“Aye, you can.”

“No!”

“Easy lass,” he purred. He drew back out the small inch he’d gained, wrapped a hand around himself and tried again, slowly. Though she wanted desperately to have him inside her, her body resisted the intrusion. He was too big and she was simply too small. With a barely smothered oath he stopped again, then he was roughly bunching the thick folds of her gown into a wad beneath her pelvis, raising her bottom higher for him, at just such an angle.

Then his full weight was on her again. He curled one powerful arm around her shoulders, the other around her hips.

He rubbed himself back and forth between her legs until she was pushing wildly back against him. At this new angle she felt exposed and vulnerable, but knew it would make it easier for him to enter. When she was crying out incoherently, he pushed himself in slowly, easing inside, his breath hissing from between his teeth. She panted, struggling to accommodate the impaling thickness of him. Minutes inched by as he pushed deeper, taking every tiny bit her body yielded. Just when she was certain he’d seated himself to the hilt, that she had all of him, he pushed a final time with a rough sound, deeper still, and she made helpless mewling noises.

“I’m in you, lass,” his voice was a deep burr against her ear. “I’m part of you now.”

God, he’d been in her since the moment she’d seen him. A larcenous thief, he’d broken and entered her, claiming residence just beneath her skin. How had she lived without this? she wondered. Without this fierce, savage intimacy, without this big intense man inside her?

“I’m going to love you now, slow and sweet, but when you come, I’m going to fuck you the way I need to. The way I’ve been dreaming about since the moment I saw you.”

She whimpered in reply, burning inside, desperate for him to move, to do as he promised. She wanted both: tenderness and wildness, man and animal.

“When you bent back inside your friend’s car that day, Chloe, I wanted to be behind you, just like this. I wanted to slip your skirt up and fill you up with me. I wanted to carry you up to my penthouse and keep you in my bed and never let you go.” He groaned, a soft rough, purring sound. “And, och, when I saw your legs sticking out from beneath my bed—” He broke off, abruptly switching to a language she couldn’t understand, but the exotic dialect in his husky voice wove an erotic spell around her.

He withdrew slowly, filled her again, thrusting in long, slow strokes, nudging deep. The largeness of him stirred nerve endings in places she’d not known existed. She could feel her climax building with each sure thrust, yet the moment she was about to reach it, he withdrew, leaving her aching and nearly sobbing with frustrated desire.

He filled her almost lazily, purring in that strange language. He withdrew, inch by inch, with excruciating slowness, until she was gripping the grass in thick handfuls and ripping it from the ground. Till with each thrust she struggled to arch against him and take more of him, keep him inside her so she could gain her release. For a short time she thought it must be her fault it kept eluding her, or perhaps he was just too big, then she realized he was deliberately withholding it. His big hands on her hips, he was pressing her down when she tried to arch up, preventing her from controlling the pace or taking what she needed.

“Dageus … please!”

“Please what?” he purred against her ear.

“Let me come,” she wailed.

He laughed huskily, his hand sliding between her pelvis and the bunched fabric beneath it, prodding at her folds, exposing her taut nub. He flicked a finger over it and she almost screamed. A heartbeat passed, then two. He flicked lightly again. “Is this what you want?” he said silkily. His touch was expert, tantalizing, torturing, not quite enough, meted out with the sure skill of a man who knew a woman’s body as well as she did.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Do you need me, Chloe?” Another light pass of his finger.

“Yes!”

“Soon,” he purred, “I’m going to taste you here.” He brushed the pad of his thumb over the hard nub.

Chloe slammed the ground with her palms and squeezed her eyes shut. Those simple words had nearly—but not quite, damn it!—pushed her over the sweet edge.

He pressed his lips to her ear and whispered in a sultry, erotic voice, “Do you feel like you can’t breathe without me inside you?”

“Yes,” she sobbed, dimly aware that there was something déjà vu-ish about his words.

“Ah, lass, that’s what I needed to hear. ’Tis yours, then, aught you want from me.” Cupping her face with his large palm he turned her head to the side and slanted his mouth over hers at the same moment he thrust deep and held, grinding his hips in circles against her bottom, pumping into her. As she arched back against him he tightened his arm around her waist and deepened the kiss, his tongue plunging in tempo with his lower body, both driving into her. The tension gripping her body suddenly exploded, flooding her with the most exquisite sensation she’d ever felt. It was different than what had happened on the plane; this was a deeper quake at the very core of her, immensely more intense, and she screamed his name as she came.