Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 148: Making love in the fireplace (part 1)

Chapter 148: Making love in the fireplace (part 1)

In the firelight, his gray eyes had a fierce glitter as they moved restlessly over her naked body, passion had turned his face hard and intense, making her suddenly feel shy, and when she lifted her arm self-consciously to cover her exposed breasts, his voice was harsh as he commanded, "Don’t!"

Mia shivered involuntarily at his voice that sounded strange, and his face that had turned into that of a man, who was on the verge of losing control of himself, and when he pulled her hands away from her breasts and covered her with his upper body, she realized instinctively that the preparation to get her ready were abruptly over and he was going to be driving into her in a matter of moments unless she slowed him down by letting him know she’d never done this before.

"Neil," she whispered softly, trying to make him listen without just blurting out that she was a virgin.

"Wait!" She pressed her hands panickingly against his chest to stop him when he began to settle himself between her legs, but the word didn’t register with Neil, however the panic in it struck a slight sense in him, and so did the fact that she was shoving on his shoulders and squirming against his thigh in a way that was wildly provocative and making it hard for him to stop.

"Neil!"

Neil knew he was going too fast, cheating on the foreplay he’d planned to have with her, and he thought she was objecting to that fact and wanted him to go slow.

"T-there’s something I need to tell you before you..."

With an effort that nearly destroyed his strength, Neil finally made himself move onto his side, but when his eyes fell on her exposed breast, he lost it again, he bent his head to her breast to compel her, but she caught his face in her hands to stop him and forced it up.

"Listen to me, please!" Mia said, looking into his smoldering silver eyes. She spread her fingers over his rigid jaw, softening it, and when he turned his face into her palm and kissed it, her heart swelled with relief and tenderness towards him. "We have to talk first..."

"You can talk," he said huskily, pulling her tighter to him, kissing the side of her mouth and her neck, sliding his hand over her full breast, "and I’ll listen," he whispered, his fingers already stroking down, past her flat belly and sliding into the wetness between her legs.

But Mia jerked beneath him, grabbing his hand that had slid into her legs, and she fought back the moan of pleasure that rose to her throat, trying to desperately tell him that she hadn’t done this before, but then not wanting to be blunt about the topic. In the back of her mind she could still remember her discussion with Rayne who’d told her that men get turned off when they learned a woman was inexperienced in bed. Thus, even though she knew what she was about to say would sound and seem silly, she asked,

"H-how old were you the first time you made love to a woman?"

Neil closed his eyes and swallowed hard to control his impatience at the fact that she was stopping him at this moment to ask him such question. But he answered it anyway.

"I was seventeen."

"Don’t you want to know how old I was then?" She asked, so nervous her voice was slightly trembling.

"It doesn’t matter to me," he said tightly. He didn’t want to hear how Owen had touched and made love to her in bed, and to end the topic, he moved up to kiss her breast since for some reason, known only to her, she didn’t want to be touched more intimately by him. His entire body was straining with need and he was trying his hardest to touch her in the places that he’d learned very clearly in the past gave women the quickest and greatest pleasure.

"I...i was twenty-six," she told him in a panicky voice when his mouth closed tightly on her nipple.

Neil’s blood was already roaring in his ears; he heard the words but not the meaning. All he could think about was how she tasted so good and felt even better than he’d remember. Her breasts weren’t large or heavy, but they were pretty and exquisitely feminine, just like she was, and if she would only be as receptive to him as she had been when they were standing and kissing, he would give her a climax now, before he came inside her, and then afterward he’d make another love to her properly. He had five years of pent-up desire to expend; he would be able to make love to her all night without stopping if she would just let him do this and stop clamping her legs together, and stop talking about how old she was the...first time...she had...sex...

Mia knew the moment her words registered on him, because he lifted his mouth a fraction of an inch from her breast, and his body went so still she had the feeling he had stopped breathing.

"This is the first time for me..." she murmured shakily.

He dropped his forehead on her breast and shut his eyes closed before cursing, "Fuck!"

The explosive whisper of his curse made it clear to Mia that he was not pleased by her revelation, and it even made it more clear when he finally raised his head and stared hard at her face, his eyes carefully inspecting each feature as if he were hoping to find some proof she was lying. He was either angry or disgusted, Mia concluded with a sinking heart. Rayne had been right about men not wanting a virgin. And she hadn’t wanted him to stop, but only to slow down and not handle her like...like a body that was used to being handled in bed.

However, Neil was not disgusted, he was dumbstruck. He was confused. In this day and age, he would never imagine a twenty-six-year-old woman could still be a virgin, let alone a woman who was beautiful, witty, intelligent, desirable, and engaged. Surely he’d once told her to remain a virgin, but he’d never meant those words and he’d never thought she’d still remain untouched.

But as he gazed at her lovely, anxious face, suddenly everything about her that had puzzled him last night and tonight began to make some sense. She had been acting shy because she’d never been to bed with any man...

Evidently she’d been engaged to Owen and no lovemaking in between.

Now that he understood that, he was more confused than ever by the revelation. Apparently, she had withheld her virginity from her own fiance, who obviously loved her and wanted to offer her respectability and a future filled with their children. Tonight, however, she was willing to surrender it to someone like him who was incapable of loving anyone and who had nothing whatsoever to offer her in the future.

Neil’s conscience chose that moment to reassert itself for the first time in years by reminding him that Mia’s fiance hadn’t coaxed her into surrendering her virginity to him; if Neil had any decency whatsoever, he’d keep his hands off of her at the realization that she was still a virgin, because she’d obviously reserved that to a man who deserves it. He’d already kidnapped her, verbally abused her, and subjected her to public embarrassment by keeping her with him. Adding all of that by robbing her of her virginity when he knew full well he had no intentions of loving, nor marrying her, was inexcusable and heartless.

But the feeble protest of his conscience wasn’t enough to stop him. He wanted her. He had to have her. He was going to have her. Fate had deprived him of his dignity, his freedom, and his future, but it had for some reason given her to him during these brief days of what was likely to be the end of his life. Neither his conscience nor anything else was going to deprive him of having her.

Unaware of the time that had passed, Neil stared at her until her shaky voice snapped him from his thoughts, and her words were a clear evidence to her lack of experience with men. "I...I didn’t expect you to be angry about that," she said, completely misinterpreting the reason for his long silence.

With a sigh, he said, "I’m angry with myself, not you."

Mia searched his face. "Why?" She asked innocently.

"Because," he whispered huskily, "it isn’t going to stop me. Because it isn’t going to matter to me one bit that you’ve never done this before, not even with someone who loved you or who could stay with you if he got you pregnant. Nothing matters to me right now..." he whispered deeply, lowering his mouth to hers, "but this..." But her inexperience did matter. It mattered enough to Neil to make him break off the kiss and try to get his lust under control, so that he could start over with her.

"Come here," he whispered, gathering her into his arms and rolling onto his side so that she was facing him, her head pillowed against his shoulder. Breathing deeply, he waited for his pulse to return to normal, slowly running his hand down her back in a soothing caress, while he made the silent decision to make this good for her, even if he would die of lust in the process. Somehow, he was going to have to arouse her thoroughly without arousing himself more than he already was.

Mia lay in his arms, bewildered by the sudden change in his mood and terrified that, despite his words, she’d apparently turned him off on the idea of making love altogether. Unable to stand it any longer, she kept her eyes on his throat and said shakily, "I didn’t mean to make a...a big deal out of this being my first time. I just wanted to slow things down a bit, not stop you."

Neil understood how difficult it must have been for her to express such feelings, and he felt another unfamiliar surge of tenderness toward her as he gently lifted her chin and solemnly stated, "Let’s not diminish the significance of this moment for either of us. The truth is, I’ve never had the honor of being someone’s first lover, so this is a first for me as well."

Lifting his hand, he brushed her tousled hair off her cheek, slowly combing his fingers through it, watching it spill over her left breast as he mused aloud, "You must have been driving the men in Zen crazy all these years."