body, and reacquaint himself slowly with the pleasures of female flesh.
But he’d been so consumed with desire that he hadn’t even considered the possibility he might be her first lover.
Andreas was now uncharacteristically confused. And unnerved by the heavy silence that seemed to throb like a guilty pulse in the wake of their incendiary passion.
He turned on his side and stroked the warm satin of her shoulder.
“Well?”
“Was it that obvious?” Kizzy whispered, and squeezed her eyes shut.
“No,” he replied softly. He noted her discomfort, but couldn’t let this go. He had to know the truth. “I would never have guessed but—the sheet …”
Her fingers snatched up the pristine, white cotton to cover her breasts. “Oh God, I’m sorry.”
“So you are a virgin! Or were,” he persisted. “You should have warned me.”
“I did try but I couldn’t get a word in at the time.”
Jerkily, she eased herself up in the bed onto her elbows.
“Then you should have been more forceful—made me listen.”
“And just how embarrassing would that have been? It’s a bad enough admission as it is, without having to make my lack of experience an issue during foreplay.” She frowned and twiddled a crisp, white edge of bedding between her fingers. Her voice dropped to a murmur. “And besides, it would have spoiled the moment—it was what I wanted. I never imagined it could be like that, so overwhelming.”
“Did I hurt you?” A flash of anxiety shot through him at the thought that he might have caused her pain and then relief as she shook her head and shot him a shy smile. “But a virgin! I still can’t believe it—a virgin!”
“Yes, all right, there’s no need to try and humiliate me.”
“I’m not!” he replied indignantly and raked a hand quickly through his hair. “I’m shocked. But also very humbled. Your innocence was a beautiful gift but not something I will ever deserve.” He reached out and threaded his fingertips into her hair. “I can’t understand how it could be possible. You’re beautiful and clever—there must have been opportunities at college?”
“Of course there were, but I never met anyone who made me want to…and I had my studies to concentrate on.” She looked down awkwardly and chewed on her bottom lip. “And to be honest I was also scared—scared to death of what might happen.”
Andreas rubbed her earlobe and then pulled her closer in to him. “So now you see there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I don’t mean afraid about it physically—not the act. Mum made a point of making sure I knew how sex and falling in love destroyed her life and the beginning of mine. I don’t think she was bitter and twisted about what happened to her, but she didn’t want me to make the same mistakes. Not that it’s been difficult—I’ve seen for myself what can happen to a woman at the hands of a drunk and angry man. It’s enough to put anyone off sex.”
“You’re talking about the one that died?”
“My stepfather.”
Andreas sat upright and crossed his elbows on top of his folded knees, giving himself enough time to disguise the rage he could feel building at her words. “And where was your real father when all this was happening?”
“He died when I was a small baby. A freak accident—bleeding on the brain following a bare-knuckle fight at a horse fair.”
He paused for a moment, his brow furrowed with thought. “You’re Gypsy?”
Kizzy shot him a dark look. “Technically, I suppose, but I never really knew him or the traveler side of my family. Mum was forced out after the funeral. Nasty rumors about where I came from apparently—they’d never married.”
Andreas nodded silently before digging deeper. “And you said yesterday that both sides of the family rejected you?”
“Mum’s parents were exceedingly middle-class and told her that if she insisted on ‘running away with the fair’ she’d regret it until the day she died. So turning up on their doorstep with me was the last straw. A screaming, little illegitimate Romany child was more than their suburban respectability could tolerate.” She shrugged. “I don’t remember ever meeting them. They knew where we were, but never got in touch, not even when Mum died. I sent a telegram but they didn’t send a card back. So no great loss.”
“It would appear not,” Andreas replied quietly, trying to ignore the sickly fluttering in the region of his heart and the unpleasant ache in his throat.
Kizzy reached out a small hand and rested it briefly on the bronzed curve of his shoulder. “Can I ask you something, Andreas? Something that’s very important to me?”
He noticed that she was trembling; slowly he nodded.
“Theo and Ana—did they know that I’d be out on the street when they sold? Was I just an inconvenient sitting tenant after all?” She swallowed and blinked away the tears that were beginning to well up. “Not that I would have blamed them, after all they’d put up with from me and Mum.”