Cradling his face in her hands with a surprisingly strong grip, Jillian forced him to break the kiss. Grimm stared into her eyes, as if to scry the hidden meaning of her gesture. When she tugged his head down to the curve of her breast, he went willingly. He traced a reverent path with his tongue from peak to peak, tugging gently with his teeth before closing his lips on her nipple.

Jillian cried out in abandon and submission, a breathless sound of capitulation to her own desire. She thrust herself so firmly against his hips that the warm hollow between her thighs snugly fitted him with the sensuous finesse of a velvet glove. The barriers between them incensed him, and ripping his kilt from his waist, he eased her gown aside.

Stop! His mind screamed. She’s virgin! Not like this!

Jillian moaned and rubbed against him.

“Stop,” he whispered hoarsely.

Jillian’s eyes slitted open. “Not a chance in hell,” she said smugly, a smile curving her lower lip.

Her words ripped through him like a heated iron, raising his blood from molten to boiling. He could feel the beast inside him move, yawning with wicked wakefulness.

The Berserker? Now? There was no blood anywhere … yet. What would happen when there was?

“Touch me, Grimm. Here.” Jillian placed his hand on her breast and drew his head to hers. He groaned and shifted, rubbing in slow, erotic circles against her open thighs. Dimly he realized that the Berserker was rousing into full awareness, but it was somehow different—not violent, but aroused, violently hard, and violently hungry for every taste of Jillian it could have.

He would have laid her back upon the table, but there was no longer a table, so instead he lowered them both into a chair. He shifted so her legs dangled over its arms, and she sat facing him, her hands on his shoulders, her womanhood bared above him. She needed no encouragement to press herself against him, teasing him with the brush of her peaked nipples across his chest. Jillian dropped her head back, baring the slender arch of her neck, and Grimm froze a long moment, drinking in the vision of his lovely Jillian straddling his lap, her narrow waist curving into those lush hips. Although he’d managed to slide her gown from her shoulders, the fabric pooled at her waist, and she was a goddess rising from a sea of silk.

“Christ, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen!”

Jillian’s head whipped back, and she stared at him. Her look of disbelief quickly became a look of simple pleasure, then an expression of mischievous sensuality. “When I was thirteen,” she said, running her fingers down the arrogant curve of his jaw, “I watched you with a maid and I vowed to myself that one day I would do everything to you that she did. Every kiss.” She dropped her mouth to his nipple. Her tongue flicked out as she tasted his skin. “Every touch”—she slipped her hand down his abdomen to his hard shaft—“and every taste.”

Grimm groaned and grabbed her hand, preventing her fingers from curling around him. If her lovely hand so much as locked around him one time, he would lose control and be inside her in a heartbeat. Calling upon every ounce of his legendary discipline, he held his body away. He refused to hurt her like that. A confession of his own spilled from his lips. “From the day you began to mature, you drove me crazy. I couldn’t close my eyes at night without wanting you beneath me. Without wanting to be beside you, inside you. Jillian St. Clair, I hope you’re as tough as you like to believe you are, because you’re going to need every ounce of strength you possess for me tonight.” He kissed her, silencing any reply she might have made.

She melted into his kiss until he pulled back. He regarded her tenderly. “And Jillian,” he said softly, “I feel it too. I always did.”

His words flung open her heart, and the smile she gave him was dazzling. “I knew it!” she breathed.

As his hands slid over her heated skin, Jillian abandoned herself to the sensation. When he palmed her between her thighs, she cried out softly and her body bucked against his hand. “More, Grimm. Give me more,” she whispered.

His eyes narrowed as he watched her. Pleasure mingled with amazement and desire on her expressive features. He knew he was large, both in width and length, and she needed to be prepared. When she began to move wildly against his hand, he could deny himself no longer. He positioned her above him. “You’re in control this way, Jillian. It will hurt you, but you’re in control. If it hurts too much, tell me,” he said fiercely.

“It’s all right, Grimm. I know it will hurt at first, but Kaley told me that if the man is a skilled lover, he will make me feel something more incredible than I’ve ever felt.”