OH GOD. OH GOD. OH GOD. What was she thinking opening her mouth? She’d been so close. So close to the kind of pleasure she’d only read about. Instead, Emerson was frozen like a statue between her legs. She was afraid if she didn’t do something right away, he’d do the unthinkable and put his shirt back on and leave again. Covering his chest would be bad enough—the man was seriously ripped. Missing out on the orgasm and finally kissing her virginity good-bye would be tragic.

“Please don’t stop. I don’t want you to stop. I just thought you ought to know. Information is power and ...” She let her words trail off before she started to babble. With his broad shoulders in the way, she couldn’t even close her legs.

“Sophie.” This time Emerson’s expression looked pained instead of hungry, and she felt everything she wanted slipping away. “Your first time is supposed to be special. With someone you love.” He looked at her with an expression close enough to pity she wanted to smack him.

“I’m not in love with you, you big wanker.” For a moment, it almost looked as if she had slapped him.

He reeled back, propping himself on one elbow while he gripped his hair with his other hand.

“Listen,” she said, deliberately calming her voice. She was running out of time to get this train back on the track and into the tunnel. She stifled a giggle at her own analogy. “I’m not looking for a great love story, but I’m ready to take this step. I’m beyond ready, and the thing is, sex with you would be special. I know you won’t hurt me, that you’ll take care of me. You’ve been doing it since we met. I just thought this time it might be fun for you as well.”

He paused, and she knew he was thinking, which was at least better than an outright no. Thinking meant there was still a chance.

“Are you absolutely sure, Sophie? I’m going to need to hear you say the words.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Emerson, please have sex with me.” It wasn’t the most elegant way of saying it, but her words seemed to have the desired effect.

Emerson’s lip curved in a rueful smile. “Okay,” he said even as he shook his head. “But I set the pace, and you tell me if you want to stop. I mean it, Sophie. It doesn’t matter if I’m inside you. If you want to stop, everything stops.”

“Deal.”

“Lay back, sweetheart, and give me room to work.”

She collapsed back against the pillows, relief and anticipation making it impossible for her to manage anything else for the moment. And then he pressed his lips, warm and firm, to the inside of her thigh and she knew it would be a long time before she could do anything but feel, anything but take the delicious pleasure Emerson offered.

“First things first,” he said, sounding like a naughty professor. “You shouldn’t settle for a man who’s simply willing to eat your pussy.”

He pressed his thumbs on either side of her mound, spreading her open for him. Vulnerability, anticipation, and his dirty words combined to make her tremble with desire, and not nerves.

“Any lover worthy of taking to your bed should relish the opportunity to taste you.” His voice broke, coming out as almost a growl.

He kissed her, his lips covering her clit in an open-mouthed kiss that stole any thought she had and narrowed her world to just him. Emerson’s hands holding her. His mouth driving her wild. His hair tangled in her fingers as she struggled to get closer, to take more.

His name fell from her lips in a chant, both pleading and grateful. Needing more and not sure how her body could survive it. How she could take more of the pleasure he gave her and not break apart with it.

“God, Sophie.” He murmured the words into the juncture of her thigh, his wet lips teasing the tender skin. “The way you respond to me. It’s a fucking gift.”

Cupping her ass, he angled her hips toward him and then he licked into her. She was lost. Heels digging into his shoulders. Her hands gripping his hair. With no thought but more, more, more, please running on a loop in her head as he licked and sucked and worshiped her with his mouth.

It was too much. An exquisite torture. She couldn’t take any more and she’d die if he stopped. She whimpered, hips bucking as he anchored her in place with his strong hands, holding her open while he feasted on her. Wrapping his lips around her clit, he drew the bundle of nerves into his mouth. Desire wound tighter with every tug of his lips until her body felt strung tight as a bow, everything taut and hanging on the edge of release.

“Please. Emerson. God. Please.” The words fell like a litany from her lips. A never-ending stream begging him to take her somewhere she’d never been.

Keeping up the delicious onslaught, he slid the tip of his finger inside her. Her body clenched at the invasion, triggering her climax. Stealing her words, her breath, her thoughts until there was nothing left but his name on her lips as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over her.

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EMERSON FELT SOPHIE’S body shudder under his mouth, felt the tug of her hands tangled in his hair as she pulled him closer, her thighs on his shoulders holding him to her. He was drowning in the sweet taste of her, rolled by her response to him until the only thing he had room for was her. Her pleas, his name on her lips had done the impossible. She’d cleared his head, driven out every thought, every worry, every single responsibility until there was nothing left but her. What had started out as a bit of playful fun had morphed into so much more and all he could think about was getting inside her. Claiming her. Holding her. God, loving her.

He pressed his lips to the inside of her thigh, too overwhelmed to trust himself to speak. Her hands slid from his hair to his shoulders, slender fingers stroking across his skin.

“I want to touch you.” Her voice was breathy, and he loved that he was the one who made her sound like that. “Come up here. Please.”

The please undid him. Not that he thought he could deny her anything. Not when she was laid open, so responsive, so willing, so vulnerable to him. Pressing kisses over her flushed skin, he worked his way up her body not stopping until they were face-to-face and he could see her beautiful eyes.

“You have too many clothes on.” She cupped his cheek with her hand, and he turned in to her touch, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm. “Take them off.”

“One orgasm and you’ve gone all demanding on me.” He needed the humor as a buffer to the feelings he wasn’t comfortable having. For as vulnerable as Sophie was to him, he felt more vulnerable to her.  She had no idea.

“I plan on making many more demands,” she said, grinning up at him. “But they work better if you take off your pants.”

“How could I resist sweet talk like that?”

Determined to maintain the thread of control he had left, he kissed her forehead and climbed off the bed. Biting her bottom lip, she watched as he stripped off his jeans and boxers. Her eyes widened as his cock sprang free, stealing any hope he had of pretending to be the one in charge. It was as if his body had one goal: claiming Sophie.

“Are you sure it will fit?” Her eyes held a mischievous glint but there was a wariness too.

Knowing she was nervous and still trusted him to be the one to take her, gave him back the control he needed to keep from making a mess of things.

“It’ll fit, sweetheart. Sophie, are you sure?” The energy between them went from playful to serious in a heartbeat.

“Positive,” she said, her voice strong and steady. “I want this, Emerson. I want to share this with you.”

She kept her gaze pinned to him as he retrieved a condom from the nightstand drawer. And then watched as he climbed onto the bed, kneeling between her spread legs. She didn’t look scared. It was more like she didn’t want to miss anything. Her attention made him that much more determined to get this right, to make sure he took care of her. That if he couldn’t give her an I love you, he could make sure she knew she was cherished. That the gift she was giving him was something he treasured. He slid the condom down his length, willing himself to go slow. Bracing himself on his elbows above her, he let his forehead rest against hers.

“Thank you for letting it be me.” Notching the head of his cock at her slick opening, he pressed forward, sliding into her a fraction of an inch.

Her mouth formed a perfect O and he paused, waiting for her to adjust to him, fighting every instinct he had to simply bury himself inside her. When her hips rocked forward, he went deeper, alternating shallow thrusts with weighted pauses. Desire was a palpable thing, making the air feel thick between them with every step closer they took to the marriage of their bodies. She gasped and he froze, desperation and need, primal and civilized man at war in his brain.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No. Yes. A little. I don’t care.” She wrapped her legs around his hips, opening for him and pulling him closer. “I need you. All of you. Now, please.”

He kissed her, claiming her mouth with his. As her lips parted on a sigh, he thrust home, sinking deep inside her. Claiming her, marking her forever as his. He caught her small cry with his mouth and then he started to move: long, slow strokes, careful to rock his hips so his cock hit the sensitive place inside her. Her breath hitched and changed, and he felt her move under him, arching up to meet him with every stroke.

“I didn’t know.” She clung to him, her breath coming in shallow gasps that pushed him higher. “I want...need...”

Her words trailed off and he kept up his pace over and over until he felt her body tighten around him.

“That’s it, beautiful. Right there.” He reached between them, sliding his fingers over her slick clit, urging her on as she rode his hand and his cock. “Come for me, Sophie. I want to feel you come.”

Her breath caught in her throat and for a moment it was as if everything hung suspended, pregnant with promise and desire. Locking his gaze on hers, willing her to feel with her body what he couldn’t say with words, he thrust into her. She cried out, chanting his name as her body pulsed around him. Her pleasure was the only thing he’d been waiting for and as she clenched and tightened, he came, her body dragging the climax from him the way he’d done for her.

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WAKING UP WITH Sophie in his arms was a new experience for Emerson. It wasn’t that he hadn’t spent the night with a woman before. But not being the one to leave or not having her leave in the morning was a first. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Part of him—probably the sensible part—wanted to be careful, apprehensive, but the other part of him kept thinking about breakfast with Sophie, morning sex, and all the things he hadn’t had a chance to do with her yet.

The virgin thing knocked him for a loop. He’d gone from trying not to have sex with her to being her first time. God, even remembering it had him grinning like a fool. It made him a Neanderthal, and he’d never say it out loud, but being the first man to have Sophie made him feel like a conquering hero, a fucking Viking. His lips curved at the filthy play on words and his cock went from normal morning wood to Viking worthy. The expression on her face, the compete sweet surrender the first time she came with him inside her would stay with him forever.

He shifted slightly, trying not to wake the woman in his arms, which would be a miracle given the way she curled around him like an octopus. That was another thing that was different with Sophie. He wasn’t normally much for cuddling and especially not while he slept, but he couldn’t seem to get close enough to her. The way she’d trusted him, pulled him to her and gave herself to him, cracked something open inside him. Something he had no intention of looking too closely at.

She snuggled tighter against him, her thigh nudging his cock, and he started working his way through client account receivables in his head so he didn’t roll her over and pin her to the mattress. For all he knew, she’d be sore when she woke up and wouldn’t want him inside her. He’d find a way to work with that if he had to. There were plenty of other ways for her to climax. Now that he’d gone screaming over the lines he’d been so determined not to cross, he planned on giving her as many orgasms as possible. When she looked back on her first time in the years to come she’d remember every one of them.

If he did his job right, he’d ruin her for other men—or at least for the assholes who didn’t know how to or wouldn’t take the time to take care of her properly. He might talk a good game with himself about being a fond memory on the way to the rest of her life, but the idea of Sophie being with anyone else made his jaw clench. He wasn’t fool enough to think it wouldn’t happen. Necessity might have them playing house, but they weren’t playing happy family. That didn’t mean he had to like the idea. He’d shove it in the closet with all the other feelings he had no intention of giving any space and go on about his well-ordered life.

Sophie let out a soft snore, which shouldn’t be adorable but was. It was also something he could tease her about when the opportunity arose. The woman certainly didn’t have his problem sleeping. Under different circumstances, the contrast might serve to highlight the differences in their age. She was a lot closer to being a teenager than he was, but after spending the night with her, feeling her fracture around him as she took her pleasure from him, he had no doubt she was a grown woman in her full power. And contrary to how the worry and stress usually made him feel, it wasn’t like he was an old man. He was in the prime of his life, something he had no trouble convincing his insistent cock.

Her thigh brushed his length again, and he began to think he ought to try to crawl out from under her and head for a shower. He couldn’t bring himself to move. Not when she was snuggled against him, a warm, sweet weight in his arms. He ran his palm down her back, and she inched closer, seeking him in her sleep, a soft smile curving her lips. He didn’t know if he’d ever get tired of making Sophie smile. He pressed his lips to her hair, breathing in the crushed roses scent of her perfume and underneath, something earthier. Musky. The scent of their lovemaking. He’d never been a big believer in pheromones for anything other than moths, but Sophie had him reconsidering everything he thought he knew. Her scent drove him crazy.

“Morning,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep and her lips pressed against his chest.

Blinking awake, she stretched, arms above her head and her back arched, body bowed in tension like a cat’s. Emerson watched the sheet fall away, exposing her fantastic breasts topped with dusky-rose nipples he’d worshiped the night before with his mouth. Nipples he had every intention of lavishing attention on again the moment he was sure she was ready for him.

“Morning, beautiful.” It was his brother’s normal go to phrase but in this case the words came out of his mouth before he thought about anything but the truth of them.

“You’re sweet to say it, but I doubt it’s the case this morning,” she said, rubbing a hand over her eyes.

“You’re beautiful, Sophie.” He put a finger under her chin and raised her face to meet him. He could come up with a dozen reasons for why in mattered to him that she believed him, starting with something lame about wanting to set a good example for her. But in the end, he needed her to know how he saw her, to know she was so beautiful she stole his breath.

“You’re not so bad yourself, Southerland.” She ducked her head to kiss his chest again and he let her. “Is this the way you normally wake up, or are you just happy to see me?” She trailed slender fingers over his cock, which bobbed in response along with the rhythm of his heartbeat. He was so close to going off just from her touch, he might be the one mistaken for a teenager.

“Brat.” He gave her ass a playful swat and then cupped it with his hand.

When she tipped her hips, his fingertips grazed her slick, hot center and he groaned. He loved how responsive she was, how willing she was to move into his touch, to take what she wanted from him. She might be inexperienced but there wasn’t anything shy or shrinking about her, and he was more than happy to let her use him to figure out what she liked and how she liked it.

“There’s something else I haven’t tried, if you’re game.” Parting her legs to give him better access, she gripped his cock with her strong, slender artist’s hand.

“Always.” With her fingers wrapped around him, he’d happily comply with any naked request she made. Hell, he’d buy the woman a pony if she wanted.

“I’ve never had shower sex.”

“I can help you with that,” he said, fighting back the grin that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on his face.