Page 64 of A Story of Love

His chest rumbled with approval, and he stroked into her with suggestive thrusts.

Lori did something she wanted to do since the very first time she’d seen Severn and carded her fingers into his jet-black over-long hair. Although their hair was alike in color, the texture of his was far silkier and finer than her own coarse strands.

He purred when she grazed his scalp with her fingernails. “Yes, please,” he muttered against her parted lips before resuming his kissing.

She lost herself in a blizzard of sensations, reveling in the erotic caresses of his hands on her waist, hips, and back, drowning in the heat and hardness of his chest and luxuriating in the way his big body completely surrounded hers, dominating her with his size and strength.

And then—just as suddenly as he’d fallen on her—he put her at arm’s length, his expression raw and aroused. “Damnation!”

“What?” she asked, the word sounding as woozy as she felt.

“Regardless of what you’ve heard about me, I don’t deflower virgins.”

Lori frowned and yanked her hands from his hair, not caring when she snagged some strands and made him wince. “I never claimed to be a virgin.”

One of his eyebrows shot up.

She couldn’t help laughing at his skeptical expression, although it was a laugh borne of annoyance rather than humor. “Do you really think I would lie about something like that just so you would keep touching me?”

He opened his mouth, but Lori scowled both at him and her stupidly heating face, and said, “Let me go!” But when she tried to push off his lap, his hands encircled her waist easily holding her in place. Not that she struggled terribly hard.

“You didn’t even know how to kiss properly that first time,” he said.

“Just because I’d never properly”—she sneered as she spat the word—“k-kissed a man before doesn’t mean I am an innocent,” she retorted, stung and mortified at the thought that he’d noticed her lack of skill.

“Of course not. I beg your pardon for saying such a stupid thing.” His pitying look was almost worse than his disbelief. “I know not all men care for such intimacies.” And then he hesitated, opened his mouth, but then closed it.

Again, Lori tried to back away, and again he held her in place. She settled for crossing her arms and jabbing her elbows into his chest. Lovely. Now she would have sore elbows to go along with her bruised feelings. “What?” she demanded, annoyed when he continued to stare at her. “Just say whatever it is you want to say, my lord.”

“Were you forced?”

“No, I was not. So you can take that careful, pitying look off your face—as if you are anxious that I might shatter like glass if you do or say something wrong. I’ve had a lover, my lord—only one, unlike some people”—he snorted, but she ignored him. “But it wasn’t”—Lori broke off and chewed the inside of her cheek, just what words was she looking for? How could she explain the paltriness of her sexual experience without sounding even more pathetic than she already did?

After a moment, Lori gave up looking for careful words and simply said, “The man I—I fucked”—she gave him a mulish look, daring him to comment on her vulgar language— “was a selfish clod and kissing wasn’t the only thing that did not hold any interest for him.” Her face flamed, but she plunged onward. “Let me just say that my experience didn’t make me want to rush out and repeat it.”

“Did he not give you an orgasm?”

Yet again, Lori was rendered speechless by the raw, direct words he used.

Severn mistook her startled silence for a lack of comprehension and said, “Women can experience sexual climaxes just the same as—”

Lori shoved at his massive chest, but he didn’t budge so much as an inch. “I know that you dolt!”

His lips quivered slightly, making her want to hit him again. “I beg your pardon. I had no inten—”

“What he did or did not do is none of your concern. Perhaps I should interrogate you about your sexual history.”

“I will answer anything you like.”

“I thought gentlemen did not kiss and tell?”

He smiled. “I never said I’d give you a list of names.”

Jealousy at the thought of him having a list—and how long it likely was—stabbed at her, twisting a knife in her chest. “What a lovely offer. But I believe I will decline your generous offer. Any discussion of your amours would be a long one—surely lasting well into the New Year—and I have more important matters in my life.”

Rather than be offended, he grinned. “Maybe not that long.” His smile slid away. “But I don’t want to talk about past lovers right now. I don’t want to talk about anything.” His hands closed on her hips, and he brought her closer, the action spreading her legs wider, until her sex was pressed against something impossible to mistake. “I’ve been hard for you since the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

“My lord exaggerates.”