Seventeen

“You can do anything you want to me, sweetheart,” Brit calmly assured her, wondering worriedly how long he could continue to control his raging passion if she put her soft warm hands on him. “Anything at all.”

He continued to dexterously undress Anna. Amazed by how adept he was at the task, she couldn’t help but wonder how many times he had done this. With how many women. Then his lips, warm and persuasive, brushed the side of her throat and she wondered no more.

His hands gently caressing each portion of pale flesh he bared, then his lips paying homage, Brit adroitly swept the remainder of Anna’s clothes away, right down to the silk stockings, which he peeled swiftly off her long, slender legs. The entire task was completed with her sitting on his lap.

Anna was now as naked as the day she was born, but she felt no embarrassment or shame. It seemed to her that it was the most natural thing in the world to be naked in Brit Caruth’s arms. She sighed and smiled and squirmed as he kissed her and whispered to her all the things he wanted to do with her, told her of the many ways he wanted to love her.

The blood raced through her veins and she thrilled to the sound of that deep, masculine voice speaking of all the shocking, forbidden things that they would do together. She tingled from head to toe when Brit promised that before the night ended, he would possess her totally, would love her as she’d never been loved before.

Excited by his amorous vows, Anna finally interrupted. Hugging his dark head to her bare breasts, she murmured against his midnight hair, “Brit, you promised you’d let me…” She inhaled deeply, whispered barely loud enough to be heard, “I can’t do what I want unless…you…you’ll have to take your clothes off.”

She cupped his cheeks in her hands, lifted his face and looked at him. She said, “I want to touch you and please you the way you pleased me. You said you’d let me.”

“How could I possibly refuse?” Brit replied. He kissed her quickly, then lifted her off his lap and sat her down gently beside him on the spread blanket. He removed his freshly polished black boots and socks, set them aside. He smiled at Anna and asked, “Want to turn your head now, while I undress?”

“No,” she said truthfully. “I don’t. I want to watch you.”

Brit swallowed hard. “As you wish.”

He was on his feet in a flash, his hands at the buttons of his tight black pants. Silver conchos running down the outside of each trouser leg flashed in the darkness as he undressed. Her eyes riveted to him, Anna hastily lay down and stretched out on her back. From below she watched every move Brit made. In seconds he was discarding his trousers. Just as he tossed them aside, a bright explosion of fireworks bathed him in its radiant, revealing light.

Staring, Anna found her breath caught in her throat.

He stood there in all his wild naked beauty, his bronzed skin aglow in the brilliant light. He was godlike, splendid, a Greek statue come to life. A perfect male specimen so divine, so arresting, she felt as if she would be content to just lie and look at him forever. Before her curious gaze could focus on that powerful phallus thrusting horizontally from the dense growth of blue-black hair covering his groin, the light was gone.

Darkness returned.

Brit sank to his knees, stretched out on his back beside Anna. He sighed, took one of her small hands in his, raised it to his lips and kissed it. Then he carried her hand down to his belly, gently spread her fragile fingers and placed them squarely atop his heavy erection. He took his hand away.

He folded his arms beneath his head and said, “Sweetheart, it’s all yours. I’m all yours.”

Awed by the heat and hardness of him, Anna, never taking her hand from his flesh, eased up into a sitting position. Curious, enthralled, she carefully examined him, wanting to learn all there was to know about this beautiful bronzed body that was so different from her own.

Innocently unaware that her stroking, seeking fingers had Brit in a state of unbearable arousal, Anna lovingly explored and inspected, thrilled by the way his responsive flesh seemed to have a mind of its own. The lightest brush of her fingertips caused the smooth, mushroom-shaped tip to rise and seek her touch.

Guided by instinct, Anna, cupping him gently, possessively, suddenly popped a forefinger into her mouth. Then she painted the stirring tip of his throbbing erection with her wet fingertip and heard him groan deep in his throat.

She looked at his face, saw that it was contorted. “Does that hurt?” she asked.

“No,” he managed to reply. “No. Feels good.” He ground out the words.

“Good,” she said, and returned to her delightful diversion.

Brit allowed her to play, but it was pure agony for him, all he could do to keep from climaxing. Biting the inside of his bottom lip until he drew blood, he watched her through heavy-lidded eyes. The sight of her small, white hands enclosing him was so powerfully erotic he had to look away.

His heart almost exploded when, gently gripping him with both hands, Anna impulsively bent her head and brushed a soft kiss on the jerking tip.

Brit instantly rolled up into a sitting position, tore her hands from his flesh, drew her to him and kissed her passionately. While he kissed her, he eased her down onto her back.

When their lips finally separated, he said hoarsely, “I can’t wait much longer, sweetheart. This body of mine wants to be on yours. In yours. Buried deep inside you.”

“I’m yours for the taking,” she told him, and meant it.

“Do you want me, baby?”

“Yes.”

“Then say it. Say ‘I want you, Brit. I want you inside me.’”

Anna didn’t falter. Gazing lovingly up at his dark, handsome face, she said softly, adoringly, “I do want you, Brit. I want you inside me. I want you to stay inside me all through the night.”

“Jesus,” Brit groaned, and anxiously swept a warm hand down her slender body. Anna involuntarily arched up to meet it. Looking into her eyes, he slipped his fingers between her legs and tenderly touched her. She was, he learned, not quite ready for him. Brit withdrew his hand, licked his fingers until they were gleaming wet, then returned them to her. As he caressed her, he leaned over and kissed her. Settling his lips warmly on hers, he kissed her again and again while his gentle fingers prepared her for total lovemaking.

In a few short minutes she was hot and wet and ready. Brit’s lips left hers, slipped down over her chin. He nibbled and nuzzled his way downward, kissing her breasts, her stomach, her prominent hipbones.

Then, urging her legs wider apart, he quickly moved between and lay lightly atop her. Bracing his weight on an elbow, Brit carefully inserted the stirring tip of his pulsating erection just inside her. He felt her body respond to his heat and hardness. But he didn’t immediately plunge into her.

For several heartbeats he lay there unmoving between her spread thighs, letting the anticipation build, the passion burn higher. While he lay totally still with his hot rigid flesh cushioned by her soft, swollen sweetness, he lowered his face and pressed kisses to her feverish cheeks, her small ears, her open lips, her pale shoulders, her surging breasts.

Raking his teeth over a distended nipple, he told her, “From the first minute I saw you, I dreamed of you being just as you are now. Naked and beautiful and hot and wet. And just for me. For nobody else but me.”

“For you, Brit. Just for you, only for you.”

“Baby,” he murmured as he changed positions slightly, put his hand between them, guided his throbbing flesh more securely inside her. He took his hand away, saw that her eyes had slid closed. “Open your eyes, sweetheart. Look at me. I want you to look at me while I love you.”

Anna complied. She looked straight into his dark, sultry eyes as a new flash of fireworks washed over them, lighting their faces and bodies as if it were midday. It was then that Brit thrust deeply into her. Their gazes remained locked throughout that swift, deep insertion of his rock-hard flesh in her yielding softness. With that first driving invasion, Anna experienced a shockingly intense pain. A burning, white-hot pain so acute, she wanted to scream at him to take it out, to stop, to let her go, she couldn’t stand it.

But she didn’t.

Anna was used to bearing pain without showing how much it hurt. Her years with the Apache had conditioned her to endure varying degrees of torture without so much as a whimper or change of expression. So she suffered this excruciatingly painful invasion of her body without resistance or altered countenance.

Looking into her eyes as he thrust into her, Brit saw nothing on her face that gave away her distress. But her hot, sweet body was so incredibly small, so unbelievably tight, he momentarily wondered at her past sexual experience. He had such a difficult time forcing himself into her, it was almost as if she was a virgin. Untouched. Unused. Unprepared for what he had done to her.

But that couldn’t be.

The nagging possibility of her innocence quickly fled as her yielding flesh gripped and squeezed him, driving logical thought out of his head. He began to move within her and heard no pleas for him to stop. Soon she was moving with him, catching his rhythm, following his lead. And as they moved together, her sweet, hot body was relaxing and expanding to better accept him.

The terrible discomfort Anna experienced with that first forceful thrust was now totally gone. Being stretched and filled with him no longer hurt. It felt good, right, wonderful. Pain had been replaced with pleasure. That growing pleasure was enhanced by the sight of Brit’s darkly handsome face above her own. It was incredibly thrilling to feel him moving inside her while she looked into his dark, beautiful eyes.

It was glorious.

For him.

For her.

While the rip-roaring party continued, with the music playing and the fireworks cannonading, and the gray stallion whinnied and kicked at the stall not ten feet from them, Anna and Brit lay on their bed of hay and made hot, passionate love as if there were no one else in the world but the two of them.

Thinking how perfectly their bodies fit together, Brit playfully teased and tormented Anna. He would slide almost all the way into her, then slowly pull almost all the way out. After only a couple of times she was frantically tilting her pelvis up to his and gripping his ribs with her hands, anxious to have him back in her. Pleased with her reaction, Brit made her wait for only a few tense seconds, then he drove deeply into her, giving her all he had, making her take every hot, hard inch of him.

Anna clung to the bulging biceps of her experienced lover and gave herself wholly to him, loving the feel and sight and scent of him. The electrifying sensations touched off in her by his artful lovemaking were both fantastic and frightening in their intensity. She’d had no idea such ecstasy was possible.

His weight supported on his flattened palms, Brit watched the changing expressions march across her beautiful face and promised himself that he would hold back, would keep the pace of his lovemaking slow and easy, for her sake. He wanted, he realized, to bring this beautiful woman to climax again and again before he sought his own.

He shuddered involuntarily at the stark realization that her pleasure meant more to him than his own. Or anyone else’s. He’d made love many times in his life, but he had never cared as much about making a woman so completely happy as he did now.

Perversely, the fact that it meant so much to him kept him from performing as planned.

It was too good.

She was too sweet.

The hot softness so snugly gripping him was already threatening his tenuous control. He couldn’t believe it. He was in danger of losing it, of going over the edge.

Brit quickly closed his eyes so he couldn’t see her beautiful face, couldn’t be pulled into the depths of those fathomless eyes. He tried to distract himself. He guessed the number of cattle in each Regent pasture. He named each division boss who’d ever worked at The Regent. Finally he reminded himself that this silky-skinned beauty stirring beneath him was his adversary, a lying, cheating vixen bent on stealing his inheritance.

It didn’t work.

His climax was coming and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Instinctively, Anna knew what was happening to him and took pride in the fact that she was responsible. She felt a delicious surge of female power and she eagerly accommodated his swift, powerful thrusts, speeding her movements to match his.

His eyes were closed, but hers remained wide-open. She watched in wonder as his release came and his handsome face, already hardened with passion, grimaced as if in great pain. A vein stood out on his forehead; he gritted his teeth and groaned low in his throat.

And as he shuddered in satisfaction, she could feel the hot, thick liquid of love fill her to overflowing.

Spent, Brit collapsed atop her.

Anna sighed with contentment and cradled his dark head on her breasts. He panted heavily, loudly, and his heartbeat was rapid and forceful, pounding against her, through her.

When his breathing began to slow and his pulse decelerated, Brit apologized. “Forgive me, sweetheart.”

“For what?” she asked as he moved off her, stretched out on his back beside her.

He said, “Give me a couple of minutes to rest and I’ll make it up to you.”