‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’ he gasps. ‘You’ve never come?’

I shake my head under his mouth, not feeling in the slightest bit embarrassed. I’m too distracted by the lush heaviness weighing down between my thighs, getting heavier with each gentle thrust of his hips. I’ve never cl**axed when I’ve slept with a man. Each encounter disgusted me, made me wonder what my mother found so hard to resist. I couldn’t see what pleasure could come of it – I never realised it could be like this. I feel like all rationality is being stripped away.

‘Oh, f**king hell!’ His face pulls away from mine, his h*ps jerking forward, a little less controlled. ‘You’ve never had an orgasm?’

‘No!’ I grapple at his shoulders, my head shaking despairingly. The pain has completely gone now. Oh God, it’s gone and in its place is something else – something . . . ‘Miller!’

‘Oh, you sweet thing.’ His drives are controlled again, but slightly firmer – more precise and consistent. ‘Livy, you’ve just made me a very happy man.’

My nails dig in again. I can’t help it. I’m being bombarded with hot sparks stabbing at my epicentre. ‘Oh!’

He drops his face to mine and kisses me softly. I’m not soft, though. I’m hungry, and my frantic mouth action is proof of it. ‘Slow down,’ he mumbles, sounding desperate, trying to guide me by kissing me purposely slow.

I’m turning light-headed; my eyes are rolling and my hands are now grasping his mass of dark waves. But I don’t slow down. I can’t. I feel a sense of urgency as the pressure builds and builds with every wonderful push of his hips.

‘Here it comes.’ He breaks away from my mouth and re-braces himself on his arms, pumping firmly, leaving me with no mouth to devour and no hair to knot my fingers in. ‘How does it feel, Livy? Tell me.’ His jaw is tense, his eyes suddenly deadly serious.

‘Good!’

‘How good?’ He pleasures me with more and more and more.

‘Too good!’

‘Are you ready to come?’

‘I don’t know!’ Is that what this is? I feel out of control, almost out of my mind.

‘Oh, sweet girl, you’ve not lived.’ His pace picks up and so does the pressure down below. My hands brace on his forearms and push, taking me further up the bed, and my head starts to urgently shake from side to side.

‘Oh God!’ I yelp. ‘Oh shit!’

‘That’s it, Livy!’ It’s becoming frantic – our breathing, the shouting, the sweating and tensing and bracing. But he still maintains that steady, easy pace. ‘Let it go.’

I have no idea what happens. The room starts spinning, a nuclear bomb goes off between my thighs and I scream. I can’t stop it. My arms flop behind my head and Miller lowers himself on top of me, barking his cl**ax into my hair, panting and slipping over my wet skin. The throb, him inside me and me around him is comforting and so is his fitful breathing in my ear.

‘Thank you,’ I gasp, not even feeling stupid for showing my appreciation. He’s the one who keeps reminding me of my manners and what he’s just done to me deserves some gratitude. Bloody hell, that was past even my highest expectations.

‘No, thank you,’ he breathes, biting at my ear. ‘The pleasure was all mine.’

‘Trust me, it was mine,’ I insist, smiling when I feel him grinning against my ear. I’m desperate to see it, so I turn my face into him, finding the most amazing sight – a full-blown, boyish grin, making his eyes sparkle like crazy and revealing a dimple that I’ve never noticed before. What I’m seeing right now is a million miles away from the coffee-hating, clipped, refined, powerful man who has utterly captivated me. ‘You look cute when you grin.’

It disappears from his face immediately, a heavy frown replacing it. ‘Cute?’

That probably wasn’t the best choice of a word for such a manly man, but he did look cute. Not now, because he’s not grinning any more, but that tip of his lips, the revealing of that dimple and the sparkling of his blue eyes showed me a completely different man, a man who I can tell doesn’t appear very often. ‘You don’t smile very much,’ I say, feeling a little brave. ‘You should make the effort. You look less intimidating when you smile.’

‘So I’ve gone from being cute to being intimidating?’ He shifts onto his forearms and brings his face to mine, nose to nose, forehead to forehead.

I nod my head, making his nod, too. ‘You’re a little intimidating.’

‘Or maybe you’re too sweet.’

‘No, you’re too intimidating,’ I affirm, feeling him throbbing inside me. All edginess has left me, leaving me feeling calm and serene. It’s a lovely sensation, and he made it.

‘We’ll agree to disagree.’ He’s back to intimidating, but my serenity is still intact. It’ll take a lot to pull me from this relaxed state of mind.

Easing out of me, he looks down between my thighs and pulls the condom off. ‘Consider yourself broken in, Livy.’

My face screws up at his lack of tact. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He shifts down the bed and nestles between my thighs, looking up at me. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Okay,’ I answer hesitantly. ‘Why?’

‘I’m just checking if you need a break. Say the word and I’ll stop, okay?’ He rests his lips over the apex of my thighs, encouraging my receding orgasm to resurrect. I start twitching. I need more recovery time.

‘Okay,’ I whisper, dropping my head back to the pillow and gazing up to the high ceiling. I don’t think I’d ever tell him to stop. ‘Shit!’ I blurt when I feel something hot and wet meet the tip of my buzzing clit. My head flies up, my stomach muscles tense and my hands fist in the sheets by my side. My outburst is ignored and he sits up, taking my leg and bending and lifting it so he can kiss the sole of my foot. I want to throw my head back, curse and shout, but I’m immobilised by those damn clear eyes as he watches me struggling to cope with his tongue running up my ankle and onto my lower leg. ‘That feels nice,’ I confess as he inches his way upward until he finds my tummy and starts trailing his lips across my navel and then back down the other side.

‘Would you like me to continue?’

‘Yes,’ I wheeze, my leg twitching, my muscles firming up.

‘Then I shall.’ He nibbles the inside of my thigh. ‘Soon, my mouth will be here,’ he says quietly, pushing a finger into me, just a little. ‘Would you like that?’

I nod my answer and he circles, enticing a long, low moan from me. ‘Oh, God,’ I breathe, pulling at the covers, yanking one side up and letting it float down over my face.

He almost laughs as he pulls the sheets from my face, but my eyes remain firmly shut, even when I feel him moving up the bed until he’s settled half on me, his finger still submerged. ‘Open.’

My head shakes adamantly, my brain focused only on the sensation of his finger inside me. He’s not moving, yet I’m still pulsing incessantly around him, but then I feel his lips on the side of my mouth and my face turns towards the source of the heat, opening up to him, my thighs spreading wider, invitingly. I hum. It’s low and broken, a clear sign of my pleasure, but I want him to know. I want him to hear how I feel.