As if he knew, he shifted and his hard thigh pressed into her vulnerable flesh. She gasped and her neck weakened as he bent over her. She dropped her head back and he followed, taking her body weight on his thigh. His nose grazed her chin, then her collarbone. His lips hovered between her breasts. Slowly he brought her up again and leaned his mouth close enough to tease her parted lips.
He was a stranger, she reminded herself, but her lips felt swollen and she desperately wanted the pressure of his mouth—
A clap of thunder exploded in the sky.
Jolted, she found herself smothered against his chest, his hard arms tight around her, one hand shielding the back of her head, fingers digging in with tension. Her mask skewed, cutting into her temple. Beneath her cheekbone, his heart slammed with power.
The claps and squeals and whistles continued and his arms relaxed enough she could fix her mask and look up. Fireworks painted the starscape in flowers and streaks of red and blue and green that dissolved into sparkles of silver and palms of gold.
As people moved into their space, he steered her away from the crowd, into a corner around a partition where they were hidden in an alcove. She set her hands on the concrete rampart and leaned back into the living wall he made behind her, eyes dazzled by the bursts of color reflected on the water as the fireworks continued to explode before and above them. The band switched to an orchestrated classic that matched the explosions, filling her with awe and visceral excitement.
Already fixed in the moment, they became one being, she and this stranger, their bodies pressed tight as they watched the pyrotechnics. His hands moved over her, absently at first, shaping her to his front. She responded, encouraging his touch by rubbing her buttocks into the proof that she could still arouse a man. When his hands cupped her breasts, bold and knowledgeable, she linked her own hands behind his neck, arching into his touch, reveling in the pressure of his palms and the thumbing of her nipples.
Dropping her head to the side, she turned her face and lifted her mouth, inviting his kiss with parted lips. He bent without hesitation, nothing tentative in the way he captured her mouth. Thorough and unhurried, he continued to caress her as he took sumptuous possession of her lips.
She ran her fingers into his hair, greeting his tongue with her own, inhibition melted by pure desire. Distantly she was aware this was out of character, but she wasn’t Tiffany. Not the Tiffany of today and not the old one, either. Tonight she was the woman she wished she could have been. She was every woman. Pure woman.
Tonight she had no man to think about but this one. She didn’t care that she didn’t know him. She and Paulie hadn’t known each other, either, not really, not the way a husband and wife should. Not in the biblical sense. She hadn’t slept with him or any man.
But she wanted to. She had ached for years to experience sexual intimacy.
A strong male hand stroked down her abdomen and skimmed off to the top of her thigh, making her mewl in disappointment. Then he fingered beneath the slit of her skirt and she had to pull away from his kiss to draw in a gasp as he followed bare skin into the sensitive flesh at the top of her leg.
She stilled.
His arm across her torso tensed and the hand on her breast hesitated briefly before he continued caressing her, lightly and persuasively, both hands teasing her with the promise of continued pleasure.
A moan of craving left her and she shuddered in acceptance.
A streak of light shot skyward and his touch moved into her center, exploring satin and lace that were damp with anticipation. She couldn’t help covering his hand with her own, pinning his touch where she ached for pressure.
He seemed to know what she needed more than she did. As he fondled her, her eyes drifted closed and her head fell back to rest against his shoulder. She bit her lip, ripples of delight dancing through her. Was she really doing this? Rubbing her behind into his erection, not caring they were in public, that she didn’t know him, that this was all about her pleasure?
He started to draw his hand away and she turned her face to the side, a cry of disappointment escaping her, but he was only hooking her panties down her hip and returning to trace and part and seek and find.
She released a moan of pure joy.
He caught her chin in his other hand and tilted her face up for his kiss while his touch on her mound became deliberate and intimate and determined.
She let it happen. She held very still and kissed him back with naked passion, aware of the light breeze caressing where she was exposed to the shadows of the rampart and the velvety night air. She let him stroke her into delirious intensity, her awareness dimmed at the edges so she was focused on the pleasure he was delivering, plucking and teasing and bringing her closer.
Over the water, the biggest rockets exploded like thunder, sending shock waves through her that made her quiver in stunned reaction. The reverberations echoed inside her, sparking where he stroked, sending a wild release upward and out to the ends of her limbs. He pinched her nipple, and like a flashpoint, she was blind to everything but white light and astonishing pleasure. Glorious waves of joy crashed in, submerging her in tumultuous ripples that he seemed to control, pressing one after another through her with the rub of his fingertip.
As the fireworks dimmed to puffs of smoke surrounding a barge in the bay, her climax receded, leaving her a puddle of lassitude in his steely arms.
He adjusted her panties and started to turn her. She obeyed the command in his hands, wanting to kiss him, to thank him—
Without a word, he drew her across the balcony to a set of shallow stairs leading to the beach. She wobbled, partly because her legs were wet noodles, partly because her heels couldn’t find solid purchase in the sand. He scooped her up, carrying her along with easy strength into a cabana encircled by heavy curtains.
Inside he set her on her feet and steadied her with one hand while he raked the cloth door closed behind them. Without a word, he scraped the mask off his face and yanked his shirt open, peeling it off his shoulders and throwing it aside.
She couldn’t see his face, not really. It was barely a shade above pitch-black in here, but the glow of satin skin increased as he toed off his shoes and opened his fly, stripping without ceremony.
Sweet Lord, what a man. He stepped closer and she couldn’t help reaching out to test the flat muscles of his abdomen, learning them by feel more than sight. Hot and damp, he reacted to her touch with a tense of muscles and a muffled curse, making her smile in the dark, pleased she had an effect on him.
Her hand bumped into his. He was applying a condom.
Curious, she lightly explored his latex-covered shape. As she did, the pressure of her mask shifted.
She knocked his touch away before she thought about what she was doing.
Stillness came over him.
She tried to penetrate the dark and read his face—which was what he was likely doing. He probably thought she was having second thoughts.
Hell, no. She might never have another chance to lose her virginity. Not like this, so caught up in desire she was shaking with it.
“Leave it on,” she whispered.
His hands lowered to her shoulders, one skimming down the edge of her bodice under her arm. She knew what he was looking for.
“That, too.” Catching his hand away from her zipper, she drew him toward the bed.
In the same way he’d taken her over on the dance floor, he took the lead. A tip of his weight, a knee in the bed and she was lifted and placed half under him in one smooth motion. Her startled exhale clouded between them as a hand sought beneath her skirt, catching at her panties then pausing.