Filled and stretched and opened, Evie forced herself to lie still in his arms. She held on to his shoulders, her fingertips digging into the hard quilting of muscle and sinew, and she let him soothe her with his mouth and hands. His brilliant eyes were heavy-lidded as he bent to kiss her. Welcoming the warm sleekness of his tongue, she drew it into her mouth with eager, awkward suction. He made a low sound of surprise, shuddering, and his shaft jerked violently inside her in a series of rhythmic spasms. A groan vibrated in his chest as he spent himself inside her, his breath hissing between his clenched teeth.

Her hands slipped down to his chest, the firm surface covered with a light fleece of coarse golden hair. With his body still joined to hers, St. Vincent held still beneath her inquisitive fingers. She touched his lean sides, exploring the hard vaulting of his ribs and the satiny plane of his back. His blue eyes widened, and then he dropped his head to the pillow beside hers, growling as his body worked inside hers with a deep thrust, as he was helplessly shaken with new tremors of rapture.

His mouth fastened on hers with a primal greed. She opened her legs wider, pulled at his back to urge more of his weight on her, trying in spite of the pain to tug him deeper, harder. Braced on his elbows to keep from crushing her, he rested his head on her chest, his breath hot and light as it fanned over her nipple. The bristle of his cheek stung her skin a little, the sensation causing the tips of her br**sts to contract. His sex was still buried inside her, though it had softened. He was silent but awake, his eyelashes a silky tickle against her skin.

Evie remained quiet as well, her arms encircling his head, her fingers playing in his beautiful hair. She felt the weight of his head shift, the wet heat of his mouth seeking her nipple. His lips fastened over it, and his tongue slowly traced the outer edge of the gathered aureole, around and around until he felt her stirring restlessly beneath him. Keeping the tender bud inside his mouth, he licked steadily, sweetly, while desire ignited in her br**sts and her stomach and loins, and the soreness dissolved in a fresh wave of need. Intently he moved to the other breast, nibbling, stroking, seeming to feed on her pleasure. He levered upward enough to allow his hand to slide between them, and his cunning fingers slid into the wet nest of hair, finding the tingling feminine crest and teasing skillfully. She felt herself sliding into another cl**ax, her body clamping voluptuously on the hot flesh that was insinuated deep inside her.

Gasping, St. Vincent lifted his head to stare at her as if she were a variety of creature he had never seen before. “Good Lord,” he whispered, his expression not one of gratification, but of something close to alarm.

CHAPTER 5

Sebastian left the bed and went to the washstand on unsteady legs. He felt dazed, uncertain, as if he were the one who had just lost his virginity instead of Evangeline. He had long thought that there was nothing new for him to experience. He had been wrong. For a man whose lovemaking was a practiced blend of technique and choreography, it had been a shock to find himself at the spontaneous mercy of his own passions. He had meant to withdraw at the last moment, but he had been so mindless with desire that he’d been unable to control his body. Damn. That had never happened before.

Fumbling with the clean linen towel at the washstand, he made a project of dampening it with fresh water. By now his breathing had returned to normal, but he wasn’t at all calm. After what had just happened, he should have been satiated for hours. But it hadn’t been enough. He had experienced the longest, hardest, most wrenching cl**ax of his life…and yet the need to have her again, open her, bury himself inside her, had not faded. It was madness. But why? Why with her?

She had the kind of amply feminine form that he’d always adored, voluptuous and firm, with plump thighs to cushion him. And her skin was as smooth as pressed velvet, with golden freckles scattered like festive sparks shed by rockets and Catherine wheels. The hair…as red and curly down below as it was on her head…yes, that was also irresistible. But all the physical riches of Evangeline Jenner could not account for her extraordinary effect on him.

Feeling, impossibly, the stirring of desire once more, Sebastian scrubbed himself roughly with the cold cloth and reached for a fresh one. He brought it to Evangeline, who lay half curled on her side. To his relief, it seemed there would be no virginal tears or complaints. She appeared contemplative rather than upset…she was staring at him intently, as if she were trying to solve a puzzle. Murmuring quietly, he coaxed her onto her back and washed the blood and fluid from between her thighs.

It wasn’t easy for Evangeline to lie still and na**d before him…Sebastian saw the rosy color that covered her in a swift tide. He had known very few women who blushed at nudity. He had always chosen women of experience, having little taste for innocents. Not for reasons of morality, of course, but because virgins were, as a rule, quite dull in bed.

Setting the cloth aside, Sebastian braced his hands on either side of Evangeline’s shoulders, his palms making deep depressions in the mattress. They studied each other curiously. Evangeline was comfortable with silence, he realized—she didn’t seek to fill it as most women did. A nice quality. He leaned over her, still staring into her eyes…but as his head lowered to hers, a little growling sound interrupted the silence. It was her stomach, protesting its emptiness. Turning a deeper shade of red, if that were possible, Evangeline clapped her hands over her midriff as if to silence the willful rumble.

A grin crossed Sebastian’s face, and he bent swiftly to kiss her stomach. “I’ll send for breakfast, sweet.”