I shot him an anxious smile. “What?”

“Nothin’,” he said, husky and deep. “Just that I want to get inside you so bad my nuts ache.”

Laughter exploded from my throat and giggles spilled out of me like bubbly. Just like that, my nervous tension evaporated. After the monstrous day I’d endured, this was just what the doctor ordered.

I snuggled his neck. “Oh, my goodness,” I wheezed. “I needed that.”

“But it’s the truth,” he said in an all too quiet voice.

I raised my head, my body still shuddering with laughter. When I bent to kiss him in between giggles, he turned his face away. I blinked, stared down at him, and my laughter died. He wasn’t smiling.

“Trace? What’s wrong?”

He hesitated, his throat working. “It’s your first time. I don’t wanna screw it up.”

“How could you possibly do that?”

He ran his palms beneath the robe, over my bare bottom, and squeezed. “It’s just that…well, being near you makes me want to come.”

I swallowed, licked my lips.

“I don’t know how long I can make it last,” he said. “Understand?”

I nodded in earnest, and offered a logical solution. “Ever heard the phrase, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’? And again, and again….”

Trace’s eyes softened and he shook his head as if I was being naughty. His smile was a slow presentation of white teeth against a backdrop of tanned flesh and dimples. “Oh, yeah,” he whispered. “That’ll work.”

He tugged my robe off, tossed it on the floor then pulled a blanket over us. Suddenly, I was on my back and Trace was on top, nudging my legs apart. He kissed his way down my stomach to the place that ached the most.

“Trace,” I gasped.

With his thumbs, he parted my folds and exposed me to his smoldering stare. I knew what he saw—wet, hot, swollen, pink flesh.

He smiled. “You got no idea how much I been aching for another taste.”

Before I knew it, he’d shoved his hands under my derrière and tugged me closer. Then he found me, throbbing and desperately hot for him. He attacked the nub his fingers had roused, drew it into his mouth like one would a straw. He was ruthless.

On and on, it went, with him taking me higher and higher, until I was close to kissing the sun. But right before I was about to burn he stopped to slowly circle his tongue around my clitoris, forcing me back down to earth.

A sob spilled out of me. “Please….”

“Soon,” he promised, drawing me back into his mouth.

Soon was another ten minutes of sweet agony. Endless minutes of him kissing, licking, and sucking—a torturous eternity that pushed my body to the very edge. Only after much begging, did he finally grant me mercy, and this time, he didn’t stop. He kept the suction going while I hovered over a precipice, waiting to fly or fall.

I circled my hips to the rhythm he set, fisted his hair, and cried his name the moment I exploded into a thousand shards. Tremors reverberated throughout my body until I wilted into the mattress, dead to the world.

Trace flicked his tongue over me one last time before he kissed his way back up my stomach to suckle my lips, soft and slow. Then he left the bed and the rocking motion stirred me from the daze I was in. My eyes drifted open, and the first thing I saw was the enormous erection straining his boxers.

I stifled a gasp. Dear God, now it was even bigger.

He slipped the waistband over his hips without preamble, and his sex sprang loose, distended and stabbing in my direction. My eyes widened. I’d felt its impressive thickness, weight, and length yesterday, but I hadn’t ‘seen it.’ And seeing made all the difference.

Memory flashed to that morning at the plaza, to the crude store clerks huddled in the corner: ‘Word has it he’s got an anaconda between his legs….’

They hadn’t exaggerated.

TRACE

____________________________

I was scared as hell. What did I know about virgins? Nada. Zip. Every woman I’d ever lain with had been experienced. Getting inside Shannon wouldn’t be easy. It was a simple matter of physics. She was tiny, and I was…bigger. I would hurt her, I knew, and this time, she’d be the one bleeding.

I took a strengthening breath, grabbed my towel from the dresser, and joined her on the bed. After I’d settled between her thighs, I couldn’t help but notice how tense she’d become. I wasn’t faring any better.

“You’re trembling,” she said, breathless.

I examined her face intently. My heart thumped to the point of pain. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Emotion burned in her eyes. “I know.”

“And the fact that you saved yourself—”

“For you.”

My throat got tight. I cleared it, swallowed. “Well, it means a lot to me.”

She framed my face in her hands and fit her lips to mine. I kissed her back with fierce possession, just to let her know how much I treasured her. I wanted to take my time—wanted to love her good and long, but I was spike-hard, and in desperate need of the release only she could give me.

To ease the ache, I guided her fingers to my cock. I fit her tiny palm around the head, cupped my hand over hers, and whispered instructions on how to hold and caress me. She was a quick study. Her touch was light, yet effective. Didn’t take long before she had me moaning her name. My eyes trembled shut, and when I could take no more, I brushed her hand away.

I got a rubber from the nightstand and tore the packet with my teeth, but my hands shook. It took four tries, before I could cover myself.

“Wrap your legs around me,” I rasped, sliding my hips into place.

She stared up at me with trust in her eyes. “Like this?”

“Yeah, just like that.” I reached between our bodies and grasped my swollen staff, rubbing the head around her center to spread the moisture. “Now raise up,” I told her, my words hoarse, strained. Once she did, I shoved the towel beneath her bottom, then eased into her. “That’s it. Shhhh. Just like—”

I groaned when I slipped the head in, squeezing my eyes shut to fight the demands of my body. Waves of dark pleasure rippled through me. I pressed into her again, but after her flesh resisted, I withdrew.

“I’m sorry,” I said, moving my mouth over hers in apology. “So sorry….” Then without warning, I thrust into her and rent her innocence. She lurched against me, her back curving like an archer’s bow as her muffled gasp of pain filled the room. I was damn near womb-deep. So deep, I could feel her heart thrash. “Sweetheart please please don’t move don’t…mmmh.”

A minute went by before I could speak again. Once I caught my breath, I gazed down at this gift from God, and my heart tilted. My worst fear had come to pass. I’d hurt her.

“I’m all right.” Her smile was tremulous. “Really, I am,” she whispered on a sob. Tears rushed down the sides of her face like raindrops on glass.

My little Pinocchio wasn’t such a good liar after all.

“Oh, my sweet girl.” Rolling my hips, I kissed the corners of her eyes. “I’ll make it good for you. I swear.”

And I was a man of my word.

I slowly withdrew and slid home again. My body trembled from the effort. She was so small and so achingly tight. I had to be careful. I’d thought a rubber would dull the sensation, but she felt even better than I’d imagined.

I’d been at it five minutes when I first felt the change. The tenseness left her body. She circled her hips experimentally, and a look of wonder lit her face.

That’s when my control snapped and I thrust into her with abandon. She was a virgin. Pure. Untouched. And she’d given herself to me. She was mine, this—I pulled out and rammed back into her—this was mine. Some primitive instinct took pride in that. I was mating, claiming, penetrating.

Damn if I didn’t feel like a caveman.

I swept my tongue inside her mouth, all the while, stroking her inner walls down below. I knew I should take it easy, but I’d suffered through too many wet dreams. I couldn’t stop. Just like I’d imagined, she was wetter than wet. Hotter than hot. A velvet vise that tightened the deeper I sank. She held on fast while I took, then gave right back.