It’s as if fire roars through me, ripping through my belly with a blast of passion. Travis kisses me, one of his hands digging into my hair, his other one bringing me against his hard body, and I drop the peignoir. My bones seem to disintegrate, making me lose form as I clutch at his sleeves before I can fall.

No one has ever touched me like this, kissed me as if I’m the most desirable woman in the world… Never. And the more his mouth plunders mine, the more my sex throbs and gets wet. All the anxiety and insecurity I’ve been feeling all night pumps shocks of adrenaline to my heart until it seems on the edge of exploding.

As he slows the kiss down, ending it with his mouth still open on mine, I fist my hands, pulling at the fine material of his jacket.

Is he comparing me to all the other women he’s had? Is he finding me lacking?

He looks into my eyes, his breathing harsh, and I bite my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. I’m trying to control my own breathing, but I’m taking in shallow clips of air and I’m not getting enough. I’m dizzy, hazy.

So afraid he’ll send me away because I’m terrible at this.

“Nova,” he whispers.

He brings a hand to my face, running his fingertips down my cheek. My pulse lurches in confusion.

“You’re nervous,” he says.

I only nod.

“Don’t be, Beautiful. I’m going to tell you exactly what to do.”

I stare at him. He called me “Beautiful.” Surely he can’t mean that and he’s only trying to butter me up so he can get what he paid for, but damned if it isn’t working.

I nod again, slightly calmer now, though my heart is still pounding furiously.

He uses both of his hands to run his fingers through my hair, then leans down to press a gentler kiss on my lips. My mouth tingles as he keeps planting tiny kisses at one corner, then the other. I’m relaxing now, but my heartbeat is still a muffled, disorganized mess. All I can think is that he smells so good, like soap and musk.

He whispers against my ear, warming it. “First, take off your shoes.”

Okay. I can do that.

My ear still buzzes from his soft words, and I slide one of my hands down to push off a pump while holding his jacket with the other. It’s the only way I can keep my balance. After I take off the other shoe, I’m even shorter than I was before compared to him, and I look up into his gaze, as if for approval.

“Good.” He smooths back my hair again, comforting and lulling me. “Now tell me about any boyfriends you did have.”

“But I never really dated—”

“Surely there’s been someone at some point.” His voice is low and resonant. “A first kiss. A second.”

He slips his fingertips from my hair down to my neck, caressing my skin there as I fight for oxygen and my pulse kicks in again.

“There was…one,” I say. “In high school.”

“I thought so.”

Travis eases his fingers lower, then strokes the skin above the rise of my breasts. My mind is racing around as if on a track, the thump of my blood pacing it, heat pulsating in my clit.

“I was working a summer job,” I say, trying not to think about how Travis is lazily petting me while I talk. “It was at the local market. He was a stock boy, the owner’s nephew who was in town during school break. I was a cashier. All the other boys knew that Gary would probably whoop them if they got too close to me, but this guy…”

“He was braver than most.”

“He knew whatever happened would be temporary, and if he made his move at the end of summer, he wouldn’t have to face Gary. We…”

As Travis negligently skims his fingertips over my breasts, my words swirl away. It’s as if he’s exploring me, getting a closer look at—and feel of—his newest acquisition. He skims my peaked nipples, then slowly slips his fingers under the weight of my breasts, lightly tracing the heavy curves. The feather-light sensation of his touch makes me swallow, and I can hear the sound over my raging heartbeat.

“Go on,” he says.

As if it’s that easy. I struggle to form words before forcing them out. “We were taking a break in back of the market when the boy kissed me.”

“Your first time?”

“Yes.”

“And how did it feel?”

He runs his thumbs around my nipples, and even through the fabric of my dress and bra, I can tell that he knows I’m aroused. I can’t look at him straight in the eyes. I’m afraid he’s going to see how nervous I still am, so I close my eyes.

“It didn’t feel as good as this,” I whisper.

“Good to hear. But was it awkward with him? Embarrassing?”

It’s as if he wants to feel something other than the coldness I usually sense in him, as if he might be exploring my emotions, too.

“It was just okay. Not horrible. Maybe a little disappointing.”

Slowly, Travis pulls down the top of my dress, and my eyelids fly open. My breath suspends as the sound of the fabric hushing down my skin dominates the room.

When he has the material bunched around my waist, he casually says, “And what happened next, Nova?”

He drags his fingers up the skin covering my exposed rib cage then down the insides of my arms, checking out every inch of flesh. I lick my lips because my mouth has gone dry.

“We kept meeting for the next few days,” I say. “Out in the back of the market.”

“How far did you go with him?”

“Not very.”

The words clog in my throat as Travis hooks his thumbs into my bra straps and begins to ease them down.

“Did you let him touch you at all?” he asks.

“Not much. He tried to put his hands under my shirt but I said no.”

As he keeps lowering my straps, my breasts pop out of the only lacy bra I own—the white one that I bought on the sly and hid under my mattress along with the matching panties. Expertly, Travis reaches around me and unhooks the back clasp. The bra falls to the floor with a soft thud.

Now I’m really exposed, vulnerable in a way I’ve never been with a man before. My chest rises and falls with barely-there breaths that can’t keep up with the demanding throb of my clit. I’m soaked down there, needy, so needy.

Travis slowly looks over me, and there’s a fierce longing in his eyes that melts any trace of his usual coolness. Pressure builds in my belly at that look, threatening to rise and grow.

Tenderly, he cups my naked breasts.

This time, when he circles his thumbs over my nipples, a shock zings through me at the bare contact.

The motion of his circling thumbs on the naked tips of my breasts is too much to handle, the heat and pressure expanding inside me until there’s a sharp yearning in my clit that pounds and pounds. I grasp his wrists.

A small, animal sound rumbles from his throat, and he sweeps his hands down and over my waist, resting his palms there. He slips his thumbs between my skin and the bunched dress, then rubs my hipbones.

At the electricity that bolts through my clit, I grip his wrists harder.

“Only I’ve seen you like this, seen how fucking sexy you can be when you let your guard down.” Travis’s grip on me grows possessive, and he hooks his thumbs into the sides of my panties, pulling up on them until they press against my sex. I let out a tiny whimper at how my hairless mound responds to the pressure.

Travis pulls up on my panties again, and I rise on my toes, reaching over and pressing one of my hands to his chest. There’re so many layers of fabric between him and me, but I still think I can feel his fierce heartbeat underneath it all.

“Look at me, Beautiful,” he says.

I can’t.

“Nova…”

It takes all the courage I have to drag my gaze to his, and what I see there robs me of oxygen. He really does want me. Even after I told him how naïve and inexperienced I really am, he desires me, and when he reaches under my dress, I moan.

“Open your legs,” he says quietly. “That’s all you have to do for me right now.”

So I open for him, and his fingers rub against my panties, over my sensitive, newly smooth mound. I pull at his jacket again, fighting a cry that’s battering at me to get out. But there’s also something else that’s winding up in my belly, tightening, pulsing, throbbing, something deeper and stronger pushing and pushing to get out of me…

“So wet for me,” he says.

He gives my bare mound one more stroke, then pulls back. The rising pressure in me dips in disappointment, and I wince for him to keep doing what he was doing.

“Now take them off,” his says, his voice full of grit.

I know what he means for me to do, so I slide my panties down my legs, then look into his eyes again. His gaze is even hotter with need, a man who always gets what he wants.

He rests his hands on my hips then inches up my dress. When he looks down there, at my bareness, my clit pounds so hard that I wish he would just touch me, massage me, make the delicious pain go away.

“Such a gorgeous pussy,” he says. “My pussy.”

When he finally touches my naked mound, the sensation is so raw that my knees give out. I fall against him, and he whisks me to the bed, sitting there with me on his lap.

“Spread your legs again,” he says with more roughness in his voice. I bury my face into his neck. “Let me feel more of your beautiful cunt, Nova.”

I gasp at his dirty request, but I give him what he wants. I part my legs, letting him seduce me as much as he wants, whatever way he wants. When he reaches down and slides a finger through my wet folds, I push my face against him, opening my mouth against his neck, tasting the salt and heat of him.

“You like that,” he whispers harshly.

“Yes.”

As if to push me further, he presses his thumb to my clit. I tense up, sharply inhaling against him.

I make an indecipherable sound against him as he runs his thumb around that tiny little button on me that makes me lift higher off his lap. Each time he presses it I rise up and up, the chaos in me scrambling around my belly faster and faster. He works my clit harder, and my hips move with his every motion. I’m pulsating, losing it, firing up higher, higher, so high, and oh god…

I explode, crying out against him, pulling at his jacket and arching.

While my head goes fuzzy, I barely register that he’s removing his hand from under my dress, settling me back on his lap, then pulling the fabric down and covering me as I cling to him, trembling.

I think I just had my first orgasm, and from the raging flush that’s covering my body like a rushing wave, I really like it.

I want it again.

As I draw away from Travis to risk a look at him, I see something that makes my blood stop pounding.

His gaze is cool as he looks down at me.

I don’t know what to say—I don’t know if I can even speak—as he eases me to the bed so I’m sitting on it. He stands and runs his hand through his hair, just as dispassionate as he was when I first met him.

I try to figure out the change in his mood, the sudden dark clouds in his eyes. What just happened?

“Get some sleep,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Then he leaves me without another word, as cool as an arctic breeze.