"Come on," he said, leading her through the rest of the apartment to his bedroom.
He expected her to look around, take in the rest of the decor. Instead, her gaze remained on his as he walked backward toward their final destination. He kept their fingers linked, rubbing his thumbs over the soft skin of her knuckles.
It was an odd intimacy for him. Usually, he and the women he brought home from the club simply got down to business.
For some reason, though, he wanted to take things more slowly tonight. He wanted to pull back the covers and invite Gwen into his bed, then watch her undress. Or maybe undress her himself.
When they reached his bedroom, he waited for her vision to adjust to the darker surroundings. When it did, her gaze raked over his king-size bed with navy-blue satin coverlet to match the padded headboard.
"I"ve never seen such a big bed before."
One side of his mouth lifted. "You"ll like it," he told her. He"d make sure of it.
She stood perfectly still in the center of the room, staring at the bed as though it had teeth and was about to bite her.
"Don"t be nervous, Gwen. We"ll go as slow as you want."
She blinked, once, then turned to look at him. "I"m not nervous. I just...don"t know where to start."
Stepping in front of her, his back to the bed, he put his hands on her shoulders and gently stroked her bare skin. "Why don"t we start with another kiss? The first one turned out pretty well, don"t you think?"
He gave her a wry grin and was rewarded with a slight tilt of her lips in return.
Lowering his head, he brushed her mouth lightly with his lips, then let his tongue trail almost imperceptibly along the seam. He felt the tension flee her body in one great sigh as she leaned against him, her nails clutching his upper arms.
Her lips parted and she threw herself wholly into the kiss, biting, sucking, exploring. Drawing him deeper and deeper until a groan rolled its way up from low in his belly.
If there had been any doubts in his mind before about making love to Gwen, he certainly didn"t harbor them now. She was pressed too close, kissing him too pa.s.sionately not to be a willing partic.i.p.ant.
Continuing their kiss, he shifted his footing until he"d turned her back to the big bed frame. Her knees buckled when they b.u.mped the edge of the mattress, and he caught her, slowly lowering her to a sitting position on the silky coverlet.
The move broke their heavy lip-lock and they both sat back, breathing hard. Gwen stared at him with dark, glazed-over eyes, and Ethan suspected his would look much the same if he took the time to glance in the mirror.
This woman did things to him. Made his heart beat faster. Made the blood thicken in his veins. Brought him to a state of almost painful arousal.
He could only hope he had a similar effect on her. From the expression on her face, he would say he did, but the blasted black dress she was wearing made it hard to discern any other physical reactions.
Sinking to one knee on the carpeted floor, he held her gaze while his hands circled her slim ankles. The padded tips of his fingers rubbed sensually over the silk of her stockings, moving slowly upward.
Her chest hitched as she breathed, filling the modest cups of her strapless dress even fuller. How he wanted to taste her there. Kiss her skin, watch her nipples bud with desire. Would they be large and dark like raspberries or small and pink like cherry blossom buds?
He slid his palms behind her shins to gently caress her calves, then back over to her knees, across her thighs, with his thumbs riding just inside, closer and closer to her feminine center. Beneath the high hem of her short black dress, his fingers encountered the smooth warmth of bare flesh.
A shudder tore through him. She was wearing actual stockings rather than panty hose, complete with little snaps that, he hoped, attached to an equally minuscule garter belt. Something lacy and racy and black. Or maybe red...a seductive contrast to the solid black of her outfit.
Suddenly he wanted to see her in her undergarments. He"d intended to peel her out of her shoes and hose, working his way up to the zipper of her dress. But now he decided to change tactics.
Climbing to his feet, he pulled her up in front of him and offered a rea.s.suring smile. "Let"s go at this a little differently, shall we?"
She looked timid and a little nervous, but after a second she nodded.
To put her more at ease, Ethan shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it aside in the direction of a big, overstuffed armchair tucked in the corner of the room. Next, he kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his belt, pulling the polished leather slowly through the loops at his waist.
He stopped there, not wanting to intimidate her by stripping down completely while she was still fully dressed. Instead he reached out to finger the zipper at the side of her dress.
"Do you mind?" he asked.
She glanced down, watching his dark fingers toy with the cool metal. Then she lifted her head and once again met his gaze, tipping her head in the affirmative.
That was all it took for him to release the eye hook. Inch by inch, he unzipped the tight dress, coming closer and closer to exposing the soft swell of her delicate bosom.
The dress finally fell free, revealing smooth, porcelain flesh and the cups of a feminine, lace-covered strapless demibra.
He took a deep breath to steady his quickly evaporating control and stepped back. "My turn."
Crossing his arms over his chest and abdomen, he grabbed the bottom of his cotton T-shirt and pulled it up and over his head. Then he slipped the b.u.t.ton at the top of his pants through its hole and slowly lowered the zipper over his straining manhood.
He didn"t want to frighten Gwen, but he planned to get her naked in short order and thought it might be prudent to be a little ahead of the game before they reached that point.
After removing his tailored slacks, he stood before her in nothing more than a pair of black briefs, made all the tighter by his aroused condition.
The minute Ethan had shrugged out of his fitted cotton shirt, Gwen"s mouth went sandpaper dry. And now that he was all but nude, save his underwear, she was having trouble drawing air into her petrified lungs. Lack of oxygen and the fine male specimen standing before her were making her feel light-headed.
She"d never seen anyone as handsome as Ethan Banks, not even in the movies. His chest was a study of lightly bronzed lines and planes, with only a slight dusting of hair covering his otherwise smooth pectorals.
He must work out, she thought, given the bulging muscles of his upper arms and the firm definition of his abdomen. His hips were narrow, his thighs wide and strong, but what drew her eye like an electrical current was the large bulge straining against the front of his briefs.
It awed her to know she"d caused such a reaction. That he was turned on and unashamed to let her see just how much.
Curiosity ate at her. She wanted to reach out and touch him, run her hands over all that warm, sun-kissed skin and feel the throbbing pressure of his erection.
Would he mind? Was she allowed to touch him the way he"d touched her when he"d run his hands up her legs and nearly turned them to jelly?
She was about to ask, or at least step closer, when he beat her to the punch and moved closer to slide his fingers under the waist of her dress.
"Unfair advantage," he murmured. "If I"m going to be half-naked, I want you half-naked, too."
Holding her gaze, he slid the stretchy material over her hips and let the dress fall in a pool at her feet. Then he lowered his gaze to the garter belt and minuscule wisp of silk the woman at the boutique insisted were panties.
She had never worn anything so tiny or transparent in her life, but the saleslady had insisted the panties went with the bra and garter belt. And since she was being beyond daring with the strapless black dress, Gwen had decided to go all the way.
Now she was glad she had. Her skin flushed hot at the knowledge that her underthings didn"t so much cover her private areas as provide a thin veil through which they could be viewed. But the look on Ethan"s face when he stared at her barely covered body made even that small amount of embarra.s.sment worth it.
He licked his lips once and then dragged his gaze back up to hers. "Remind me to send a note to Victoria in the morning thanking her for sharing her secrets with the rest of the world."
Her lips tipped up at his obvious pleasure in her undergarments. "That"s not where I got them, but I"m sure the woman who owns the shop would be happy to hear you like them."
"Like is a vast understatement. Before the night is through, I intend to give them my five-star stamp of approval. Of course, at least two of those stars depend on just how easy they are to remove."
He licked his lips again, and a shaft of desire strong enough to bring her to her knees shot through her.
"Care to find out?"
She nodded weakly, her breath coming in shallow pants because her muscles were bunched too tight to allow her lungs proper expansion.
Ethan lowered himself to one knee in front of her, taking his time, letting his fingers graze the lace tops of her stockings before giving a little flick and setting the front two snaps free. She gasped as the elastic bands holding her stockings in place snapped upward and stung her.
"Sorry," he offered, but the wicked glint in his eyes and small lift at the corner of his mouth told her he wasn"t really sorry at all.
Flattening his palms on her upper thighs, he ran them slowly around to her backside, giving the plump flesh a squeeze as he released the second set of fasteners. He didn"t even try to keep the bands from snapping up and stinging her on the behind, grinning when she yelped and her body jerked with surprise.
"That wasn"t very nice," she chastised breathlessly.
"No," he said, still smiling, "but this will be."
And with that he reached out to lick a trail from the top of her right stocking to the thin string holding her panties in place. Fire leaped beneath her skin, all but raising steam where his tongue had touched her.
"Oh, my," she sighed, her knees shaking as she fought to remain standing.
She was definitely in over her head.
Three.
G wen had never gone to bed with a man before, and now, when she finally decided to change that sorry state of affairs, she"d picked a man who could nearly bring her to o.r.g.a.s.m with one look, one touch, one slip of his tongue over her naked flesh. Her belly quivered in antic.i.p.ation of what he might do next-if she remained conscious long enough to find out.
His breath brought goose b.u.mps to the surface of her skin as he took the delicate silk of the hose between his teeth and dragged it down, down, down.
Her diaphragm hitched. Her throat closed. Sensations she"d never even dreamed possible swirled behind her eyes in a kaleidoscope of colors.
She clutched at his shoulders, afraid of losing her balance or pa.s.sing out from sheer delight while he peeled the stocking down her leg and over her heel, then shifted to repeat the excruciating process on her other leg.
When he finished, he lifted his head and tucked his thumbs under the waist of the now-useless garter belt.
"I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did," he told her, his voice low and gravelly with pent-up pa.s.sion.
Gwen swallowed hard and inclined her head, relieved that he seemed just as affected by his ministrations as she was.
Her nails still dug into his arms like talons, when, in one fluid movement, he pushed the belt and panties down to her ankles. She"d expected to feel nervous or even frightened when the time came to finally stand naked in front of this man, but instead she felt oddly calm. The black strapless bra was still firmly in place, but he"d already bared the most intimate part of her body.
Lifting her leg, she stepped back and used her other foot to kick the panties out of the way. Then, reaching behind her, she unhooked the bra and let it fall from her fingertips to the floor.
She heard him suck a breath through his teeth and almost mimicked the action when he put his hands on her waist and pushed to his feet. His chest rubbed the pointed tips of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his lower extremities b.u.mping suggestively against her own-deliberately, she was sure.
"Keep doing things like that, sweetheart, and I won"t last very long."
Since she"d never done this before, she didn"t really have any sort of timetable to go by. But considering how her skin tingled and her insides turned to molten lava whenever he touched her, she suspected she might not be far behind.
With little effort, he lifted her off her feet and deposited her in the middle of the wide bed. After skimming his underwear down over his hips, he took two long strides to the black lacquer nightstand and opened a drawer.
Thank goodness he had protection, Gwen thought when she saw the foil packet, along with the forethought to get it out at the right moment. For someone who"d gone out this evening with the sole hope of finding a man to relieve her of her virginity, she certainly hadn"t done a very good job of planning ahead.
Which was one more reason to be grateful she"d left with Ethan instead of that other fellow who"d tried to pick her up.
She also didn"t think the man in the leisure suit would have looked half this good naked. Having never seen a man without his clothes on before, Gwen ignored her natural inclination toward modesty and looked her fill.
His broad chest tapered to narrow hips with an arrow of dark hair leading the eye directly to the root of his manhood. He was fully aroused.
The mattress sank with his weight as he crawled toward her, then straightened to tear open the small foil square with his teeth before rolling the condom down his turgid length. Her fingers curled into the coverlet at her back as wonder and antic.i.p.ation coursed through her veins. He lowered himself over her, pressing against her from chest to ankle, and every thought in her head vanished like smoke from an extinguished candlewick.
Ethan ran his fingers through the hair at her temple. "Are you okay?"
She nodded, even though it was far from the truth. She was hot and achy, curious and eager, a little nervous. Anything but merely okay.
He smiled before leaning in to take her mouth. Her lips parted, inviting him to deepen the kiss, take her tongue, nip and suck and bite.
Her arms roped around his neck, holding him close, while his hands snaked down then up her body. He stopped to cup his palms around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, teasing the pebbled peaks with his thumbs.
Letting his lips leave hers, he trailed a row of kisses along her chin, the column of her neck and the gentle slope of her chest. With his tongue, he teased first one nipple and then the other, the cool air raising goose b.u.mps on her dampened skin.
She arched her back in pleasure, offering up her b.r.e.a.s.t.s for his sinful ministrations. Emboldened, he licked a circle around the distended area of her areola and then sucked the nipple into his mouth.
Sensations overwhelmed her, the nerve endings behind her breast sending signals of delight coursing through her body. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides, bunching the satiny bedclothes.
He repeated the wicked onslaught on her other breast until she thought she"d go mad. Then his mouth whispered away from her chest, moving lower to her ribs and belly.
His tongue did laps around her navel, swirling, licking, rasping like a kitten"s on her overly sensitive skin. And then it dipped inside for just a second before moving even lower.
Embarra.s.sment swamped her as his warm breath blew over the curls between her legs, which she tried almost desperately to clamp together. He ignored her feeble protest, pushing her thighs apart again so that he could explore her feminine secrets with his mouth and hands.
His fingertips ran along both sides of the slick flesh before holding her open and taking one long swipe with his tongue.
It was like being touched with a live electrical wire in a very private place. She gave a small mewl of surprise and her hips came up off the bed.
While his mouth and tongue worshipped her, Ethan slipped one long, broad finger into her narrow pa.s.sage. Gwen gasped and felt herself tighten around him without conscious thought.
She bore down on her heels, lifting her pelvis closer to the pleasure she sensed only he could give her. Sliding a second finger into her, he started to thrust, his tongue zeroing in on the swollen bud where every cell in her body that carried sensations back to her brain seemed to be located.
Without warning, she flew apart. Crying out, she clutched at his hair. And like a plane flying too close to the sun, she burst into flames, returning to earth in charred little pieces.
Her chest heaved as he levered himself back up and over her. He stared down into her face for a moment, and then smiled.
"I hope you enjoyed that."