He chuckled and the low sound rippled over her bared flesh enticingly—and then his laughter died. He fell silent, his gaze crawling over every inch of her, missing nothing. No curve, no hollow, no flaw went unnoticed. His dark eyes seemed to liquefy within his intense stare.

She folded her hands across her br**sts in an attempt to shield herself from his hot-eyed perusal. She pressed her legs together, turning and angling them so that he could glimpse little of her womanhood.

“Don’t hide from me,” he commanded in a quiet murmur, his dark eyes snapping with a need she couldn’t refuse.

With a deep breath, she lowered her arms. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it. No half measures.

He stared at her for an endless moment. She forgot to breathe altogether in that time, waiting anxiously as his gaze devoured her. All of her.

“Beautiful,” he murmured.

Heat flared over her face, spreading throughout her. She scooted back on the bed, maneuvering herself carefully so that her legs stayed firmly together. She wasn’t so bold as to endure his gaze there. She stopped at the head of the bed, realizing she had nowhere else to go.

Ash smiled wickedly, knowingly, lowering to his knees on the bed.

“You look like a scared virgin,” he teased.

She smiled back at him, her lips wobbly on her face. Now wasn’t the time to tell him that was a fairly accurate assessment. Not if she wished to explain the true nature of her relationship with Roger. And that would lead to other uncomfortable admissions.

He crawled toward her on the bed like some kind of stalking jungle cat, muscles undulating beneath smooth, taut skin that gleamed golden in the firelight. Her heart thumped madly against her breast.

She gave the barest jump when his hand circled her ankle. The hot press of his fingers singed her, branding her skin.

He smiled again … that wicked grin coiling and twisting her insides tighter, melting her bones to butter.

“Relax,” he drawled.

Then, in one fluid motion, he pulled her by the ankle, sliding her down until she was square in the middle of the bed, her hair a great fan around her. She gasped.

He came over her, a great weight carefully balanced on quivering forearms. She was certain it wasn’t from a struggle to support his weight but more from his restraint. His large hands rested near her face. He turned them slightly inward so that his fingers tenderly brushed her cheeks, pushing dark tendrils back from her face and tucking them behind her ears.

No part of her was free of him. His chest covered her, abrading her sensitive ni**les into hard peaks. His legs slid between hers, the crisp leg hair an erotic scrape against her tender thighs.

The intimacy of this—of him—on her, over her, between her splayed thighs left her breathless. His manhood prodded at her core, the hardness of him rubbing intimately against the most private part of her, creating a delicious friction that made her inner muscles clench with an aching need.

That must be it. The start of it all. A delightful torment that would only intensify until he relieved the ache and buried himself inside her.

He lowered his head, seized her lips in a deep kiss. There was no easing into it. Nothing gentle.

His tongue delved into her mouth, mating with her tongue, his lips moving expertly, loving and sucking and nipping at her lips with a thoroughness that had her arching against him, parting her thighs and thrusting her aching heat up toward him in a motion derived solely from instinct.

He held her head in both hands, his grip strengthening as their kiss grew feverish, bold and desperate.

He slid one hand from her head, his broad palm dragging down her face, her jaw, her neck, descending to her bared breast.

She cried out into his mouth as he seized the aching mound, kneading it until her passion coiled higher, tighter. She felt the head of him poised and ready and wiggled her h*ps until his manhood pushed at her weeping opening.

She gasped at the sensation of him there, just the tip of him. Unsatisfied, desperate for all of him to fill her, she pushed up against him, hungry for something elusive but near. She knew it was near.

Moaning in need, she dug her fingers into the straining bulge of his biceps. Still, he would not give himself to her.

Releasing a bicep, she dragged his hand to her neglected breast.

He obliged, caressing and fondling the mound until she was a gasping, writhing wreck beneath him. When he dipped his head and sucked the tip deep into his warm mouth, she shrieked.

Hot tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as his tongue circled the burgeoning tip. His teeth scraped the hard point, spiking her need into something dark and violent and a little frightening. She screamed at the intense pleasure, felt something rupture and burst inside her. Gray edged her vision and moisture rushed between her legs. She dropped back on the bed, her body a boneless heap. Her chest heaved, gasping and winded as though she’d run a great distance.

And still, a desperate need clawed her. The center of her ached more sharply, throbbed more insistently, almost near pain.

She felt a shift in him. He pulled back slightly. His face loomed farther away, the firelight illuminating half his face while casting the other half into deep shadow.

Then she felt him, no longer the teasing tip, but all of him pushing inside her bit by slow bit. The deep pressure increased between her legs, filling her, stretching her.

She raked her nails down his back, clawing him closer, arching for the strange joy of it.

And then it swiftly ended.

With a snap, something ripped deep inside her. The pressure gave way, twisting into a burning pain. She pulled away, instinctively trying to break free, escape.

“Marguerite,” he ground out, grabbing onto her shoulders, holding her immobile under him. He stilled above her, utterly motionless inside her. Except buried deep, his member throbbed, pulsed alien and large. His eyes gleamed with an angry fire, and she knew. She understood what had happened. Stupid, stupid. Why had she not considered the matter of her maidenhead?

“Stop,” she whispered, not certain what she was asking.

“You lied to me,” he said, the accusation sharp.

She shook her head, wincing at the ebbing pain inside her. “You assumed,” she defended weakly.

“What was there to assume? You claimed to be another man’s mistress.”

She blinked burning eyes and arched her spine, hoping to launch him off her. The action only succeeded in moving him inside her. She hissed at the discomfort.

“I suggest you stop moving. You’re the one causing yourself pain. You’re small, Marguerite. Give your body time to adjust.” He brushed the hair from her neck, his voice gentling. “I might have proceeded differently had I known. I can’t stop now. You’ll never want to try again.”

“Indeed, I won’t,” she ground out, digging her nails into his shoulders. He made a sound of discomfort, but didn’t object.

She shook her head, lying perfectly still, determined to avoid the ripping agony again. It had all been a lie. The passion, the desire. Nothing but a cruel fairy tale. This was misery. Nothing exciting about the reality of it all. Those earlier sensations had been a trick. A lure so that women would go along with the whole lovemaking deed and the human race would not die out.

She relaxed her fingers over his sweat-dampened skin, thinking he might oblige her more if she wasn’t clawing his back to shreds. “Let me up.”

He lowered his head, his dark-bright gaze intent and level with hers. “Can you stand it if I just hold still?” Taking her mouth in a nibbling kiss, he promised, “I won’t move.”

She held herself motionless, feeling, checking her body. The pain had dulled to a low ache. Uncomfortable but not unbearable. “Just don’t move,” she warned, then almost laughed. She was in no position to be issuing demands.

His breath escaped in a chuckle against her mouth. “I won’t move unless you ask me to.”

“I won’t,” she vowed fervently.

Ash laced his fingers with her hands and stretched them above her head, settling himself into her … but not moving—not insinuating that part of him any deeper. Just as he promised.

She felt herself relax, trusting him. For whatever reason. Scoundrel she knew him to be, he would not harm her. A man did not chase another man down for mistreating a woman and then turn around and do the same.

His lips at her mouth deepened, the kiss turning harder, more demanding. He sucked her bottom lip, took it into his mouth with a gentle bite, then followed by licking the bruised flesh. His lips traveled along her jaw. At her neck he found her pulse and sucked.

A breathy sigh escaped her. Her heart felt as though it might burst from her chest. She turned her head, granting him better access. This was nice. This he could do all night.

The throbbing once again grew at her core. She stiffened at the first sensation, remembering only the pain to follow. But no pain ensued.

She gave the barest shift of her hips, testing. No pain. Just a spike of sensation. Her belly clenched and she groaned, the sound stark with longing.

True to his word, he didn’t move. Even when his breathing grew irregular, his body a hard, rigid board of tension above her. He dragged his mouth to her ear, and she shuddered as he blew hot air over the sensitive lobe.

Of their own volition her knees bent, rose up on either side of his hips. The movement brought him deeper, sank him farther inside her.

“Oh!” She skimmed her hand down his back, fingertips tracing the dip of his spine. Sensation rippled through her. Her body felt good, marvelous.

Still, he held himself as unmoving as marble inside her.

Emboldened, a slight smile curving her lips, she drifted her hands farther down, cupped his taut buttocks in her hands, lightly scoring her nails over the smooth flesh.

He groaned, dropping his head in the nook of her neck. “Marguerite.” Her name filled her ears, a guttural plea. The sound empowered her. She moved herself against him, experimenting, marveling at the sensation of their flesh dragging against each other.

Sucking in a breath, she pulled back, away from him, sinking into the mattress. She held herself for a moment before surging forward. Up. Delightful friction arced through her, racing along every nerve ending in her body. She cried out, shocked, delighted at the deep thrust. This was it then. What she’d been waiting for. She pushed up her hips, demanding more, all he had to give.

“Now,” she begged, understanding what was necessary to relieve the dark burn at her core. She understood enough. Enough to know only he could fulfill her.

“Marguerite,” he whispered into her ear, and he sounded different. A stranger. As wrecked and shaken as she was. He trembled against her, and her need for him only burned hotter.

“Now, Ash, now,” she gasped in his ear, saying what she hoped were the words to set him free and unleash the savage from its cage.

Ash needed no further encouragement. He let himself go. The hot need that had pumped through him from the moment their bodies first joined rushed free.

Grasping her h*ps in both hands, he unleashed himself, drawing in and out of her silken warmth and plunging back inside, seating himself to the hilt with an exultant shout.

He felt as if he weren’t himself. As if he were possessed by some strange entity, a spirit, a semblance of himself that had never known pain or loss. The deprivations and torment of his past fled as if they didn’t exist, as if shadows never dwelled inside him, haunting him and dictating his every move.

For the first time in his life, he felt free and unencumbered.

This—his coming together with this woman—was no random occurrence. It didn’t matter to him anymore that she was Jack’s daughter.

He fought to ease his strokes, gentle the hard slam of his c**k into her tight body, but easy movements eluded him, tender lovemaking impossible. A force he’d never known before compelled him. No matter how much, how desperately he wanted to make this good for her, he was too far gone with need.

Marguerite arched, offering her body for him in complete surrender, lifting her slim legs higher.