A Touch of Notoriety - By Carole Mortimer Page 0,48

gave himself up to the mindless need to thrust deep and hard into that hot delicious cavern.

He was poised, in danger of falling over the brink of that release, until he finally found the strength to lift Beth’s head up and away from him, groaning as he instantly felt the warmth of her breath as a hot caress against his moist and still straining shaft.

‘I have changed my mind, I badly want to be inside you when you come a second time,’ he quickly explained as she looked down at him with hurt and questioning brown eyes. ‘And I need to get protection before I do that,’ he added regretfully, hating even the thought of that necessary layer of latex between himself and Beth.

‘Protection,’ Beth repeated blankly, feeling slightly dazed and more than a little bereft as Raphael moved to sit on the side of the bed, shoulders wide, his back long and muscled as he leant forward to pick up his trousers.

‘Unless...’ He glanced back at her over one of those shoulders. ‘I am clean if you are?’

Beth blinked. ‘I just took a shower...’

‘That is not the sort of clean I meant,’ Raphael cajoled lightly as he turned fully to face her. ‘Oral contraception is not considered enough nowadays, Beth.’

Contraception! Dear Lord, when Raphael had said just now that he was ‘clean’ he meant—he meant—

How naïve could she get? How bloody naïve and—and stupid of her not to have realised Raphael was referring to healthily clean, as in having a doctor’s certified assurance that he was free of sexual disease.

And how much of a mood killer was that!

Beth hadn’t expected hearts and flowers from this man—that certainly would have been naïve of her with a man of Raphael’s age and experience!—but she hadn’t expected him to break off in the middle of the heat of their lovemaking to question her previous sexual habits, either!

It might be necessary nowadays, but it was also damned humiliating. And embarrassing.

She sat back on her heels as she drew in a deep and ragged breath. ‘I’m clean, too, Raphael,’ she assured him dully.

He nodded. ‘You also have been checked in the last three months?’

‘I—’ Beth paused, chewing on her bottom lip for several seconds before answering him. Her own mood had certainly been ruined by this conversation, and she had a feeling that what she was about to say was going to kill all Raphael’s desire, too... ‘I’ve never been checked, Raphael. Because there’s never been a need for me to do so.’ Her chin rose as if in challenge.

It was Raphael’s turn to look at her blankly now, a frown appearing between his eyes as he watched Beth stand before picking up the towel she had discarded earlier, to once again wrap it firmly about her nakedness before fastening it tightly between her breasts.

‘I do not—’ That frown was erased as Raphael’s eyes widened incredulously. ‘Are you trying to tell me you are still a virgin?’

Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘I’m not “trying” to tell you anything, Raphael. I am telling you I’m still a virgin!’

‘A virgin,’ he repeated flatly, his incredulous gaze remaining fixed on her as he ran a hand agitatedly through the shortness of his thick dark hair.

Beth gave an annoyed frown at his reaction. ‘It’s unfashionable, I know,’ she drawled irritably. ‘But it isn’t exactly the contagious disease your tone seems to imply it is!’ He couldn’t have sounded more horrified if she had told him she had the plague!

Raphael stood up abruptly, totally unconcerned with his own nakedness as he moved around the bed to stand just feet away from her. Although Beth couldn’t help noticing that the fierceness of his erection had deflated somewhat, that beautiful shaft jutting out at half-mast rather than erectly flush with his navel.

‘You are a virgin,’ he repeated carefully.

‘Yes.’ Beth knew she sounded defensive, but she just couldn’t help it; Raphael was behaving as if she were a lumbering dinosaur in a world of elegant gazelles!

He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘And yet you were going to—minutes ago you were about to let me—’ His mouth firmed, his jaw tightening as his hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Beth, has no one told you that your virginity is a precious thing, and not to be given lightly?’

Lightly? Raphael believed—he thought she had made love with him out of curiosity, like some sort of childish flexing of her sexual powers?

She might have tried to avoid analysing her feelings for this man