sensual and excited stroked her senses. Was he right?

Was that secretly why she had come to his room?

Because she had wanted…hoped…?

Lorenzo watched as her expression reflected her

feelings. Somehow she was burrowing deeper and

deeper into his thoughts, causing him to question

things — beliefs — he did not want to question. He

might be better at concealing his desire than she was,

but that didn’t mean he was any better at controlling

it, he knew.

"I didn’t come here for that reason at all," Jodie

protested belatedly. "I just didn’t want to be responsible

for looking after the ring." Could he hear in her

voice, as she could, her own uncertainty about her

subconscious motivation?

"As you Don’t want to be responsible for "looking

after" your own virginity any more?" Lorenzo suggested

harshly. "You are overwhelmed by your virginal

curiosity — admit it! It eats at you, and aches

deep inside you, keeping you awake at night, wondering…

wanting…"

"No," Jodie breathed, but she knew she might just

as well have been saying yes. "I Don’t want you," she

said fiercely, trying to cling on to some kind of reality.

"Not me," Lorenzo agreed. "But you do want what

I can give you — the knowledge your time in hospital

has denied you. You want to know what it feels like

to know a man"s body, to know a man"s possession.

You can deny it with these," he told her mockingly,

reaching out and rubbing the pad of his thumb against

her parted lips, "as much as you wish, but I could take

them now with my own and they would tell me something

very different."

"No," Jodie repeated, but she was looking helplessly

up into his eyes, just standing there without

moving as he came to her and slowly slid his hands

up over her arms, from her wrists to her shoulders,

and she trembled almost violently with sensual pleasure

and anticipation. He was drawing her closer, so

close that the hot, primitive male scent of him engulfed

her. She put her lips to the bare flesh of his

collarbone with a small moan, and then pressed eager

open-mouthed kisses the length of his throat, greedily

tasting his flesh before running her tongue-tip over

his Adam"s apple whilst her fingers dug into the hard

muscles of his shoulders and she strained against him.

Was this what happened when a woman was a virgin?

Lorenzo wondered, as he struggled to control his

sudden savage longing to feel her mouth on every part

of him. This wild, wanton outpouring of need — not

for male possession, but for the right to take her own

pleasure in whatever way she wished? And why

should he stop her? Why should he not let her take

her pleasure where she wished and in whatever way

she wished?

He looked down at her, to where he could see outlined

by her strappy top the stiff thrust of her nipples,

and his male instincts surged in feral need. He cupped

her face and took her mouth with his own, driving

into it with the slow rhythmic thrust of his tongue as

he tugged down her top with his free hand until her

breasts spilled over the fabric, creamily fleshed, with

warm brown nipples already swollen hard with desire.

Jodie didn’t even hear herself moan with hot

delight at the feel of Lorenzo’s naked flesh against

her own. She was lost in her own arousal. His silky

dark body hair sensitised her already eager nipples

while the stroke of his tongue in the hollow behind

her ear brought her arching compulsively into him,

into him and against him, grinding her hips against

his body in a frenzy of eager longing.

Jodie could see their twinned images in the bedroom

mirrors, and she watched passion-bound as

Lorenzo cupped her breast and readied the dark peak

of her nipple for the downward descent of his head

and the deliberately erotic caress of his tongue.

This time as she arched her body up to his, willingly

sacrificing it to her growing pleasure, Jodie did

hear herself cry out in female longing. But the sound

of her own desire only increased the fevered beat of

her blood as it surged through her veins, heating her

belly and spreading through it an ache that weakened

her muscles and softened her flesh into warm, wet

compliance.

When Lorenzo picked her up bodily, she wrapped

her arms around him and gasped in pleasure to feel

him suckling on the taut peak of her nipple whilst he

tugged off the rest of her clothes.

By the time he placed her on the bed they were

both naked, and he was leaning over her whilst he

trailed slow kisses over her openly eager body. Jodie

could see how the thick strength of his erection rose

stiffly toward his belly, and she yearned to reach out

and touch it.

The sensation of Lorenzo circling her navel with

his tongue-tip as his hand stroked slowly up the inside

of her thigh was melting away whatever desire she

might have had to conjure up some kind of resistance.

Her rapt gaze was fixed unashamedly and avidly on

his erection.

Lorenzo lifted his head to watch her as she reached

out half hesitantly and took him in her hand, her eyes

widening as she absorbed the texture and heat. A soft

slow burn of excited colour warmed her skin when

she registered the pulse that flooded his darkly engorged

thickness. She stroked him with fervent female

appreciation and approval, and Lorenzo closed

his eyes and exhaled, unable to withstand his body"s

longing to enjoy her wondering exploration.

How powerful it made her feel to touch Lorenzo

like this, and how eternally female, in a way that

somehow connected her with the whole of her sex

from the dawn of time. It was woman who aroused

this maleness in a man, woman who controlled and

commanded it, drawing from it her own pleasure as

well as allowing man to take his. Her fingers explored

and stroked, and her lips parted and her breath caught

on a small whisper of soft wanton pleasure as she felt

the response Lorenzo couldn’t quite control. He felt

so rigid, and yet at the same time so malleable. Silky

desire flushed her, tempted her to bend her head

and…

"No!"

The harshness of Lorenzo’s refusal sent a shock

through her. Confusion and disappointment darkened

her gaze as it met his, and then returned to cling to

his now openly pulsing stiffness.

If he let her place her lips against him now, he

wouldn’t be able to control himself, Lorenzo knew.

She had already aroused him well beyond his own

personal safety limit. If he let her caress him so intimately,

he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from

taking her.

"Why not?" Jodie protested.

"We can’t have full sex," he answered her curtly.

With her own arousal an unsatisfied ache that physically

hurt, Jodie persisted doggedly, "Why not?"

"I Don’t have any condoms, and there’s no way I

intend to fall into the trap of fathering a child I Don’t

want and which ultimately I would have to pay for,"

he told her harshly.

"wouldn’t it have been better to have thought of

that earlier?" Jodie asked him pointedly as she moved

away from him and got off the bed, retrieving her

clothes and redressing with clumsy haste.

No way was she going to let him guess how much

his rejection of her reminded her of John’s, or how

much it and he had hurt her. And she certainly didn’t

want him to know how shamingly and how very, very