Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,101

wave of nerves that now assailed her. It was fine, it was fine - she could do this. She was a grown woman; she had seen it all before. Well - maybe not technically.

Slowly she opened her eyes to see that Vaughn had also dropped back to sit on his heels, his eyes now level with hers. As she focused, she became aware of two dark eyes regarding her in confusion, a hint of laughter around their edges and she quickly slapped her hands over her face in embarrassment.

“Hey...” he said gently, removing her hands so that he could look at her. “Why are you hiding? Look at me Elise – please.”

Reluctantly she lifted her gaze and met his eyes. “Sorry...I....Oh God, this is so embarrassing.”

“What? What is so embarrassing?”

The silence built as she tried to formulate the words.

“You.... “She said eventually, “You’re not wearing any underwear and....I....I wasn’t expecting that. I’ve never known a man not to wear underwear before – I kinda freaked out for a second – sorry. I feel like a right idiot; it’s not like I’ve never seen it before......”

She was rambling nervously, no doubt making things even worse. She kept her gaze lowered. She didn’t want to see the look in his eyes - the point when he realised that she really was incredibly naive and that all of this was going to be too much hard work. She also needed time to process the visual images that her brain was receiving; he was beautiful all over, and she was embarrassingly aware of how much she paled in comparison.

Lightly, Vaughn chuckled, “Hey...Now you know why I told you removing my trousers was an ‘interesting choice’. You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about. If anything I should be sorry – I could have warned you but I figured it would be much more enjoyable to let you find out. Sorry.”

Suddenly realising that he had wanted to see her react in just this way all along, she quickly recovered her composure, all nerves hastily disappearing as irritation took their place. The devious bastard!

“You......” she threatened, lunging towards him and aiming her trademark light punch at his arm. Having seen this move countless times before however, Vaughn pre-empted it and grabbed her hand before she could make contact.

“You really have to quit trying to hit me, you know!” he said, wry amusement written all over his stunning face. “I know I should probably have warned you but to see your expression...it was just too tempting.”

“Vaughn Granger! I can’t believe that you spend so much time torturing me – you must get real pleasure from it considering that’s all you ever seem to do!”

His dark eyes bored into hers, “Oh Elise, believe me – if I was torturing you, you would definitely know about it.” He paused to let the meaning sink in. “And I wouldn’t be the only one getting pleasure.”

The unmistakable significance in his words turned her insides to mush and immediately the tension in the room built again leaving Elise to respond in the only way that she could.

Taking advantage of the element of surprise, she landed the punch to his arm this time and he rolled back onto the bed, momentarily caught off-balance.

“You will pay for that.” He warned before grabbing her wrists and pulling her over on top of him. “Now, where were we?” he asked and without even waiting for her to respond, he grabbed her tightly to him and proceeded to kiss her as if his life depended on it.

The atmosphere in the room was now heavily charged and this time they both knew that there were no more games, no more hiding and they each moaned as the kiss deepened, hovering on the edge of control.

Vaughn began to run his hands down her back and over her backside where he gently squeezed before running back up and underneath her dress, taking advantage of the back section that was still laying open. As Elise was pinned tightly to him, she was little more than a passenger but she didn’t think that she had the strength to move anyway and just relaxed, revelling in the sensations as he began to slip his hands further underneath her dress, upwards, reaching around the side and the front, brushing along the swell of her breasts.

She sucked in a sharp breath as his fingers grazed close to her nipples and Vaughn abruptly ripped his mouth from hers, gently pushing her off him and helping her to stand