Craving Beauty

Four

Midmorning the next day, Hira stood at the kitchen window watching her husband chop wood in the back­yard. He'd ignored her since she'd come downstairs. It was likely that he was only outside because she wasn't. Not that it would do him much good to ignore her if she didn't wish to be ignored. Her father had often cursed her for being as stubborn as an old camel. She'd taken it as a compliment.

It would be Marc's own fault if she followed him out. After all, he shouldn't have dressed only in those blue jeans if he hadn't wished her to watch him. What woman could resist running her eyes over that muscled form, as lean and dangerous as a wolf in its prime? And she'd found that watching him led to wanting to touch him, just as she'd wanted to stroke him last night when he'd appeared before her only half-dressed.

Her burning hunger for him continued to startle her, for she didn't think of herself as a passionate,woman. Her experience with Romaz had strengthened that be­lief. She'd never been so intrigued by the sight of a male body that she simply wanted to watch the flow and shift of muscle and tendon. Just watch and savor the idea of all that masculine power belonging to her.

What would it be like to be given the right to explore that unapologetically male body as she wished?

Even more unexpected than that secret craving, was the way her body grew hotter and needier with each mo­ment she spent indulging her desires. Her knowledge of the way things were between a man and his wife in the marriage bed didn't account for this melting warmth hi her navel.. .or was it lower? she thought, scandalized. And yet it felt so good she didn't want to fight it.

She wanted to explore it.

Perhaps she'd been sheltered, but she'd never been a coward. Well, at least not until she'd married this man who confused her and made her speak without think­ing. Right now her muscular American husband was very angry with her.

Every time he slammed down the ax, chopping the wood to bits, she could feel the power of his anger. But, she thought wonderingly, no matter how angry he was, he never took it out on her the way her father did with her mother, berating and humiliating her. The times that Marc had lost his temper, any hurt she'd felt had been fleeting and she'd given him enough sharp words in re­turn that they were even on that score.

And he was man enough to accept blame and apol­ogize when needed. Unlike Kerim Dazirah, Marc seemed to have no need to crush her under his boot so that he could feel stronger. Last night he'd turned his back to her.

Back in Zulheil, he'd given her a cold look and left her to a lonely wedding night.

She'd decided that he didn't care. Now she saw that he did. His passionate heart was there to see in every driving blow of the ax. Something quietly powerful bloomed deep inside her heart. If he felt this much anger toward her...maybe he could feel just as much affection, tenderness, even love?

Was it possible that she could find a way to make this marriage of hers more than glimmer and shimmer? Make it real? Make it so he saw Hira, saw the woman behind the face and body? To do any of that, first she'd have to reach him. And, she accepted, the easiest way to reach him would be through touch. He reminded her of the desert men of her homeland—while he'd let her close to his body, he'd guard his heart and soul until she'd proven herself.

But if she were brave enough to bury her pain and humiliation at Romaz's hands and fight to make true the sacred vows she'd spoken, she might one day gain the kind of marriage she'd always dreamed of. It was bet­ter than this emotional limbo which would inevitably lead to divorce. Her heart kicked in pain. For some rea­son she didn't want to be separated from this dan­gerously masculine creature she'd married in haste.

Squaring her shoulders, she took a deep breath and straightened from her leaning position against the kitchen sink. The misty skirts of her clothing floated around her ankles. In her home she'd decided to dress the way she'd done in Zulheil, with some modifications that might help her reach her growling male of a husband.

Her snugly fitted top ended just below her breasts, cupping and shaping a part of her that she usually tried to downplay. The rose-colored silk also exposed the length of her arms, the sleeves being mere puffs on her shoulders. Finally, the waistband of her skirt hugged her hips, leaving the curved plane of her midriff scandal­ously bare. Her father would never have tolerated such an outfit in his home, would have termed it immodest. For once, she would've agreed with him. Such dress shouldn't be worn by maidens, or out in public.

But between a husband and his wife...

When she'd given in to the urgings of the seam­stresses who'd worked day and night to ready her clothes for the wedding, she'd never thought she'd be wearing such an overtly sexual outfit so soon. Perhaps she was taking this step too quickly, but with all that lay between them, waiting any longer could irrevocably damage their marriage.

A marriage she couldn't bear to give up on.

So today she'd dressed to tempt, wanting her hus­band's admiration of her body. It was the only thing she had with which to fight for a real marriage, the only part of her that had a hope of reaching Marc. She couldn't allow herself to think how pathetic that was. It was the simple truth, and she accepted it because she had no de­sire to be a divorced woman with many husbands. That was never what she'd wanted for herself.

Mouth dry and feet bare, she rubbed her palms on her skirts before walking out of the house and across the lush grass of their backyard. Marc continued to chop wood, though she knew he was aware of her approach. Her husband had the instincts of the great hunting beasts that had once roamed his homeland. Stopping a safe dis­tance away, she called out, "Husband! Marc!"

He kept chopping.

Scowling, she started to walk closer, not heeding the flying chips of wood, trusting his protective instincts. He didn't disappoint her. Slapping the ax blade down into the stump he'd been using as a stand, he turned to her, all rippling muscle and gleaming flesh.

"What the hell are you up to, princess?" He didn't bother to hide his fury. "Come to flaunt your body in front of your animal of a husband?" His eyes raked her exposed skin, already sheened with a fine layer of perspiration.

Her lower lip quivered. She caught it with her teeth, aware that she deserved his harsh words, for she'd been very unkind last night. Her fear had made her behave in a manner that shamed her. "I have come to confess that I let you believe an untruth."

"And what would that be?" He shoved a hand through his sweat-damp hair and gave her a sardonic glance. "That I'd be getting a real wife, not a porcelain doll?"

She winced but forced herself to keep talking. "I was not disgusted by your approach. Neither do I see you as an animal." He wasn't behaving as she'd expected. Many men would've been satisfied by now, more than happy to take the body she was offering in garb that screamed a sensual invitation. Yet Marc seemed to want far more from her than just her body.

He narrowed his eyes. "What game are you playing now? I know a woman recoiling when I see one." His voice was a harsh denouncement.

Suddenly it was too much. "I was afraid!" She folded her arms across her chest, goaded into honesty. "I bring shame to the good name of my family."

"I'm not a violent man," he snapped, as if she'd in­sulted him. "Why the hell would you be afraid?"

Perplexed by his lack of understanding, she snapped back, "I am a maiden, husband. My mother said if I had a gentle husband, he would be careful of my fears. You are not gentle! You growl and snipe and are very ungentle!"

Marc felt as if the ax had jumped up and knocked him on the back of his head. He could barely comprehend what Hira was telling him. Lips pouting in accusation, she was standing there looking so sexy in her little pink nothing of an outfit that he wanted to lick her up, and she expected him to believe she was virginal?

And yet, as he'd seen last night when she'd told him why she didn't want to talk to him, she had the oddest way of telling the absolute truth at the most disconcert­ing moments. . . as if she'd never quite learned the art of subtle lies and half-truths.

"What about your boyfriend?" he finally asked, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans. No way in hell was he going to touch her unless she asked for it.

"Romaz was not my husband." She sighed. "I shouldn't tell another lie." Her eyes were wide and she was twisting her hands together, but her gaze remained locked with his, determined and so brave that he felt like picking her up and telling her it was all right.

"And the truth?"

"He didn't make me wish to lie with him as you do."

"I turn you on?" He was dumbfounded.

She frowned. "I am not an electrical switch."

"You want to lie with me?" he rephrased. The sun shone bright overhead, but this was the most surreal conversation he'd ever had.

"I have just said that." Her brow knit. "Why do you make me repeat it? Have you lost your desire for me?"

Couldn't she see exactly how much desire he felt? Then he caught himself. No. She'd kept her eyes firmly above the waist—shy innocence or a beautiful woman playing with a scarred man's mind? At the end of his patience, he walked closer. Her cheeks bloomed with a delicate blush at his nearness, but she didn't back away.

"You don't want me," he stated, his voice hard.

He wasn't going to allow some pampered little prin­cess to make fun of him. Not again. Never again. Mem­ories of being humiliated by Lydia Barnsworthy, daughter of Trevor Barnsworthy III, shoved their way to the surface of his mind. He'd been good enough to clean her car, cut the grass and do other menial chores, arid over a summer of flirting, she'd made him believe he was good enough to date her.

When he'd finally asked her out to a school dance, she'd said yes. Using some of his hard-earned cash to rent a tux and buy a corsage, he'd shown up at the door­step. The maid had informed him that Lydia had gone to the dance with someone else, leaving him only a message. "It was just a bit of fun. I never thought you'd actually think I might go with you. Sorry."

That was all the apology he'd received, and he'd known it was meaningless. She'd intended to do this from the first. Fuming, he'd gone to the dance and seen her laughing at him from the arm of the school's star quarterback. In spite of working so many jobs, Marc had managed to be picked for the baseball team. He'd played not because he loved it but because he'd known it would get him through college on a scholarship, allowing him to pursue what he really wanted to do.

But being a sporting hero hadn't been enough to touch the perfect tennis-toned body of Lydia Barnsworthy; he had to have the money and the pedigree, too. As he'd watched her dance, he'd found a new maturity born out of cold rage. To her clear disappointment, he hadn't caused a disturbance. What he'd learned that night was that a beautiful woman was worth nothing if her. heart was cruel. Unfortunately, the two seemed to go together.

His wife gave him a fiery look, shattering the mem­ories. Lydia was a hag compared to the woman he'd married. Yet, as he'd already discovered, Hira's beauty wasn't enough. If she'd remained the ice queen he'd met on his wedding night, he would've ignored her and eventually annulled their marriage, He'd had enough coldness and pain in his lifetime. But she'd kept him on the verge of hope with those fleeting moments of vul­nerability that teased him with hints of the woman be­neath the ice, the woman he'd seen on that moonlit balcony.

"Why should I lie to you?" She put her hands on her hips and moved closer. They were both in bare feet and she had to tip her head back a little to meet his gaze. He wondered if she realized her breasts were pressing against his sweaty chest. "I do not lie. . .perhaps some­times I try to lie, but then I always tell the truth!"

What the hell, Marc thought, bracing himself for a blow. The worst she could do was reject him. Perhaps then he'd finally accept that the hope had been a mirage, an illusion sent to torture the vulnerable part of his heart, the part that held the soul of the bayou boy used to surviving unbearable hurt.

He clamped his hands on the exposed skin above her skirt. Smooth and warm under his touch, her body in­vited him to satiate himself in any way he wished. The hunter in him growled that she was his mate, his to do with as he wished. The civilized man barely managed to keep the instinctive reaction in check.

She shivered under his touch, a smooth whisper of soft skin against callused flesh. "That is odd."

"Odd?"

Those exotic eyes looked at him in accusation. "Why do your hands make parts of me burn that you don't touch?"

Marc moved his hands up and down the curve of her waist, still not certain of her desire, trying to scare her off with his nearness and undeniable masculine arousal. Instead of backing off, her lips parted and she put her hands on his shoulders, pressing close.

He wasn't convinced. Not when she hid her face in the curve of his neck. Calling on every ounce of control he possessed, he ran his hands up her torso and boldly cupped her breasts. She jerked at the accelerated intimacy.

"Husband," she whispered against his skin. "What. . . do you do to me?" Her voice shook, but when he went to remove his hands, she moved just the tiniest bit closer, as if not wanting to lose his caress.

"Do you like this?" he asked in her ear, letting her continue to hide her face because he could feel the peb­bled hardness of her nipples.

Her hands clenched on his shoulders. "Yes."

If she really was a virgin, there was no way she could be faking the needy ache in her voice. "How's this?" His voice was a husky whisper as he released her breasts and moved down to gently squeeze her bottom.

Fingers digging into his shoulders, she pulled away, eyes big and worried. "Husband, these things shouldn't be done outside."

"There's no one to see." And he wanted to take her under the cerulean-blue sky, because he'd just figured out that she was telling the truth. His bride wanted him. There was a shocked innocence in her eyes that couldn't be fabricated. He knew that in his desire to test her, he'd touched her far too boldly, but he intended to make up for it by pleasuring her any way, every way she wanted.

She drew her head away. "Please." For a moment he saw such deep vulnerability in those tawny mountain-cat eyes that he was shocked. Never had he imagined that his sophisticated princess had a heart so very soft. What else was she hiding behind that hauteur of hers?

His interest in her multiplied again. At the same time, an almost painful tenderness took root in his heart, barely a bud but powerful despite it "All right, cher,"

He kissed her once, lingering at the mysterious taste of her, at the sweetness of her tentative response. When he asked for entrance into her mouth, she hesitated. "It's okay, baby," he whispered, his tone gone rough and low, "let me in."

Her body shivered under his hands as her lips soft­ened, giving him what he sought. Fighting the urge to conquer, he tasted her just enough to have him craving more. When they parted, she was staring up at him, roses blooming on both cheeks. No woman on Earth could've counterfeited the passion clouding those mag­nificent eyes. "Let's go inside. I need to shower, any­way."

"I will help bathe you." Her voice was soft, almost lost on the whispering bayou breeze.

His arousal became excruciating. "What?" Maybe he was still asleep and this was one hell of an erotic dream, because only there would a maiden wife make a sug­gestion like that.

"In my clan, it's the oldest of traditions that wives help their husbands bathe." She was biting her lower lip, her guilt obvious in the way her body had gone tense. "I've been shirking my duty because I knew you didn't know of it."

And, he guessed, because she was a virgin. How could he have expected an untutored girl to understand the barbarian hunger she'd probably seen in his eyes last night? Tenderness that he hadn't known he could feel made him move his hands up and down her back, gen­tling her.

"Would it be such a chore?" he whispered. Despite a lifetime of confidence, he found himself waiting for her response, armoring his heart against pain.

Her cheeks tinted again with that rosy shade that made her golden skin glow. "No." It was the softest of murmurs. Her lashes drifted down to hide her eyes from him, but he continued to feel her arousal in the way her nipples pressed against his chest. "You make me wish to touch you," she confessed, mouth almost on the skin of his chest.

"What about the scars?" he asked bluntly. Painful truth was better than a fantasy like the one he'd built around Lydia. The eventual shattering of fantasies tended to wound a man far more than honesty.

She ran a slim finger across one of the ragged scars on his chest. "In Zulheil, desert chieftains participate in a ceremony to show their loyalty to our sheik." Her fin­gers floated down to trace the faint lines that ran across his abdomen. "They mark their bodies with pride. You are a hunter like them and these are your scars of bat­tle." She pressed a kiss to the jagged scar that cut across his collarbone.

He shivered. "I suppose they could be considered battle scars." His childhood had been a battleground and he'd come up against his father's belt and his mother's fist more times than he cared to count. His hand stroked the bare skin of her hip. To his surprise, she cuddled closer. There was a softness to her body that spoke of true welcome.

"They make you... sexy to me." Her voice was almost indiscernible. "I see the men in your advertising and they are too pretty. Who would wish for a husband who couldn't protect them?"

Once again, he was reminded that his wife was a woman from another land, a land that for all its sophis­tication, had a primitive core that lay very close to the surface. "And you think I could?"

She tipped up her head. "Despite your civilized front, you're a hunter at heart." Her hand trailed up his chest, the languid stroking fuel to the slow burn of desire within him. "You see me as your property, and you'd never let anything hurt what is yours."

Her intuition startled him. Whatever the state of their marriage, in saying vows, he'd made her his and he would die protecting her if it came to that. Clenching his fist in her abundant hair, he tilted her head. "How do you like being my property?"

Mountain-cat eyes narrowed. "I am no man's prop­erty. I simply said that that is how you view me."

His lips quirked. "A subtle distinction."

"A distinction nonetheless. But, I will accept this—as your wife, I belong to you." Then she did something totally unexpected. She gripped the curling hairs on his chest with one hand, making him wince. "And, husband, if we lie together, you become mine."

Well, well, well, Marc thought, at once amused and intrigued by the possessive interest in his wife's eyes. "The princess doesn't want to share?"

She pulled at the hairs in her grasp. Hard. "The prin­cess will never share. Decide."

He untangled her hand, fighting his grin. "My ti­gress." He had no intention of cheating. If he couldn't keep it in his pants, he would've never taken a wife. His father might have been an abusive tyrant but even he'd never sunk that low.

Ten minutes later Marc decided he was insane. Why wasn't he inside his wife's tight little body right now?

Because she was naked, wet and slippery, and slowly soaping his thighs. His arousal was blatant, but she avoided looking at that part of him, the possessive ti­gress suddenly turning shy. It was the reminder he needed that he was the experienced party. She'd only go so far before halting in confusion.

"Enough. I'm clean. Your turn." He took the soap from her, desperate enough to be completely unso­phisticated.

Her eyes went wide. "That is not custom!"

"It is in America." He turned her away from him so he could soap her back. "I, too, have been shirking my duty.''

Her body was so lovely that he thought he was dreaming. The slender waist he'd savored outside, flared into womanly hips that would cradle him deliciously when he drove into her. Those long legs of hers could make a man beg for mercy. Thankfully she didn't appear to like wearing shorts or she'd cause traffic accidents.

"This wasn't told to me in my lessons on American culture." She threw him a suspicious glance over one wet shoulder, water-darkened lashes delineating her tawny eyes even more sharply.

He grazed her skin with his teeth, deciding he liked the taste of his wife. Later, after she was more at ease with him, he intended to take his own sweet time tast­ing all the secret places of her body. "It's for a husband to teach his wife, not for everyone to know."

"Oh." She wouldn't look at him, but he let her face the glass wall. The hunger in his eyes was likely to scare her.

He'd kept his mouth shut when she'd shyly undressed before following him into the shower, though he'd wanted to swallow his tongue at seeing her naked for the first time. Even after her maddening "help," he wasn't going to push her to do something she wasn't ready for, and it had been obvious that getting into the shower with him had taken every ounce of courage she had.

When he hadn't forced anything on her, letting her become used to his body and his strength, she'd begun to relax. But she was still far from giving him the wel­come he needed if he was going to take her to his bed. As he'd told her, an unwilling woman held no joy for him. However, he had no intention of letting her do all the work in this mutual seduction.

With her hair pinned atop her head, the vulnerable line of her nape was bared. He pressed a kiss to the ten­der skin, giving her the gentleness she'd accused him of lacking and had the pleasure of feeling her tremble against his hands and lips.

"Will I truly be your only lover?" he whispered close to her ear, his palms flat on the shower walls on either side of her head. She was enclosed but in walls that would break the moment she displayed any resistance. It was his way of teaching her not to fear either his pas­sion-rough voice or his desire-taut body.

"Yes." Her murmur was as soft as the feel of her skin.

Taking a chance, he slid a hand down the front of her body and cupped one heavy breast. She gasped, her body going taut. He squeezed gently, his mind whirling at the feel of her, the sensual weight of her in his palm. The things he was intending to do to her sweet flesh would probably curl her toes. "Princess, if we do this, no more separate bedrooms."

Silence.

"What? Don't like the terms?" He kept his hand on her breast, proprietary as hell. She'd given herself to him. Now she had to take all of him. No playing by arbitrary rules. Either they were husband and wife or they weren't. "If you don't, we stop right now. Right here." Reining in the possessiveness driving him, he gentled his demand­ing tone. "This is enough for today, if you're not ready."

The only urgency lay in the desire that had a stran­glehold on his body. And that he could control if Hira was unwilling. She'd shown such courage in coming to him despite his anger that he'd grant her all the time she needed.

"I. . . My parents never. . . Is this acceptable?" It was a hesitant question.

The flaring possessiveness within him calmed at the innocent explanation. His wife had led a sheltered life, her only example of marriage being what she'd seen be­tween her parents. It was becoming very clear to him that he'd have to fight those memories to claim her as his own.

Only then did he realize that he'd decided to fight for more than a marriage based on desire and practicality. He wanted the real thing. "I'm your husband and I say it is. Do you doubt me?" Smiling, he kissed the side of her neck.

A short pause. "No." But she didn't sound utterly con­vinced by his dominance in the relationship. He didn't want her to be. A wife who always agreed with him would be no fun at all. A real marriage included disagreements as much as it did loving, laughter and loyalty.

Grinning against her, he released her breast and soaped up his hands before putting the soap in the holder. A question shimmered into his mind. "Should I get protection, sweetheart?"

He felt her blush heat up her skin. "No. I visited a doctor before our marriage."

Delighted at not having to halt his exploration, he took a step back and ran his hands from her shoulders to the tops of her thighs. Her buttocks tightened under his touch and he stroked up to rub the soap in circles, blocking the spray with his body so that she remained soapy for his pleasure.

She made a tiny, woman sound. "Am I very dirty?"

He was fascinated by her smooth bottom, very aware of the heat and silky pleasure that awaited him below the curve he was caressing. Voracious and impatient, the rush of need was almost savage, but he controlled it with ruthless force. This time was about teaching his prin­cess that she now belonged to the American she'd mar­ried. Without compromise.

"Filthy," he whispered against her neck. "The front of you is going to need extra attention."

She shook her head in desperation. "No, I'll do it."

"Uh-uh," he disagreed. "My privilege."

"Husband, what you make me feel may drive me crazy. You do not wish for a crazy wife."

Her panicked words made him want to tease her some more. Wrapping his arms around her body, he closed his hands over her breasts and then pressed his body flush against her back. In an effort to escape, she squeezed her­self against the glass wall of the shower. He followed. His erection lay between them, hot and throbbing.

"Husband, please." The husky plea asked for mercy...not for an end to this highly charged game of pleasure but for completion.

"Don't you like this, cher?" She wiggled her body in response, settling him even more snugly against her.

"Stop that, unless you want me inside you right here, right now."

"Okay." She nodded vigorously. "I'm not afraid. You have been very careful of me. I'm ready. Truly, I am,"

He chuckled. "You're not getting away that easily."

"Why do you torture me?"

"Maybe I'm taking revenge for all the bad things you've done to me." He nipped at her neck again, aware that she reacted each time he indulged himself that way. . . She was a quiet lover, but he was a man who'd grown up with the whispers of the bayou. He knew how to listen for the softest of his wife's sighs, how to read the sweet tension in her feminine muscles, how to smell the scent of her desire. Hira was telling him what she liked, and he was paying damn close attention.

"I have not done such things!" She pushed back in rage but he was far stronger.

Fighting an urge to laugh in delight, he moved his hands until her nipples were between his fingers. At the same time, he nudged one leg between her thighs. She gasped. "Are you wet for me, Hira?" He pinched her nipples gently.

"I. . ." Her whole body trembled.

"Maybe I should check." He slid one hand from her breast down her damp stomach to the curls at the junc­ture of her thighs. Because his thigh was between hers, she couldn't close her legs even if she'd wanted to. He went slowly, watching for any sign that she wanted him to stop, even going so far as to start to slide his thigh out. She squeezed her legs together, not to halt his hand, but his withdrawal. His mouth dry with anticipation, he thrust his hair-roughened thigh between her smooth ones once more, his hand resting below her navel.

Whimpering, she let his fingers slide through her curls and into the delicate folds between her legs. So un­bearably soft that she made him feel incredibly male, she shuddered as he stroked her sensitive flesh in search of heat. When he found it, he gently pushed a single fin­ger inside her, just enough to tantalize, to tempt. She cried out, her slender frame racked by tremors. His own body went taut with desperation.

"Yes, you're wet." Voice beyond rough, he removed his hand and her body tried to follow. Chuckling hoarsely, he drew back and turned her in his arms, let­ting the water wash over her. "Wet all over."

Eyes almost blind with desire met his. "You must fin­ish," she ordered.

"In a while." He had no idea how he was remaining in control. Perhaps it was the fact that despite her nat­ural sultriness, she was an innocent and didn't know how to push him to the edge.

Then she made a sound of utter frustration and her hands clasped his erection. "Now!"

Pleasure splintered through his body as her hands held him with expertise that belied her claim of virgin­ity.

Experience he could accept, lies he despised. Growl­ing, he thrust a hand through her hair, scattering the pins to the floor and sending that black-and-gold waterfall cascading down her back. "Who else have you held in your hands?"

She scowled at him. "No one!" Then to his shock, she leaned forward and bit his lower lip, a sharp little snap that rocked him. "You have made me crazy as I warned."

It was the edgy remark that calmed the hunter. Perhaps he had pushed her to take this bold step. Hira, he was be­ginning to learn, was a very strong woman. A woman who went after what she wanted. A woman who acknowledged her mistakes and called on him to explain his own actions.

Reaching down between their bodies, he removed her hands, though she didn't go quietly. Moving them up above her head, he pinned them against the glass with one hand. She tried to escape, her eyes wild as she watched him soap up his free hand. Dropping the soap to the floor, he began to lather her breasts.

Her body shuddered. "Marc..."

"That's it, baby, say my name." He moved enough that the spray washed away the soap on her breasts. Then he leaned down and took her nipple into his mouth.

She bucked and screamed. "Marc! Please! Please!"

He wanted to give in to her, his body aching for release, but he knew the importance of seducing her prop­erly. Once he had her, he'd want to taste her passion again and again, and she had to want him just as much. He released her hands and lifted her by the hips. She wrapped her legs around him, clasping him to her and opening herself to his penetration.

"Not yet, cher." When she parted her lips to protest, he kissed her.

Because her mouth was already open, it began as a much more carnal kiss than the one they'd shared out­side.

But despite that, he didn't ravage her. Instead, he teased her with short strokes and licks of his tongue that barely ventured beyond her lips. Her hands clenched in his hair. For a few moments she didn't respond, then her tongue shyly stroked his lower lip. He couldn't stop his body surging into her.

He was inside her before he could breathe, lodged just barely in her heat.

She tried to push forward and impale herself. He clasped her hips and kept her still, though sweat was pouring down his face, mixing with the shower spray. "Kiss me, cher. Kiss me like you want me deep inside you, touching you in a place no one else has ever breached." It was a sensual demand that pushed at her innocence but he needed her with him all the way, needed her to feel the same raging fire that was scorch­ing him. His hunger would be satisfied with nothing less than her utter and complete participation, followed by her absolute, unflinching surrender.

She gasped, tawny eyes almost swallowed by dark pupils. Then she leaned just a tiny bit forward, held his face in her hands and kissed him. It was the tenderness of her hold that rocked him. Before he could find his feet, she was obeying his order, kissing him with such passion that he felt her desire all the way to his toes, a sizzling heat that made every nerve ending he had fire in rapid sequence.

Her tongue stroked his, shy but determined. "Hus­band..."

The single trembling word shattered his control. En­twining his fingers with hers, he pressed their joined hands to the glass wall and slid another inch into her. Her whole body shook, but she didn't break eye contact.

"Ready?"

"Yes." Sensual determination was stamped in her features, her lips lush and just barely parted.

He rocked against her, giving her time to get used to this absolute intimacy. She shuddered, and the tight sheath of her body gave way. "More?" he whispered, re­leasing her hands to stroke his over her buttocks while his body held hers pinned to the wall.

It didn't surprise him that she understood. Her breasts heaving against his chest, she swallowed. "I'm sure, husband... Marc, I want you." No prevarication, no hes­itation, just the truth of her desire.

He read that truth in her exotic gaze. Though her pu­pils were hugely dilated, she was still with him, riding passion's currents. She was, he realized, his perfect match in this arena. Fire rippled through him, urging him to surge forward and brand her with his possession.

Gritting his teeth against temptation, he held her wriggling hips still and nudged another tiny bit into her.

Despite her open hunger, she was a novice at this—it was his task as her husband to prepare her, soothe her. . .and then storm her. Another tiny nudge.

He did the same again and again, moving slowly deeper until he hit the feminine barrier he'd known was waiting for him. Some wholly primitive part of him growled in approval. She was his. For always. It was right that he was the one to initiate her into this. The only one. Fighting the grip of the primitive within, he took her lips in a voracious kiss and nudged again, this time with more force. That fine barrier stretched and then broke. Hira's fingers dug into his shoulders but she didn't pull away.

Instead she returned his kiss with fierceness that de­stroyed him. Sure of his welcome, he pushed fully into her almost-shocking heat. The pleasure was indescrib­able. Lips locked with hers, he moved one hand to her bottom, squeezing and caressing as his other hand moved up to her breast. He could feel her fighting the multiple sensations, trying to control her senses.

"Let go, baby. Let go for me." His husky demand was whispered into her mouth, almost drowned out by the water.

But she'd heard. When he rolled her nipple in his fin­gers, her body jerked and then she cried out against his lips.

Her surrender was apparent in the way she clung to him as ripples of pleasure tore through her body. In the deepest, most feminine part of her, she clenched around him again and again, an intimate caress that brought him to the edge of insanity. He clung to that edge with every ounce of strength he possessed, determined to hold her safe through her first ride into the firestorm of pleasure.

Almost sobbing with the fury of her ecstasy, her legs locked tight around his hips, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against him, as if she wanted to crawl into his body. It was the final straw.

He started moving faster, speeding his rhythm in a way designed to stroke her already sensitive inner tissues into shuddering abandon. He felt her shock as her body began to react again, felt her mouth open on the skin of his neck as she kissed him there, touched him, stroked her fingers into his wet hair. But she didn't back away.

Her lush body accepted the pleasure he lavished on her. It was all he'd wanted, but she gave him more. With her lips and her hands and the way she held him to her, she not only accepted but actively participated, telling him without words that his pleasure mattered to her. It was his last thought before the spiraling void he'd been circling sucked him in.

He took her over the edge with him, took her on an­other incandescent ride into a realm where pleasure was the only currency. His and hers.