He turned and moved to the far side of the bedroom into the shadows, wanting to give her privacy. He kicked off his loafers, removed his sweater and unzipped his pants, sliding out of them hurriedly. When he was completely undressed he swung around, and he saw, to his surprise, that she was standing exactly where he had left her, was not lying on the bed as he had anticipated she would be. She was regarding him—warily, he decided—and he thought he detected a nervousness in her, an uncertainty. But he dismissed this idea immediately, considering it to be ridiculous, ascribing her seeming awkwardness to shyness. After all she was very young, and hardly likely to be as experienced as he in the game of love.
‘Don’t be embarrassed, darling,’ he murmured softly, reassuringly. His smile conveyed kindness, understanding, but his eyes were bold, roamed over her slender naked body and rested on her for a long time, and he noted the high, firm but unusually full breasts, the gently curving hips, the long beautifully proportioned legs. At last he said, his voice still husky with longing, ‘You’re lovely, Francesca, really lovely. Don’t be self-conscious.’
Francesca was unable to speak and incapable of moving. Her eyes grew huge in her face and her lips parted as she watched him approaching, looming up in front of her to block out the firelight. His chest was lightly covered with black hairs, and so broad it seemed to be more immense naked than it was clothed. But surprisingly, he had a narrow waist and narrow hips above his long legs, and even though the light was dim, she could see, as he drew closer, that his body was as tanned as his face. It was well-muscled, strong and firm, an athlete’s body, honed to perfection, and it was dominating in its masculinity.
She held her breath, and tried to still the shaking that had assaulted her again. This was not a manifestation of fear, for she was not afraid, nor was she uncertain or embarrassed as he imagined. Quite simply, she was overpowered by Victor, by the sheer physical beauty of him, his grace, his sexual magnetism which radiated from him so potently, and with such force. He made her feel weak and helpless. Also she was overwhelmed by her own burning desire—overwhelmed by her innermost emotions. That she was in love with him she had known for weeks, deny it though she might have done. But in all truth, she had not understood the extent of her love, its depth and intensity. She knew now that it was immeasurable.
Still misunderstanding her muteness, her extraordinary immobility, Victor wrapped his arms around her when he reached her side. He did so with gentleness, and pushed her hair away from her face, and peered into her eyes. They seemed to him to be far too grave. ‘What’s bothering you, darling? You’re not shy with me, are you?’ he asked in a low tone.
She shook her head.
‘So what is it, darling? Stage fright?’
Francesca found herself blinking under the force of his direct and concentrated stare, and she did not answer, hypnotized yet again by that stunningly handsome face so close to hers. Unexpectedly her eyes filled with tears. How that face had haunted her… haunted her every waking moment and perhaps even her sleep as well. It was indelibly etched on her mind and her heart for all time, the dearest face to her in the world, and it would be for the rest of her life. Oh how she loved him. Her heart leapt, and began to clatter unreasonably, and she wanted to tell him how she felt, but she dared not articulate her love. Not yet.
Aware that he was watching her closely, waiting for an answer, she said slowly, ‘It’s just that… well, I never thought we’d be together… not like this anyway. I think I’m shaken. But that’s all. Honestly.’
‘But you do want it, don’t you? Want to be with me?’
‘Oh yes, Victor, yes. You must know that.’ She buried her face against his bare chest, and her arms went around him, and she held him close as if never to let him go. ‘I’ve been sitting here waiting for you for the last half hour, dreading the thought that you might not come to my room after all, that you’d changed your mind. Actually, I’ve been waiting for you for weeks and weeks,’ she found herself confessing.
And I’ve been waiting for you for years and years, Francesca. He bit back these words, did not wish to express this curious thought, one that had truly surprised him. Instead, he brushed it aside quickly, and without another word he swung her up into his arms and carried her over to the enormous four-poster bed at the other side of the room. As he strode out, he said in a hoarse voice, ‘I think we’ve wasted enough time already, baby, don’t you?’
Francesca sighed and said nothing. She closed her eyes and clung to him, nestling her face against his shoulder. She inhaled the scent of him and kissed his neck and the weakness invaded her again.
Victor placed Francesca on top of the eiderdown and lay down next to her, cradling her in his arms, wrapping his body around hers, kissing her hair, her brow, her ears and finally her lips. He closed his eyes, drinking in the warmth and softness and beauty of her, revelling in her. Soon his mouth roamed down to her throat, and he began to smooth his hands over her body, and he marvelled at the texture of her skin, felt as though he was touching the purest sleekest silk. He had not known skin like hers ever in his life. Moving his head slightly, he kissed the cleft between her breasts, and stroked them, his hands strong but gentle, and with his tongue he touched the tip of each nipple in turn, delicately so that it was hardly perceptible. After a moment, he was kissing her mouth again, grasping her tightly in his arms, drowning in her.
Francesca was quivering under his touch, straining towards him, and she responded as ardently as she had on the mountain, returning his feverish kisses with unrestrained passion, a passion that more than matched his own. Her fingers fluttered over his wide shoulders, down his back and along his spine, and then returned to touch his face and his hair. But despite her willingness to give of herself wholeheartedly, and her most transparent joy in their lovemaking, Victor knew, almost at once, that she had no real expertise in the art of love. Furthermore, somewhat to his amazement, he was beginning to realize she was unusually inexperienced sexually. Yet this knowledge only served to fire him on, imbued in him the wish to give her the kind of happiness she had probably never known with any other man. His hands roved over her boldly, provocatively, fondling, caressing, exploring, arousing, and she blossomed under his touch. And he discovered that her simplicity and innocence were not only endearing but inordinately exciting to him, accustomed as he was to more worldly women. Inflamed in a way he had not been in years, he intensified his loving, lost himself in her.
Other men. There had never been any other men. Victor did not know how he knew this, would never know, but all at once he was absolutely convinced she was a virgin. Sweet Jesus! A virgin. Instantly he recoiled from this idea, and also from her, although he was sensitive enough not to cease his caresses all that abruptly. Finally he could not help himself, and his hands did fall away from her body, as he baulked at continuing, but he brought her into his arms and he held her gently.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked after a while, her voice small, muffled against his chest.
‘No, baby. But you’re exciting me too much. Let’s rest a minute.’
Now Victor seriously considered retreating, of dressing and leaving her. But how could he stop their lovemaking at this stage? They were both taut with longing, craving each other desperately. Anyway, if he stopped with suddenness and departed, she would believe he was rejecting her for some reason. That would be cruel and unfair, and it could easily scar her psychologically for years. Discuss it with her? Hardly. To start asking probing personal questions would only create awkwardness, and embarrass her. It would also break the mood which existed between them, one that struck a delicate balance between the most tender feelings and high-voltage excitement of an unusually thrilling nature. He wrestled with the problem, torn by indecision.
As if she had somehow managed to read his thoughts, as if instinctively she understood he had perceived her lack of experience in bed, Francesca now brought her hand up to touch his chest, and lightly she began to finger one of his nipples. Slowly s
he trailed her fingertips down his chest and onto his stomach. They hovered there, moving across and then up and down, delicate, erotic, tracing patterns. A shiver ran through him, and when her hand slipped down to rest between his legs, tentatively, with uncertainty, he almost leapt out of his skin. Her touch excited him to such an extent he had to bite his inner lip to stop from crying out with pleasure, and he felt his hardness growing even though she had removed her hand.
Victor Mason was entirely undone. He was incapable of leaving her. He pressed Francesca into the pillows and started to devour her mouth so fiercely his teeth grazed hers. Moving his body so that he was lying on top of her, he pushed his hands under her shoulder blades and lifted her up to him, crushing her. And he made up his mind to one thing; since he was the first, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was, then he was not going to make a hash of this, spoil it for her as another man might in his selfishness, impatience and lack of knowledge. She was not going to have problems with sex ever in the future, as so many women did, because some dolt had perpetrated a bad, difficult or unrewarding initiation on them. He was going to love her well, and truly, and with every part of himself. He would bring her to the fine edge of rapture and beyond that into ecstasy, before he took her and satisfied himself. Her loss of innocence at his hands was going to be beautiful, radiant, filled with joyousness, and also as painless as he could possibly make it.
For all her inexperience, Victor realized there was a basic sensuality in Francesca, and this thrilled him, for he was sensual himself and needed a woman to respond to him on the same level. Knowing that her sensuality had not been truly awakened, he slowly brought it to full flower, kissing her, caressing her, prolonging this stage of their lovemaking. He carried her to new heights, soothed and gentled her quivering body when she grew over excited, and started all over again when she was calm. In the most subtle of ways, with care and delicacy and sensitivity, he created in her a state of voluptuousness that was making her faint and breathless.
Suddenly he had a need to see her face and he lifted his head and gazed down at her, and caught his breath. Never had he seen a woman looking more beautiful than she did at this moment. Her supine body, spread out before him, was so languid and relaxed it seemed to have a unique kind of fluidity, her long legs stretched out gracefully in a half curve, her superb arms flung above her head. To him she appeared more willowy and supple than ever, a long stemmed flower, and glorious, with her hair fanning out behind her like skeins of silk, and her matchless skin was dappled to a dusky gold by the blazing firelight. She was exquisite in her fresh young beauty and innocence and purity. He felt a tightening in his loins, a further quickening in his blood, and he raised himself on his elbow, studying her intently, watching her eyelids fluttering as he caressed her shoulder, ran his hand down over her outer thigh.
It was then that Victor experienced a deep yearning in his heart, an unrecognized and unfamiliar yearning he did not truly comprehend at first. But with a swift flash of insight into himself, he thought: Is this more than sexual attraction? Have I fallen in love with her?
Francesca stirred and opened her eyes, and looked up at him, her adoration spilling out from her face. He stared back at her, held in fascination, his eyes impaled on hers. They were searching, questioning, burning with a longing that sprang from the inner recesses of his heart and not his body, and he was moved in a way he had not been moved in years. Momentarily he was thrown off balance by the deep emotions tearing at him. His throat thickened and he felt unaccustomed tears behind his eyes.
Francesca watched the intense feelings washing over his face, swamping his dark and brilliant eyes, and she recognized them immediately, knew at once what they meant, for they mirrored her own. She held her breath, hardly daring to move, and thought: He loves me. I know he loves me. Her heart began to flutter and all the love she felt for him rose up in her, and she knew she must tell him. She opened her mouth to speak, but Victor bent forward and kissed her deeply, silencing her. He held her close and said, ‘My darling, oh my darling,’ and he enveloped her with his body and found her mouth again. She cleaved to him, returned his wild, impassioned kisses, and stroked the nape of his neck and shoulders, and ran her hands down his back.
Her touch scorched him, sent the heat flaming through him. His blood raced, his heart thundered in his chest and his desire was rampant in him, made his head swim. And he needed to know every part of her, to make every inch of her his, and his alone. He brought his lips to her breasts and kissed her sensuously, and slid his hand down over her stomach until his fingers were entwined in the golden silk between her thighs. Slowly, and with infinite tenderness, he sought the core of her femininity enclosed in its protective velvet petals.
Francesca was quivering and moaning gently under his loving hands, excited in a way she had not imagined possible even in her wildest fantasies about him. Victor was arousing her to a point of agitation and she was overwrought, and yet she did not want him to stop. She wanted his hands, his lips, his body, wanted all of him, wanting him to prolong the exquisite sensations trickling through her. He was dazing her, blinding her, thrilling her beyond belief. Suddenly she caught her breath, trembling uncontrollably, and a stronger fiercer heat flooded her, and she gave herself up to him. He was learning her intimately, and with thoroughness, and he drove her on and on relentlessly, until she was gasping and caught on the brink of the most rapturous feeling she had ever known.
And Victor, besotted with her, enthralled by her, was being carried along by the onrushing tide of their mutual passion. He brushed his lips across her thigh, and as he caressed the core of her it felt as if a rare exotic flower had suddenly bloomed under his hands, one that was slowly unfolding its sun-drenched buds to him. Tremors rippled along her thighs and he shifted his body, moving lightly on the bed. He brought his head down and kissed her with delicacy, until spasms replaced the tremors and she cried out, ‘Oh Vic! Oh Vic!’
He continued to kiss her until the spasms lessened and then he lifted his head and slid up onto her body, and took her to him with great swiftness, plunging into her with such force he felt the impact himself. He hoped this unexpected domination of her at the height of her excitement would dim the pain. But she did stiffen under him, and she stifled a cry with a quick gasp, and held herself tense. He gripped her, his hands under her back, and he moved into her more forcefully, knowing this was the only way to lessen the pain, to sweep her up and away from it to new heights.
Gradually Francesca relaxed as the sharp flaring pain receded, and she felt a different and more marvellous warmth spreading through her as Victor began to thrust deeper and deeper into her. And her heart crested with ecstasy as he took complete possession of her, made her truly his.
She was liquid fire under him and he was being consumed by the heat emanating from her. He took her harder, loving her with a fervour he had long forgotten, with the strength and virility and wildness of his youth. He felt her body arching up to meet his clamorously, and she blended into him, moved with him, found his new rhythm, and he was dimly conscious of instinctive movements from her. Her arms tightened on the small of his back and her legs went around him automatically, so that he could love her more thoroughly and with all of himself. He was trapped now in a velvet vice, the possessor being possessed. He was hot, his body burning up with hers, and then he felt as though he was falling, falling through space, spinning down the slope, taking the long downhill run with the speed of light. Faster, faster, his speed increasing, breathless as he hurtled on into the blinding glare… white snow… white heat… infinity. Oh God, oh God, I love her, he screamed silently to himself. I’ve always loved her from the very first day…
Victor lay on top of Francesca, shudders still rippling through him, his face buried in her neck. She smoothed his shoulders lightly, gentling him as he had gentled her earlier, waiting for a calmness to settle over him. At the very last moment he had moved against her almost violently and had gripped her arms so tightly s
he had winced in pain. Then the shuddering had started and he had erupted with a frenzied burst of passion, calling her baby again and again, and begging her to take all of him.
Francesca kissed the top of his head, and smiled inwardly, loving him more than ever. She had taken all of him, just as she had given him all of herself, and he belonged to her now. It did not matter that there had been countless women before her, for her instincts told her that something quite extraordinary had occurred, not only for herself but for Victor too. She also knew he had not taken their lovemaking lightly, was convinced in her heart of hearts that he did love her. She shifted imperceptibly, easing his weight without disturbing him, and she smiled to herself again. Her body ached, but it was a delirious feeling, like having the imprint of him on her. Euphoria pervaded her whole being. She thought she was going to burst with happiness, and her arms went around him and she held him closer and with tenderness.
Victor was drained. He felt as though every ounce of his strength had trickled out of him. He had loved Francesca in a way he had not made love to a woman for years, not merely with physical enthusiasm and vigour, but with all the passion of his heart and mind. Yet despite the exhaustion, he was experiencing an inner exultation coupled with the most wonderful sense of peace, a peace rooted in the kind of contentment that had eluded him for the longest time. He had forgotten what it was like to feel completely fulfilled emotionally as well as physically. His own fault maybe. He was always seeking solace in the wrong arms, and coming up empty in the end. So many women, so many faces, the famous and the unknowns, those faces long since blurred. He sighed. There were far too many for him to remember and, for reasons of good taste, to count. But she was different.