“Ellie.” He frowned as he sat back, repeated the name as if tasting it. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“Why, thanks!”
His lips pursed at her sarcasm, an imperious eyebrow raised in disapproval. “How could your parents see the glorious baby you must have been and give you such a nondescript name? Ellie? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“My parents actually gave me a pretty lofty name. I extracted a nickname from it as everyone thinks it makes me sound like a character from a medieval play.”
“I take back my condemnation of your parents if they gave you a distinguished name. What is it?”
“Eliana.”
His eyes suddenly grew soft. “Eliana. God has answered.”
He understood the meaning of her name. He was the first one to ever do so.
He took her hand, pressed his lips in her palm. “Now, that is you. You must have been their every prayer answered. As you are the answer to my every fantasy.”
Her blood blazed as it rushed to her cheeks. “You’re poetic, too? Isn’t it enough you’re...all that?” She made an encompassing gesture, then rushed to splay a hand over his chest as he surged toward her. “We aren’t anywhere near introduced yet, and if you touch and kiss me again I—I...”
“You’ll catch fire again.”
She turned her head against the couch. “I can’t deal with the way I did the first time, so give me a chance to...”
A gentle finger on her chin brought her eyes back to his. “I thought I was imagining it before, but you are shy.”
“Pretty laughable, I know, after...after...”
“You went up in flames in my arms?” he completed for her again. “I find your shyness no such thing. But I felt it even through your mind-blowing response.” She hid her face in his chest, felt his chuckle rev below her cheek. “Don’t be even shier now. You affected me the same way, minus the shyness part. Meu Deus...the way you surrendered to me, as if you couldn’t help yourself, as if I’d overwhelmed you.”
“No ‘as if’ about it. You more than overwhelmed me.” She burrowed deeper into him, arousal mingling with relief as he crushed her harder in his embrace.
So this was what desire was all about. This was what had been missing all her life. Him. She must have felt him out there, have instinctively known that accepting anything less, with anyone else, would be shortchanging herself.
Out loud, she whispered, “So this is the kind of crazy attraction that drives people to commit insanities, huh?”
His beautiful lips curved. “Delightful insanities.”
She couldn’t have put it better. “Yes.”
“But even in my insanity, some fail-safe mechanism kicked in and pulled me back from possessing you without protection.”
; She gaped at him. That hadn’t even crossed her mind!
Then the enormity of the whole situation hit her. Hard.
He smoothed a hand over her flaming cheek. “I only did so for you. Another unprecedented thing for me.”
“You mean you usually don’t consider your...partner?” she croaked, reeling with belated shock at her own folly.
“I usually consider my partner and myself. This time I only considered you. This was so out of the blue, progressed with such blinding speed...at the last moment I thought you might not even realize what you were risking. So even though it was beyond me to stop pleasuring you, I had to protect you.”
“Oh...” She found no words to express what she was feeling. This was...huge. He could have just taken his pleasure, but he hadn’t. He’d put her safety before his own carnal needs. Her hands squeezed his arm in gratitude, loving the sheer power her fingers felt beneath them. “Thank you.”
He gathered her tighter to him and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Anything for you, minha beleza, anything at all.” He drew away to look down at her. “But now that I’m not about to have a heart attack with arousal, I will procure all precautions, and props.”
Props? The word ricocheted in her imagination as he leveled the full force of his gaze on her.