Just To Be With You

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A virgin? How could she have been a virgin?

Ian searched his brain to think of any virgin he might have been with, but even his first time as a teenager, the girl hadn’t been inexperienced.

He had no idea how to treat a virgin, but even if he had, he and Tatiana were clearly long past that point now that he’d taken her the way he had.

Rough.

Fast.

And with no control whatsoever.

The truth was that even if she’d been as experienced as he’d wanted to believe she was, it still wouldn’t have been right to take her like that. Just as it wasn’t right for him to want to stay here like this forever, her curves pressed tightly to his as he lay over her where he’d all but collapsed from the force of his own orgasm. Especially when she was small enough that he knew he must be crushing her.

He’d only just begun to shift his weight off her when her arms tightened around his neck.

“No. Don’t go.” He was still inside her and when she moved to pull him closer, blood rushed south again. “Not yet.”

But guilt was already hitting him so hard that he forced himself to get up and walk into the en suite bathroom. Inside the luxuriously tiled room, he made himself look into the mirror.

The face looking back at him should have been full of remorse, and the strength of will to send temptation away. But what he saw, instead, was a man who looked stunned from having just unwrapped an unexpectedly beautiful gift.

From the moment Tatiana had appeared in his office on Friday night, her questions, her vitality, her laughter—hell, her sheer presence—had thrown him off again and again. Even now, he wasn’t sure he could trust himself to go back out into the bedroom and not take her just as rough, just as fast, just as desperately, when what she had really deserved was flickering candles, soft lights, romance...and tenderness.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, silently cursing himself for the bastard he was. For so long, he’d painted women—especially beautiful ones—with one brush. But he’d been wrong about Tatiana, so damned wrong about her not being as innocent as she seemed, simply because she was a famous actress.

And she’d been the one to pay for it.

“Ian.”

He lifted his head to find Tatiana standing in the bathroom doorway. He’d just had the intense thrill of putting his hands on her naked skin and knew how hot she ran, how soft every inch of her was. And yet as she stood before him now, with her gorgeous curves on display in the moonlight that came in through the window, he was stunned stupid by her beauty all over again.

“Are you all right?”

Shock that she was asking him that rather than the other way around made it impossible for him to find a quick answer. Before he could reply, she’d moved toward him and had put one hand on his cheek to soothe him.

“Because,” she said with a little smile that quickly grew big, “I feel great.”

Relief shot through him even as disbelief tried to push the selfish feeling away. “But you—”

“Really loved every moment of making love with you.” She went to her tippy-toes, and with her hand still on his cheek, pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “I knew I’d like going to bed with you, but I didn’t know it would be like that,” she whispered against his earlobe as she wound her arms around his neck and pressed her naked curves against him. “So good. So overwhelming. So perfect.”

Previously, Ian would have assumed that this was all part of her calculated seductive act. He knew better now, knew her sensual words and manner were wholly natural, as much a part of who she was as her green eyes and her talent. And yet, somehow, for some reason, she’d held back her sensuality all these years.

But he knew the reason, didn’t he?

Tatiana had obviously remained a virgin because she’d been waiting for her prince to appear on a white steed.

But she’d ended up with him, instead.

“I was too rough.” And yet, even as he said it, he couldn’t keep from wrapping his arms more tightly around her. “I took you too fast.” As fast as his rock-hard erection pressing into her belly was now eager to take her again.

“I loved everything we did,” she insisted.

“You deserved slower, sweeter your first time.”

She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Then why don’t you give that to me now? And after, I’ll let you know which way I love more.”

Holy hell, he knew he should never have touched her in the first place. But considering he’d yanked her virginity away, didn’t he owe her some tenderness?

In the morning, there was no question that they would have to deal with what had happened tonight. But while the moon was up and she was naked and soft and warm in his arms, wouldn’t it be worse not to show her all the ways a man could—and should—worship her? And knowing just how responsive she was to even the slightest touch, how could he not want to teach her everything he knew about pleasure? Just the thought of it had him wanting to tie her to his bed and never set her free...

And since tonight was the first and last night he’d ever make love to her, he’d make damned sure every single second counted.

Slowly sliding his hands up from her lower back, he felt her muscles jump slightly beneath his gentle caresses up her spine, then over her shoulders and neck until he was framing her face in his hands.

“I should have started with this.”

He lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss that was barely more than breath and the faintest brush of lips against lips. He let himself taste her slowly this time, the delicious flavors of her lips, her tongue, her skin bursting into his system one by one. She was a potent combination of sweet sugar and exotic spice and he deepened the kiss until they were both straining to take air from each other’s lungs.

He could feel in the pliancy of her muscles how ready she was for him again. It would be so easy, too easy, to drag her back to his bed and take her. She was so eager, so responsive, that he knew he could be inside of her again before either of them had time to take more than a handful of breaths.

But he’d promised her slow and soft and sweet. And though he couldn’t give her his heart, he could, at the very least, give her the memory of a few hours of perfect pleasure.

Tearing his mouth from hers, he slid his hands over her shoulders and upper arms. Goosebumps rose over her flesh as he gently caressed her. “Are you cold?”

Her nipples were hard points against his bare chest as she said, “A little. But I’m sure that if you take me back to bed, I’ll heat right back up again.”

Knowing the odds were extremely low that he’d be able to trust himself to go slow and soft once he got her back into bed, he decided to stay right where they were for a while longer.

“A bath will warm you the quickest.” He drew her across the large bathroom to the tub beneath the window, then quickly had the taps running hot and full. He lifted Tatiana over the porcelain edge and was about to kneel on the floor beside the tub when she tugged at his hand to stop his progress.

“Join me in the tub, Ian.”

Lord, there was nothing he wanted more than to get into the tub with her. “If I take a bath with you...I’m afraid I’ll hurt you again instead of cherishing you.”

“You haven’t hurt me,” she said softly. “You won’t.” She laid her hand over his heart. “I know you won’t.”

How could she have that kind of faith in him after what he’d done? Especially when he knew exactly how this would end in the morning, regardless of how much pleasure they found in each other’s arms tonight?

But before he could say as much to her, her hand curled into a ball on his chest. “I should have told you that I was a virgin. It was selfish of me not to, especially now that I can see how much you’re beating yourself up over it. I can’t go back and fix that mistake, but from here on out I promise to tell you when something is new for me.” She bit her lip, letting the plump flesh slide erotically from beneath her front teeth. “I’ve never taken a bath with a man before.”

He had to pull her against him, had to kiss her again. “I like it hot,” he warned her.

“Me too.”

He got into the tub and lowered her down with him so that she was sitting between his legs, her back pressed against his chest. Tatiana let out a happy sigh as the hot water rose and steamed over both of them. Taking his hands in hers, she pulled his arms tightly around her, then reached out with her right foot and deftly turned off the faucets with her pretty painted toes.

“Perfect.” She leaned her head against the crook of his shoulder. “This is absolutely perfect.”

Ian couldn’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to the top of her head. And when she shifted so that he could see her face, the brightness of the smile she gave him almost fooled him into thinking the sun had already risen on their one and only night together.

“You’re perfect,” he told her, knowing with total certainty that he’d never be this close again to such sweet perfection if he lived to be a thousand.

“I’ve seen perfect lots of times. So have you. We both know I’m not even close to perfect.”

He could still hear her telling his ex-wife that casting directors had called her fat in the past, and though he’d already told her that they were wrong, he knew words alone would never convince her to see things his way. Deciding it would be much better to show her just how perfect she was, he slid his hands up from her waist to cup the fullness of her breasts in his large palms beneath the water. Her skin was soft and slippery as he lifted them so that her nipples peeked out from beneath the surface of the water.

“You not only have the prettiest breasts I’ve ever seen, but look how responsive you are to my touch.” He slid the pads of his thumbs across both peaks at the same time and her nipples grew even tighter against his touch. “Have you ever come just from this?”

“No.”

The one short word was more of a gasp from her lips than anything else as he continued to toy with her gorgeously sensitive breasts. No other woman had made him want so much, or feel this reckless. He knew better than to make any promises, but as he rained kisses into the curve of her neck and shoulder, he had to say, “Maybe later tonight, if you’re not too tired, we’ll give it a try.”

His sensual words had her shuddering against him. Still, he was stunned when she said, “I want to try now.” She covered his hands with hers so that they were both cupping her breasts, her voice barely above a whisper as she added, “I think I’m already close.”

He groaned into her hair. How the hell was he supposed to take things slow with her when she said things like that to him? Especially when she wasn’t saying it to try to turn him on, she was just telling him honestly how she felt.

“Just keep relaxing back against me, sweetheart, and I’ll make sure you end up feeling good one way or another.”

She laid her head against his shoulder with a contented sigh and for the rest of his life he knew he’d keep a picture of this moment in his mind. No other woman would ever compete with this memory of how perfect Tatiana looked in his tub, her eyes closed as she trusted him to touch her in just the right ways...and to show her the ecstasy her body was capable of.

Gently, slowly, he stroked her full breasts, caressing every beautiful inch of her, from her ribs all the way out to her hard nipples. She moaned her pleasure into the room, arching her back to press harder against his hands.

He could so easily, too easily, imagine teasing her like this for hours, taking her to the edge, then drawing away just enough that she’d be begging, pleading, for more. And if they could have had more than just this one night together, they might have been able to find out if she could come from just his hands, or mouth, on her breasts alone.

But the week he’d kept his hands off her had seemed more like years, and tonight he couldn’t wait another second to run his hands over the rest of her.

She didn’t protest when he slid one hand down to the smooth skin between her thighs, and she was slick and hot, hotter even than the water in which they were lying. She let her legs fall open against his, then arched her hips up into his hand. Barely remembering in time that he’d just taken her virginity less than thirty minutes ago, he only just stopped himself from thrusting his fingers into her. And if she’d made any sound of pain, if she’d stiffened against him even the slightest bit, he would have forced himself to immediately pull away.

Thank God, she was liquid pleasure in his arms as she rocked against his hand, his fingers slipping and sliding against—then into—her in an intoxicatingly sensual rhythm.

Already, he recognized the signs that she was about to come, and he needed her mouth against his, needed to drink in her cries of pleasure. But even that wasn’t enough, not when he also needed to feel her breasts against his chest, needed to feel her heart beating against his, needed to be able to kiss her, needed to watch her eyes dilate as she climaxed.

Temporarily moving his hands to her hips, he lifted her out of the water, spun her around, then brought her back down so that she was facing him. She laughed as water splashed over the side of the tub when their limbs got tangled and then her long, wet hair temporarily blinded them both.

When they’d brushed it away, her eyes were hazy with desire as she smiled down at him. “Hi there.”

Even as caught up as he was in the grip of intense desire, he found himself smiling back at her. “Hi.”

“This is fun, taking a bath with you.” She nuzzled her cheek against his. “Way more fun than taking a bath by myself ever was.”

“Fun?” He nipped her earlobe between his teeth. “You think being with me is fun?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She rolled her hips over his erection, making him groan at just how good she felt over him. “More fun than I’ve ever had with anyone before.”

Ian had played plenty of games with women in bed, but it had always been about gunning for pleasure, never about having fun.

His surprising realization fell away as she ran one hand between their bodies to wrap her fingers around his erection. “I need you again, Ian.”

Her lips were already swollen from his rough kisses, but knowing that wasn’t enough to stop him from devouring her mouth again. Without breaking their kiss, he teased her nipples between his thumb and forefinger until she made a wild little sound that nearly had him thrusting to completion in her hand.

“Put your hands on my shoulders. Both of them.”

She licked her lips. “But I like touching you.”

“I like it, too. Too damned much.”

He moved her hands for her, putting them around his neck, and she immediately rolled her hips back against his, the slick heat of her body taking him even closer to the edge of sanity than her hand just had. The thought of thrusting into her was so damned tempting that he was nearly there…when somewhere in the back of his lust-fogged brain he remembered his promise to be gentle this time.

“I can’t just take you like this, Tatiana. Not again, not so soon after your first time.”

Tatiana rubbed her breasts against his chest. “I’m not a virgin anymore,” she reminded him in a softly seductive voice, one that now held tremendous knowledge of pleasure. “And yes, you should definitely keep taking me like this. In fact, if I had known just how amazing making love with you would be, I would have jumped you the day we met in Napa.”

He covered her mouth with his, kissing her breathless before he admitted, “The first time I set eyes on you, I wanted you so badly.”

“You could have had me, Ian.”

He shook his head, her honest words wreaking havoc with the little bit of control he still had in his grasp. “No. Jesus, no. Don’t tell me that.”

“Just think of all the time we wasted, thinking about each other, wanting each other, when all along we could have been doing this.”

She shifted her hips in an obvious move to take him into her, and it took everything in him to grip her hips and stop her from impaling herself on him. “Not yet, sweetheart. Let me make you come again. Let me make sure you’re ready—that I won’t be hurting you.”

He slid one hand over her stomach down to the slick flesh between her legs. “I love touching you,” he murmured against her mouth. “I’ve never felt anything so hot, so soft, so perfect.”

“I love it, too,” she gasped as she moved herself back and forth over his hand, her breath coming faster with every push of her hips against him. She had her arms wound around his neck and was holding onto him so tightly that he could feel her heart pound faster and faster as she rose higher, then higher still.

When she pulled her mouth from his, and threw her head back so that she could arch her hips closer to his hand, he had to taste her breasts, had to draw her nipples in between his lips to taste first one, then the other. Her cries of pleasure echoed against the tiled walls of the bathroom.

Moving his free hand to the nape of her neck, he threaded his fingers into the wet tangle of her hair. “Open your eyes, sweetheart.” She blinked once, twice, before she was able to focus. “I want to watch you come. Let me see you. I need to see you.”

As if his request, and his desperate need, had flipped a switch inside her, a heartbeat later she was climaxing...and what he saw in her eyes, and in her expression that held back nothing at all from him, touched Ian in a way nothing else ever had.

Not only pleasure, not just arousal, but a depth of emotion that had him wishing, harder than he’d ever wished for anything in his life, that he was capable of loving Tatiana the way she deserved to be loved.

But it was the sweet and trusting smile she gave him even before she’d come down from her orgasm that nearly broke him. He’d already made the mistake of stealing her innocence. He couldn’t make it even worse by making her promises he’d never be able to keep.

Lifting her out of the tub, he carefully wrapped her in a towel, and as he picked her up to carry her back to his bed, she said, “I’m ready for you to show me slow and sweet now, Ian.” She kissed him softly, just the barest brush of her lips against his, before whispering, “Although if you want to know the truth, I’m ready for fast and hard again, too.”

His hands shook as he gently laid her on the bed, the towel falling open to reveal one perfect breast and a long length of leg. He’d been little better than an animal their first time. So no matter how hard it was to hold back a little longer, her pleasure mattered more than anything else.

She seemed to believe he’d given her enough orgasms already. But she was wrong. If he showed her nothing else before the night was over, he hoped she’d come away knowing just how much pleasure she deserved.

“Not yet,” he murmured against her skin as he moved over her to press a kiss to the underside of her breast.

“Please,” she begged when he slid her towel the rest of the way off so that he could run kisses over her rib cage and stomach.

“We’re almost there,” he promised, nipping lightly at her hipbone, then gently putting his hands on her thighs to push them open. “But not quite.” Lord, she smelled good, and for a few moments he just enjoyed looking, just let himself breathe in her heady scent.

“Ian.” There was a faint hum of panic in the way she said his name as she looked down at how open she was to him, and then at him, clearly poised to put his mouth on her. “I promised I’d tell you if I hadn’t done something bef—”

Her confession of further innocence fell away as he licked a wet, heated path over her aroused flesh.

“Now,” he told her, “you’ve done it.”

Just as quickly as she’d taken to everything else they’d done, she was instantly lifting her hips back to his mouth for more. Wanting to oblige her every sensual wish, he cupped her hips in his hands and drew her closer. He loved her taste on his tongue, loved the way she gave herself over so completely to him every single time, loved the thrill of knowing he was driving her back up to the peak again.

He knew the instant her orgasm started to roll over and through her, when on a low moan of pleasure, she gripped his hair in her hands hard enough to make absolutely sure that he wouldn’t take his lips and tongue away. Of course, there was nowhere he’d rather be than taking her up and over another crashing climax.

She was still trembling from the force of it when he moved on to his back and tugged her over him so that she was straddling him. “You’ll control everything this way,” he explained as he reached for another condom. He was just ripping the package open when she took it from him.

“This is another thing I haven’t done.” She shifted slightly so that she could look down at his erection. She reached for him with one hand, gripping the base of his shaft to hold him steady while she slowly unrolled the condom over his tip with the other. “How am I doing?”

He was gritting his teeth so hard in his attempts at control that he could barely tell her, “So good that I might not last until you’ve got it all the way on.”

Clearly delighted with the effect she had on him, the sweet sound of her laughter filled his bedroom. He was so struck by the beauty of it that it took him a few too many seconds to realize she’d moved again so that she was levered right over him.

She moved her hips over his in just the right way to make his eyes roll back in his head, and when she laughed again, the sound was utterly sensual, and full of newfound female power...and pleasure, too.

“You know what? I think I like being in control.”

And though it just might kill him the way she took him into her one slow, torturous inch at a time, Ian liked it, too. Loved it.

Her eyes closed as she lowered herself onto him, savoring the moment as though she wanted it to last forever, and though he did, too, in the end his primal need to have her couldn’t be denied any longer.

Gripping her hips hard enough that she’d likely have marks on her skin the next day, Ian held Tatiana right where he wanted her, then thrust hard into her. She gasped as he drove deep, but he knew this time that it was pleasure rather than pain that had her pushing just as hard down over him.

“It’s so good, Ian. So, so good.”

She was practically sobbing the words as she braced her hands flat on his chest and rode him, the muscles in her thighs working hard to lift her body up, then back down, over him. Her breasts bounced, tempting him, teasing him, until he had to cup them in his hands and stroke both nipples together with his tongue.

She moved her hands from his chest to thread her fingers into his hair and tug his mouth even closer, and when the new position took him even deeper, her body eagerly opened for every last inch of him. “More. Please, Ian. I need more.”

Again and again, with words and her body, she begged him to take every last part of her...and that was exactly what he did, until they both climaxed together in a wild combination of kisses and gasps and hands that couldn’t get enough.

A short while later, Tatiana was wrapped up in his arms beneath the covers, her back to his front. He stroked her hair and breathed her in...and worked like hell not to give in to saying something in the aftermath of the moment that he wouldn’t be able to stand by come morning.

Soon, thankfully, her heartbeat slowed, and she was nestling her hips back into his and pulling his arm more tightly across her chest, holding his hand over her heart.

Ian hadn’t thought he’d be able to sleep, but Tatiana felt so right in his arms that he was nearly under himself when he thought he heard her say I love you.

But when he came, instantly, fully awake again, and waited for her to say more, she was fast asleep, breathing so soundly, so serenely, that he decided he must have been dreaming.