LeVan was such a gentleman when he opened the door and saw me standing outside his off-campus apartment.

Taking my travel bag, he set it down at the front door and led me by the hand through his apartment to his bedroom. We sat on the edge of his bed, just catching up on how we’d each spent the two days since we’d seen each other last.

Then he kissed my cheek.

I knew there was more to come, but I wanted to be ready for it. Excusing myself, I grabbed my travel bag, found his bathroom, and locked myself inside.

I needed to catch my breath, steady the pounding in my chest, strengthen my weakening knees, and most of all, I had to get used to the insistent throbbing between my legs.

And I took an extra few minutes to change into that silky piece of lingerie while I was at it. Once I returned to his bedroom door, I cleared my throat to get his attention, and I felt my knees getting a little bit shakier than before as he pushed up off the bed and came toward me.

LeVan’s eyes widened at the sight of me. That was exactly what I’d hoped would happen. I was so crazy about him, and he had this way of looking at me, of making me feel so wanted that it just drove me insane. Knowing that I could get this type of reaction from the unshakeable LeVan Vanderbilt was a heady thing.

I lingered in the doorway of the bathroom, one hand on the doorframe as nerves bounced and fluttered in my belly like butterflies. It was cooler too, with this thin, tiny piece of fabric barely covering my girly bits.

As he took in all of me, I studied him with what was left of my attention span. As always, he was beautiful. His dreadlocks hung down to his shoulders, which seemed so much broader in the polo shirt he had on. I knew from our secret late-night phone conversations that he worked out in the gym on top of his daily morning running routine and his part-time job. He’d told me it was because some of the acts he might join would want him to do more traditional illusionist acts. Many of them required a fair amount of physical strength.

I didn’t mind.

I was eager, itching to trail my fingers along his chest and the rippled muscles of his abdomen. Hearing his breath catch when I did it drove me to levels of need I didn’t know I possessed, and I couldn’t wait to sink my nails into the hard bulges of his biceps.

I already loved everything about him.

“Pretty lady.” He dipped his head and nuzzled my neck once he was close enough. “I think you get more beautiful every time I see you.”

I waited for his touch, but all he did was pull me up against him and hold me tight. As good as that felt, the nerves inside me were screaming and taut, driving me crazy, so I eased back and rubbed my lips against his throat the way I thought he liked. His pulse pounded against my lips, so I did it again.

We hadn’t gone all the way yet.

Well, I hadn’t.

I was a virgin.

Up until I saw LeVan at the boutique, sex was outside my realm of awareness. I wasn’t that interested in anyone else in town, and with Mother breathing down my neck, I saw no point in giving it up just for the sake of saying I’d had sex. But I was determined to leave New Orleans with my V-card punched. Right here in LeVan’s apartment.

I hadn’t told LeVan about my intentions, but he knew I was staying with him for the entire weekend, and well, I figured I wouldn’t have to draw him a picture. LeVan, after all, had some experience. During our first phone chat, he mentioned dating two other girls long before me. I had no problem with the fact that at least one of us knew how to navigate the intimate nights I’d envisioned.

LeVan slid one hand into my hair and wound some around his fist, tugging my head back so he could look into my eyes. Something he saw there made his jaw tighten. His eyes met mine, his dark lashes creating shadows as he lowered his lips until they were an inch from mine. When my breath caught in my throat, he grazed his lips across my cheek to my ear.

“There’s something you want to tell me, Thea.”

Maybe I did have to draw him a picture.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I half moaned against his jaw.

“I enjoy reading people, pretty lady. But sometimes, it’s better to have things all nice and out in the open. Drawing conclusions is fine for the stage, but in reality…I like truth.” He pulled my head back once more and met my eyes. “I get the impression that you have big plans in mind. Care to tell me about them?”

“I…” Licking my lips, I tried for a casual shrug and failed. “I figured it would be obvious, me coming down here, asking you if I could stay the weekend… to sleep over…with you.”

“You asked me if you could come over and I’m glad to have you here, all to myself. Yes.” He slid one hand down to my hip and started massaging me just inches from my ass cheeks, sending the silk slithering all over my skin, tempting me, causing wicked heat to grow from deep in my belly. “You didn’t say anything to me about what you wanted to do. Or anything about…”

His gaze dropped to what I was wearing. Or not wearing.

When he looked up at my face again, his pupils had grown so large they almost eclipsed his irises.

“About this.”

“You don’t want me?” I asked, and immediately hated how vulnerable and weak the words sounded. How desperate I sounded.

LeVan moved in a way that fit in just perfectly with so many of the things I loved about my home state of Louisiana. That slow, lazy grace led me to think he wouldn’t move as fast as I wanted. I’d thought it before and wanted him to prove me wrong.

He did as he grabbed me around the waist, lifted me up, and pressed my back against the nearest flat surface. The cool wall was a sharp contrast to the heat of his leg that nudged between my thighs and made contact with my flesh. The thick heavy ridge of his cock rubbed against my lower stomach through the well-worn track pants he had on, and he crushed his mouth to mine for a hard, demanding, almost bruising kiss.

He hadn’t ever been this rough, and for a second, I was both afraid and aroused.

“What do you think, pretty lady?” he asked a few seconds later when we were both breathless.

“I think I… You…” The words froze in my throat, because I’d been two seconds away from telling him I wanted to see him naked, that I wanted him to go back to what he was doing, that I wanted him to stop being so polite and gentlemanly. But I was nervous, so the rest of the sentence locked up in my throat.

“What do you want, Thea?” he asked, curving one hand over my throat and stroking his thumb up my chin, forcing me to keep looking at him. “Tell me. I want to make sure we both know what this is about.”

Our eyes met. Those tiger-stripe irises locked with my baby blues, and while the nerves cranked higher, so did my certainty.

This, I thought. I wanted this.

Him.

“I want you,” I whispered. LeVan’s lashes lowered over his eyes. A rough noise escaped his throat. It made me a little bolder. “I want this. And I understand it’s so early on for us, but I’ve never been more sure of anything. I want us.”

“I want you too. So fucking bad,” he said, voice low, almost teasing now. He pressed his mouth to the corner of mine, a not-quite kiss.

I turned my head to meet his lips, but he pulled back, refusing to give me the contact I wanted. The frustration in me was building. This wasn’t the time for hesitating. It was time for action. LeVan readjusted me in his arms and carried me over to the bed, stretching me out on it and settling down next to me. He watched me for some time, with eyes that made me sure he’d already peeled off the lingerie in his mind. But he wasn’t just seeing me naked, he was seeing clear through me. Into me.

“Do you have condoms?” he asked bluntly, but I was sure he was looking for my reaction.

Blushing probably to the roots of my hair, I nodded. “I’m on the pill, too.”

“We’ll still use the condoms.” He put a hand on my belly. “I’m going to take care of all of you, Thea.”

There was something so gentle in the way he said it. It meant everything. More than the meaning behind those words, his message was deeper than I could understand. But I had no time to process it because he took the next moment to kiss me, and when LeVan kissed me, there was no room in my world for anything else.

His lips strayed from mine and dusted over my eyelids, then down along one cheekbone before he grazed over my mouth, gentle and easy, like he was tasting me for the very first time.

He pressed his mouth to mine again for a kiss slow and sweet, so gentle, even after I threaded my fingers through his dreads and tugged him closer, as I tried to deepen the connection. He tasted me, learning me all over again. One hand still rested on my belly. The heat of that simple contact set my skin to buzzing.

More.

That was all I could think when he finally lifted his head.

More.

But his kiss didn’t end. He shifted his focus, cruising along my cheek before moving farther down to the slope of my neck. The stubble on his jaw sent a shiver through me and I clung to him, pressing him closer.

Between those slow, smoldering kisses and lazy brushes of his mouth over my skin, I lost all track of time, all track of reality. I didn’t feel self-conscious when he slid the lingerie off me, leaving me naked because I hadn’t put on the matching panties that came with the silky nightgown. I felt downright dirty—and proud of it, but also a little vulnerable on the deep, rich red of the bedsheets spread across his double bed. The embroidered stitching was a little scratchy against my skin, and that was just another sensation in a sea of them as he swept clever, capable hands down, then up my torso, letting one stop to cover my breast.

I trembled at the sensation as he rolled my nipple lightly between his thumb and index finger. Sensing my reaction—because he was aware of everything—LeVan lifted from our kiss and looked down at me.

“You can change your mind anytime,” he stated calmly, although the huskiness in his voice told me he was hoping I didn’t.

“No.” That much I was certain of. “I want this. But…the lights…can they be dimmer?”

“Baby…” He clicked his tongue, voice mournful. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I need to see all of you…to touch every part of you. And to do that, lights are a must.”

Then, before I could argue, he dipped his head close to mine and I gasped as he closed his mouth around my nipple. He tongued it slowly, flicking it back and forth with his teeth, scoring it lightly before drawing the flesh deeper into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth.

With his free hand, he palmed my other breast, mimicking what he was doing to my nipple with his tongue. Roll, tug, pluck, roll…I felt each touch arrowing down between my legs as I grew embarrassingly wet.

He didn’t seem to mind that slickness. He laid a hand on my belly, the tips of his long fingers trailing over the curls covering me before easing lower. He sucked in a breath when he reached me, a harsh groan escaping him. It was a sound unlike any I’d ever heard from him.

“You’re so fucking wet, Thea.”

“I’m…is that good? That’s good, right?”

He laughed, the sound pained. “Yeah, baby. It’s good. Matter of fact, I’m going to make you even wetter.”

I had no idea how that would even be possible—

Then I sucked in a breath, attempting to clamp my thighs together as he slid down and knelt on the floor, two big hands holding me open. “Let me,” he insisted against my sex. “I want to taste your pussy.”

My face flamed hot at the blunt words.

I knew all those words. I’d been sneaking books from our housekeeper for as long as I could remember. She hadn’t realized it until she’d found me in the pool house once with Fifty Shades of Gray and I’d been all of thirteen. Since then, she’d been bringing a select few books with her; then I turned sixteen and started driving and I’d buy my own or check them out from the library.

No, it wasn’t that the words were unfamiliar.

But knowing them in context and having a man whisper them to you just before he pressed his mouth to you…

I whimpered as he drew his tongue through my folds.

This was yet one more thing I’d read about and it sounded embarrassing—and it was that and so much more. As he held my thighs wide, leaving me open and vulnerable to him, I had no choice but to feel and what I felt was…indescribable. He flicked his tongue against my clit and that made me moan, my hips jerking up to meet his mouth.

“That’s it…I want you to like it. Fuck my mouth, Thea. Fuck my face,” he rasped against me.

My face flamed.

He caught my hands and guided them to his head, squeezing lightly as his tongue delved into my folds again. “Do it…show me you want it,” he ordered.

It was instinct that had me drawing his face back to me when he started to move away. I cried out as he did dirty, wicked, awful, wonderful things to me with his beautiful, clever mouth. I moaned out his name, then I keened it. I lay writhing on the bed and working my hips against his face with every hammered heartbeat.

I came hard and fast and without pause, LeVan began to kiss his way back up my body. When he reached my mouth, he kissed me and rolled to his back, pulling me on top of him.

The kiss was saltier, darker, and some part of me realized I should be even more embarrassed, but I wasn’t. This was LeVan and he wanted me. I think he wanted me as much as I wanted him. How could I be embarrassed over that?

He urged me upright, reaching over to find and rip open a condom. Rolling it on, he lifted me on top of him. I moaned as my weight lowered along his cock. He shuddered, his hands tightening on my hips, but he was the first one to speak. “You want this, Thea?” he asked.

“I do. Yes.”

That familiar, slow smile came and went, then he caught my hands and guided them to his shirt. “Then make it happen. You’re in control for now, pretty lady.”

He lay there, almost passive as I lowered his jeans the rest of the way off his legs, obligingly kicking off his tennis shoes so I could tug the denim the rest of the way off.

I wanted to stare at him the way he’d done to me, but my face was so heated, so flushed, and just the thought of standing there while he could meet my gaze, or while he could see me as I checked him out was enough to make me shake all over.

So instead, I hurriedly climbed back onto the bed, clambering over the covers to be next to him. I put a hand on his belly and felt the muscles there jump, heard his harsh intake of breath. It gave me courage and I slid my hand down lower, darting a look up at him before I closed my fingers around his cock.

He groaned and arched up, driving his cock into my touch.

I knew I wasn’t hurting him.

We’d done this much before, although never with both of us stripped down bare.

I dragged my hand up, then down, darting a look up at him.

His eyes were closed and I dared to let myself look.

He was so beautiful, it almost hurt to look at him. Nobody could possibly be as beautiful as he was—there had to be some flaw, some imperfection, but he didn’t have any. Pale golden skin stretched tight over long, lean muscles that had become even more defined over the past couple of years, hands that knew how to tease and taunt and please and on the flipside—those hands knew how to amaze and awe…in any number of ways. His smile melted me, was melting me even now…

I sucked in a breath as I realized he was staring at me, his white teeth flashing in a grin.

“You keep looking at me like that, pretty girl…” He closed one hand over mine and increased the rhythm of my strokes. “You might find this night ends up a little different than you planned.”

It startled a laugh out of me.

“Aren’t guys always bragging about how they can go all night?” I asked, surprising myself with the blunt, almost daring question.

“All night?” LeVan switched our positions in a blink, rolling me onto my back and tucking me beneath him. “Is that what you’re demanding of me this time, Thea? You have high expectations.”

He rubbed his cheek against mine. “I have my own stash, but just in case, did you bring more condoms?”

The quicksilver change of pace was enough to throw me, but I suspected that was why he did it, to keep me from getting nervous. “In my travel pouch on the bathroom counter,” I managed. I’d thrown them in with my toiletries, not sure what else to do with them, although now I wished I’d put them on the nightstand.

Wouldn’t that have been obvious?

He eased away and I couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t clamber when he got off the bed. He moved with the same grace that he did everything. I might’ve sulked about it, thought about how miserably unfair it was, but since I got to enjoy that grace—sort of—I decided it wasn’t worth complaining about.

He returned not even a minute later, sliding up on the bed and settling his body next to mine. “Are you sure you’re not too… sore to go again?” he asked one last time.

“I’m a little sore, but in a good way. I can…go again.” I didn’t know to bluntly admit that I wanted to him to take me over and over again, all night long. Thankfully he must’ve seen something in my eyes.

I certainly saw something in his—a response—and it caused his pupils to constrict, then flare and his mouth came crushing down on mine, hungry and hot, the kiss so deep and wet I lost track of where he ended and I began. I was clamoring, begging for more by the time he came between my thighs, slipping two fingers inside me and twisting them.

I didn’t need him toying and teasing with me. I didn’t need him getting me ready.

I wanted him and I whispered that against his mouth, hoping he’d get the point.

He groaned, the sound all but lost against my lips as he smoothed a hand up my thigh. “You keep that up, pretty girl…” He shuddered, the tremor wracking his long body from head to toe and I felt it echoing through me as well. My nipples drew tight and my belly clenched and my pussy started to throb as his cock pulsed against my belly.

His cock.

My pussy.

Words he’d use—words he had used.

It was enough to drive me insane, just thinking about it, then he cupped me in his hand and growled against my lips. He growled. “Fuck, Thea. You’re so wet…I can’t stand it.”

That speed that caught me so off guard appeared again as he shoved up onto his knees. He searched my eyes, piercing all the way to my soul, it felt. His gaze gleamed golden bright in the well-lit room and I was too needy for him to care about the lights or the fact that he could see all of me.

“You haven’t done this before,” he said, the words stark.

“I…what? No.” Shaking my head, I met his gaze. “I told you that.”

“I almost wish you had.” He pressed his lips to my throat, a noise escaping him, something raw and vicious. “This is going to hurt you some, baby. You know that, right? I’ll…fuck, I’ll do my best to make it good for you, but I’ve never been with a virgin before.”

Something in me melted.

It just melted.

Cupping his face in my hands, I stared into his eyes. “If it hurts, it hurts. There’s nobody else I’d rather be with. It’s you, LeVan. It’s just you.”

His hand hooked over the back of my neck and he fit his mouth to mine just as he fit the head of his cock to my pussy. He rocked back and forth over me, slow and easy, not entering, just letting me feel him at first. Then, as that alone threatened to drive me insane, he shifted his position, then moved—on the next glide, he bore into me and I cried out.

He froze, not moving another inch.

“It’s okay,” he rasped against my lips. “I’m stopping…right here. Until you’re ready.”

It was a mix of pain and pleasure mingling through me and I gripped his shoulders, staring up at him in shock. I didn’t know how else to describe what filled me. Shock. Pleasure. Pain. He was inside me—a part of me. Just as I’d wanted him to be. Just as he already was in so many ways.

But not enough…

I could feel him trembling above me, the caged hunger inside him, and an aching emptiness inside me.

Groaning, I arched my hips upward, trying to take him deeper.

“You ready, Thea?” he asked.

“Please…yes, damn it, yes,” I moaned.

He slid deeper, then pulled out.

“No!”

But a split second later, he was back inside me, and deeper this time.

He kept that up, that slow retreat/advance rhythm that eventually had him buried inside me completely and I was whimpering long before he had given me all of him. I thrashed beneath him, the pain still a looming shadow but lost under the pleasure and I chased that brighter edge, uncaring of the sharp bite that went through me.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered but the movement of his body over mine, the ragged bursts of his breath and then…

Not even that mattered.

Everything exploded. Light and sound merged into one and I forgot how to breathe, how to do anything but cry out his name.

Well…maybe not everything.

At some point, I’d said something.

I realized that, embarrassingly, a few minutes later, when he pushed up onto his elbow to peer down at me.

“Did you mean that or was it just because I’m that good?” he teased.

I blushed—he had a way of bringing that out of me.

But I didn’t lie. “I meant it. I’ve…uh…I’ve meant it for a while.”

A pleased smile curled his lips. “I love you, Thea Kent. More than you’re ever going to know.”