Free Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) by Shirl Henke

seemingly unpracticed and tentative, as if she knew not exactly what to do or how to move. Yet her hands slid over his back and clasped his shoulders as he lowered his head to kiss her. By all the saints, he would burst if he did not have her now! He kissed her fiercely as he plunged into the soft wet sweetness of her body. She was incredibly small and tight, but there was no barrier to impede his thrust. An instant's regret washed over him, but months of celibacy quickly overrode his foolish hope. He rode her with long slow strokes, savoring as much as he could of her wondrous body, which was still incredibly unsullied by her earlier liaisons.
           So this is what is done between a man and a woman, Magdalena thought in wonder, holding fast to him as the beautiful core of heat low in her belly grew into an inferno. If only it might last forever—if only it might be assuaged. She felt her mind spiraling out of control, going blank as primitive instincts drove her. Suddenly, she sensed a change in Aaron's body. Every muscle, hard and tense, seemed to quiver, then turn to stone. The breath seemed to leave his body and his phallus swelled and pulsed in a series of convulsive heaves. Then he collapsed on her like a leaden weight. Her legs instinctively clamped tightly, holding him to her, desperate for him to continue the act which seemed to have ended.
           Aaron came to his senses with a slow, drugged struggle. The intensity of his release had been shattering. Surely it was merely his long celibacy, not this hoyden from the court that explained it. He shook his head and rolled away from her clinging embrace, then looked at her flushed face. A surge of guilt, highly irrational and most irritating, overtook him. She lay back with her mane of dark mahogany hair tangled about her shoulders. Her expression was both dazed and hurt. He knew he had gone too quickly for her to be satisfied. His youthful male vanity was stung when he saw what he perceived as accusation in her jade eyes.
           He reached out and took a glossy curl in one hand, raising it to his lips. “Do not look so stricken. My apologies for such haste, but I was a long time without a woman. It will not be so when next we come together, I promise.” He sighed and stroked her silky shoulder. “I only wish I could oblige you now, but soon my parents will return—”
           Her gasp of horror cut short his defensive apology. “What have I done? If Benjamin and Serafina find that I have—that we—Oh! I must go!” She slid away from him, yanking her hair free of his grasp as she jumped off the far side of the bed. Her eyes frantically searched for her discarded clothing and her cheeks crimsoned when she saw how shamelessly it was scattered about the floor. Grabbing her under-tunic, she hastily pulled it over her head. Then she surveyed the crumpled heap of her silk gown.
           Reclining on the bed, Aaron watched her antics with increasing amusement and cynicism. “To see you in such a quandary, one would believe you never had a tryst before. Or is it that you would not lose my father's high opinion of you?”
           Magdalena dropped the dress she had been inspecting as if it burned her fingers. Her eyes locked with his. “What do you mean? Think you I have done this before?” Then Benjamin's sympathetic words came roaring down on her, explaining about her injury and giving her the document to verify her virginity.
           “I know you have done this before, Magdalena,” he said simply, standing up and strolling casually over to a large chest from which he extracted a long satin robe. He slid into it and belted it, then walked back to the frozen girl and took her dress from the bed. “Allow me to assist you, since the lacings are in the back.”
           His cool tone of voice fueled her pain and with it her famous Valdés temper. Never, never would she deny the heinous accusation he made! Generations of