One Night: Exotic Fantasies: One Night in Paradise / Pirate Tycoon, Forbidden Baby / Prince Nadir's Secret Heir

“Because I’m … average.”

He chuckled, his hands freezing on the belt buckle. “Damn your mother for making you believe that garbage.” He took a step toward her and put his hand on her cheek, his thumb sliding gently across her face. “You are exquisite. You have such perfect skin. Smooth. Soft. And your body.” He put his other hand on her waist. “I thought of you last night. Of this. Of how beautiful you would look.”

Reflexively she pulled back slightly.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m not … What was Hannah? A size two? I’m … I’m not a size two.”

“Beauty isn’t a size. I don’t care what the number on the tag of your dresses says. I don’t care what your sister looked like, or what your mother thought you should look like. I know what I see. You have the kind of curves other women envy.” He reached around and caught the tab on her summer dress with his thumb and forefinger and tugged it down partway.

Her hands shook, her body trembling inside and out. She felt like she was back beneath the spotlight again. Just waiting to have all of her flaws put out there for everyone to ridicule.

“Wait,” she said.

His hands stilled. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Please. Can were turn the lights off?”

There was only one lamp on. It wasn’t terribly bright in the room, but she still felt exposed already, with the zipper barely open across the top part of her back. She felt awkward. Unexceptional. Especially faced with all of Zack’s perfection. He didn’t have an ounce of spare flesh, every muscle perfectly defined as though he were carved from granite.

He put his hands on her hips and pulled her to him. She could feel his erection again, hard and hot against her. “You are perfect.” He moved his hands around to her back, to her bottom, cupping her. She gasped. She’d never been this intimate with a man. She wondered if she should be more or less nervous that it was Zack she was finally taking the step with.

No one had seen her naked, not since she was in diapers. She didn’t even change in public locker rooms. She would hide in bathroom stalls, needing the coverage of four walls and a door. And Zack wanted.

“Please.”

“Let me see you first.” Her eyes met his and she drew in an unsteady breath. “It’s me, Clara.”

“I know,” she said.

“When you’re ready.”

She took a breath and turned away from him, catching the zipper and tugging it down the rest of the way, letting her dress fall to the floor. Zack moved behind her, his arm curving around her, his palm pressed flat against her stomach.

He swept her hair to the side and pressed a kiss to her neck. “As I said. Perfection.”

He turned her slowly, keeping his arms around her, holding her against him, his hard body acting as a shield. Cocooned in his arms, she didn’t feel quite so naked.

She looked at his eyes, so familiar, yet different at the same time. Zack’s eyes, filled with a kind of raw lust she’d never had directed at her before. Not by him, not by any man. The enormity of the moment hit her then. She was about to be with Zack. About to make love to him.

She started shaking then, her hands, her entire body, from the inside out. He wrapped his arms around her and held her against him. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m okay.”

“Why are you shaking?” She couldn’t answer. “Be honest,” he said.

“Because it’s you.”

He tilted his head to the side and kissed her. She closed her eyes determined to do nothing more than luxuriate in the moment. The heat of his mouth, the slide of his tongue. She was going to believe, in this moment, that she could be the woman he wanted.

He reached around and unhooked her bra. He pulled back from her for a moment so he could remove it the rest of the way, leaving her exposed to his hungry gaze. “I said you were perfection, but I didn’t know just how true that was.”

A hot flush spread over her entire body, heating her. Embarrassment battling with desire.

He cupped her breasts, sliding his thumbs over her nipples. And that was when desire won. She shook with pleasure, her stomach tightening, her internal muscles pulsing, her body ready, demanding, more of him. Demanding climax. She was close to finding it, with just the touch of his hands. Maybe it was because in her mind she had found pleasure with him so many times, in reality, it was effortless to get close to the peak.

A hoarse sound caught in her throat and she felt herself go over the edge. She gripped his forearms, her fingernails digging into his flesh. As soon as the numbing pleasure washed away, embarrassment crashed in on her. She couldn’t believe she’d come so quickly. Telling in so many ways. She hadn’t realized just how impossible it would be to keep secrets when they were like this, hadn’t realized just how intimate it would be.

“I …” She looked at his face, and his expression stole the words from her lips. A look of pure masculine satisfaction, combined with total arousal. The embarrassment dissolved. She reached forward and put her hands on his belt buckle, undoing it and pulling his belt from the loops.

He pulled her to him again, kissing her like a starving man. She reached between them and undid the closure on his pants, pushing them down his hips, along with his underwear. She felt his bare flesh against her for the first time, so impossibly hot and hard.

She wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed. She wasn’t sure why, only that she wanted to. That she wanted to touch him, taste him, everywhere. To make him feel half of what he’d made her feel.

So this would be about him, a little bit. But mostly, she was just going to enjoy having the man she’d dreamed of having for so long, completely available to her. For tonight, he was hers.

He put his hand on her thigh and pulled her leg up over his hip. She held on to his shoulders and he curled his fingers around her other thigh, lifting her off the ground and walking her to the bed, up the step, laying her down on the soft mattress, his body over hers, making her feel small. Feminine. Beautiful.

He dipped his head and slid the tip of his tongue around the edge of one of her nipples. She arched into him and he sucked the tip into his mouth, his eyes never leaving hers.

“You’re so sensitive there,” he said, his voice sounding different, strained. “I love it.”

“I like it, too,” she said. It was the first time she’d ever really liked her body.

He tugged her panties down her thighs and she helped kick them off of the bed. “I stand by what I said earlier. Perfection.” He kissed her ribs, just beneath her breasts, down to her belly button. “Designed to take pleasure. For me to give you pleasure. Exquisite.” He moved lower, his lips teasing the tender skin. He parted her thighs and slid his tongue over her clitoris. White heat shot through her body, a deep, intense pleasure tightening her muscles. She gripped the sheets, trying to hold herself to the bed.

He slid one finger inside her and she thought she might explode. Then another finger joined the first and a slight stinging sensation cut through the pleasure. She held her breath for a moment and waited for it to fade. It would. She knew it would. And all the better if he took care of it this way.

He worked his fingers in and out of her body, each time, the discomfort lessened. And he didn’t seem to notice. Which was fine by her.

“I can’t wait anymore,” he said, his voice rough, broken.

“I don’t think I can wait, either.”

He moved up so that the head of his erection was testing the entrance to her body, his arms bracketing hers, his biceps trembling slightly. He was as undone as she was. It was such a wonderful, incredible feeling. It made her truly believe that she was beautiful.

He pushed into her partway then pulled out completely, swearing sharply.

“What?” she asked, hoping it had nothing to do with her virginity. Because she couldn’t stop. Not now.

“Condoms,” he said, his hands unsteady as he opened the drawer to the bedside table. He opened the box and pulled out a packet, getting the condom out and rolling it on to his length quickly.

“Oh. Good.” She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it. She should have. But there were so many things filling her head. So many emotions. She’d almost forgotten the most important thing.

Then he was back, poised over her, ready to enter her.

He slid back in as far as he’d already been, then pressed in the rest of the way. It was tight, but it wasn’t painful, the evidence of her virginity likely dealt with earlier.