St. Vincent glanced up at her. With the slight flush on the crests of his cheeks, his eyes seemed lighter and more startling than usual. The hint of a relaxed but devious smile touched the corners of his mouth. “You’re difficult to awaken,” he said huskily, and his head lowered again, while one of his hands coasted stealthily along her thigh. Shocked, she uttered a hoarse protest and shifted beneath him, but he soothed her with his hands, stroking her legs and hips, resettling her on the mattress. “Lie still. You don’t have to do anything, my love. Let me take care of you. Yes. You can touch me if you…mmm, yes…” He purred as he felt her trembling fingers touch his gleaming hair, the back of his neck, the hard slope of his shoulders.

He moved lower, his hair-roughened legs sliding along the insides of hers, and she realized that his face was just above the triangle of fiery red curls. Flooded with embarrassment, she automatically reached down to cover the private area with her hand.

St. Vincent’s erotic mouth lowered to her hip, and she felt him smile against her tender skin. “You shouldn’t do that,” he whispered. “When you hide something from me, I want it all the more. I’m afraid you’re filling my head with the most lascivious ideas…you’d better take your hand away, sweet, or I might do something really depraved.” As her shaking hand withdrew, he let one fingertip wander into the springy hair, delicately searching the cushiony softness. “That’s right…obey your husband,” he whispered wickedly, stroking farther, deeper, until he had separated the cluster of curls. “Especially in bed. How beautiful you are. Open your legs, my love. I’m going to touch inside you. No, don’t be afraid. Will it help if I kiss you here? Be still for me…”

Evie sobbed as his mouth searched through the triangle of brilliant red hair. His warm, ruthlessly patient tongue found the little peak half concealed beneath the vulnerable hood. His long, agile finger probed the entrance of her body, but he was momentarily dislodged as she jerked in surprise.

Whispering reassurances against her swollen flesh, St. Vincent slid his finger inside her again, deeper this time. “Innocent darling,” came his soft murmur, and his tongue tickled a place so excruciatingly sensitive that she quivered and moaned. At the same time, his finger stroked her inner softness with a languid rhythm. She tried to keep quiet, gritting her teeth together, but little noises kept climbing in her throat. “What do you think would happen,” she heard him ask lazily, “if I kept doing this without stopping…”

Evie’s vision blurred as their gazes met over the quivering plane of her stomach. She knew that her face was contorted and flushed…she felt heat blazing over every inch of her skin. He seemed to expect a reply, and she could hardly force the words from her constricted throat. “I-I don’t know,” she said faintly.

“Let’s try it, shall we?”

She couldn’t reply, could do nothing but watch in astonishment as he pressed his mouth into the patch of red curls. Her head fell back as she felt his tongue dance skillfully across her pulsing flesh. The pounding of her heart increased to hard thumps. She felt a slight burn as he slipped a second finger inside her, stretching tenderly, and then he suckled the taut bud of her sex, licking slowly at first, increasing the pace as she twisted beneath him. He stayed with her, his long fingers working in controlled thrusts, his mouth compelling and demanding, until pleasure washed over her in faster and faster rushes, and suddenly she couldn’t move at all. Arched tightly against his mouth, she cried out and gasped, and cried out again. His tongue gentled but continued its artful play, nursing her through the lingering peaks of sensation, bathing her sex with warm strokes as she began to shudder violently.

A great weariness flooded her, and with it a physical euphoria that made her feel drunk. Unable to control her limbs, she squirmed tremulously beneath him, and offered no resistance as St. Vincent turned her over to her stomach. His hand slipped between her thighs and his fingers entered her once more. The opening to her body was sore and, to her mortification, saturated with moisture. He seemed excited by the wetness, however, breathing against the sensitive nape of her neck in rapid pants. Keeping his fingers inside her, he kissed and nibbled his way down her back.

Evie felt the brush of his sex against her legs…it was hard and engorged, the skin burning hot. She was not surprised by the change in him…Annabelle had told her enough in the past to give her a fair understanding of what happened to a man’s body during the act of love. But Annabelle had said nothing about the hundred other intimacies that made the experience not merely physical, but one to change the very alchemy of her soul.

Crouching over her, St. Vincent teased and fondled until he felt her h*ps rising tentatively against his hand. “I want to be inside you,” he whispered, kissing the side of her neck. “I want to go deep into your body…I’ll be so gentle, love…let me turn you over, and…God, you’re so lovely…” He pressed her on her back and settled between her widespread thighs, his whisper becoming frayed and unsteady. “Touch me, sweetheart…put your hand there…” He sucked in a quick breath as her fingers curved gently around the hard length of his sex. Evie stroked him hesitantly, understanding from the quickening of his breath that the caress gave him pleasure. His eyes closed, the thick lashes trembling slightly against his cheeks, his lips parting from the force of his sharp respirations.

Awkwardly she gripped the heavy shaft and guided it between her thighs. The head of it slipped against the wetness of her sex, and St. Vincent groaned as if in pain. Trying again, Evie positioned him uncertainly. Once in place, he nudged strongly into the vulnerable cove. It burned far more than when he had put his fingers in her, and Evie tensed against the pain. Cradling her body in his arms, St. Vincent moved in a powerful thrust, and another, and then he was all the way inside. She writhed with the impulse to escape the hurtful invasion, but it seemed that each movement only drew him deeper.