‘Tell me you’re not in the grip of second-thought syndrome,’ he murmured, stalling her attempts to cover herself with his duvet.
Lucy’s burst of self-confidence was fading fast. Her husband was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on and, having spent far too long fantasising about him, she was even more bowled over at his beauty in the flesh. No fantasy could do him justice. He was a man in the very peak of his prime. No part of his impressive body was untoned. His stomach was washboard-flat, his shoulders broad and muscled. His sheer perfection not only made her teeth chatter with nerves but also made her very, very much aware of her lack of experience.
He would have slept with countless women. You could tell that just from the way he was so comfortable in his own skin. He was a man who didn’t mind women feasting their eyes on him, who probably enjoyed it.
She didn’t imagine that his teeth were chattering with nerves at the thought of hopping into the sack with her.
She had to fight off the urge to leap off the bed and make a sprint for her clothes on the ground.
‘No, of course I’m not,’ she said, dry-mouthed. If he’d been short-tempered or impatient at her sudden shyness, she might have found sufficient anger to rally her mental forces and shrug off her attack of nerves. But his voice was low and curiously gentle and it reached something deep inside her that she hadn’t revealed in the long months of their marriage.
Something vulnerable and hesitant. Gone was the hard veneer she had manufactured to protect herself.
‘Then why the sudden reticence?’ He traced the circle of her breast, running his finger in a spiralling motion until he was outlining her luscious pink nipple. He watched it stiffen and lowered his head to flick his tongue over the toughened nub.
Lucy took a dragging breath and stifled a groan.
‘I... I just never thought that we would find ourselves in this situation,’ she confessed, expecting the barriers that had existed between them to shoot back into place but, when he replied, his voice was pensive.
‘Nor did I, not that I didn’t want it.’
‘I’m afraid,’ she laughed nervously. ‘The package without clothes might not be exactly what you’d expected.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I’m not the most voluptuous woman on the planet,’ she said lightly. ‘Too flat-chested. When I was at school, and all the other girls were developing breasts and hips, I just developed height and everything else stayed the same. I barely need to wear a bra. Men like women with big boobs. I know that.’
‘You know that, do you?’ He teased her throbbing nipple with his tongue and felt her melt under his touch.
‘Yes. I do. Why else do you think those men’s mags have always been so popular?’
‘I can’t say I’ve ever given it a passing thought. I’ve never read those things. What’s the point of looking at a picture of a woman when you could be lying in bed with one?’ Dio told her truthfully. He hadn’t actually banked on doing a whole lot of talking in this arrangement. He had wanted the body she had deprived him of. And since when had sex involved long, soul-searching conversations?
Certainly they never had with him.
In fact, before Lucy, women had been pleasant interludes in a hectic, stressful work life. He had never become emotionally attached—had never encouraged any woman to think that he was, had never given any of that a passing thought. Meaningful conversations had been thin on the ground.
Against all odds, considering she should have been the last woman on earth he would want to have any sort of relationship with, Lucy had been the one woman to lodge underneath his skin. He had never delved deep into asking himself why that was. He had assumed that it was because she was also the one woman who hadn’t made bedding him a priority.
Which—and why wouldn’t this have been a natural conclusion?—was why he wanted her; why he had been unable to treat the marriage as the sham it had turned out to be and carry on playing the field. It had irritated the hell out of him that she had not given a damn one way or another whether he fooled around or not during their marriage and that, in turn, had been a source of slow-burning anger and dissatisfaction.
Now that she was within reach and he could see that burr under his skin finally being dislodged, he thought that conversation was the least he could do.
If she wanted to talk, then why not?
He couldn’t, however, understand the self-denigration. Where had that come from? She had led a pampered, privileged life, the only child of wealthy parents. True, her father had been no better than a common criminal, but that didn’t nullify all the advantages she had had.
She was, literally, the golden girl. Seeing her in action over the past year or more had really shown him just how easy she found those social graces; just how at home she was moving in the circles which he had been denied, thanks to her father.
He couldn’t care less because he had made it to the top but he couldn’t seriously credit that the self-confidence she had always oozed was anything but bone-deep.
He wondered where she was going with this and reluctantly was curious to find out.
He kissed the corner of her mouth and she squirmed and manoeuvred her body so that they were facing one another.
‘Have you any idea how tough this is for me?’ Dio asked her roughly and Lucy blushed.
‘What?’
‘Feeling your sexy little body pressed up against me. No, I take that back. I think you have a very good idea of how tough this is for me because you can feel my desire against your skin. That says it all.’
‘You’re...you’re very big,’ Lucy whispered, and Dio grinned.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘I mean...have you ever found that a problem?’
Dio frowned. ‘What are you talking about? Why would I have found that a problem? A woman’s body is engineered to accommodate a man of my size.’
‘There’s something I feel you ought to know,’ she whispered, heart beating fast. ‘I’m not as experienced as you probably think I am.’
‘I never thought you were the sort of woman to sleep around.’
‘I’m not. In fact, actually, I haven’t slept around at all,’ she admitted awkwardly and Dio edged back from her.
‘Are you telling me that you’ve never made love to a man before?’
‘It’s not that big a deal,’ she returned defiantly.
Dio remained silent for so long that she wondered whether he was trying to concoct an excuse to withdraw from the situation which he had been so keen to engineer.
‘How come?’
‘I don’t feel comfortable having this conversation. I just thought that...that it was something you should know before...well...’ She laughed nervously. ‘When you’re disappointed, then you’ll understand why.’
Dio sat up.
His wife was a virgin. Incomprehensible. How had she managed to withstand the advances from men, looking the way that she did? Why had she? He raked his fingers through his hair then swung his legs over the side of the bed.
Lucy took advantage of the moment to yank the duvet over her.
This was a nightmare. What on earth had possessed her? Dio was a man of experience, a guy who had married her as something convenient that came as part of the package deal. He wasn’t into virgins and he certainly wouldn’t be into holding her hand while she lost her virginity.
She