But she was making that incredibly hard. She was so goddamn tight. So lush and wet. An inferno of lust and desire. She was everything goddesses were made of, and he was merely a man. A man unable to contain his need for her.

With a groan, Gabriel thrust further inside her, watching as Celia’s eyes widened with shock and pleasure. He wasn’t even in halfway, and already her inner walls were clenching around his girth as if in protest of his size. Yes, he was large, but it wasn’t as though she were a virgin and incapable of taking all of him.

Do not think of the men she’s been with.

“Fuck, you are so tight, pet. I feel you squeezing my cock with every breath you take. I feel your heat burning me. Your deliciously wet quim sucking me in deeper,” he whispered, leaning forward and nipping at her neck. “And I already know just how splendid you taste. I’m still licking you off my lips. Savoring you and making plans to take even more.”

Her shocked gasp spurred Gabriel on. Especially because he detected both a tiny hint of fear and helpless need in the sounds she made.

“Open up and let me in all the way, Celia. Open for me. Open, for God’s sake, before I go insane… before I hurt you.” Gabriel’s hips snapped forward, burying himself a bit farther.

Celia cried out in a low, desperate plea.

“Does that mean you want more, sugarplum?” His gaze bored into hers in the mirror’s reflection. “Or do you want me to stop? If it’s mercy you want, then say so now while I have the willpower to stop.”

Celia was so damned gorgeous. She might have been an untamed lioness, her pupils so dark they swallowed up the irises of her eyes. An expression suspiciously similar to pain flashed in those shadowy depths and Gabriel hesitated.

Perhaps he was hurting her. Perhaps he’d hurt her before during that spanking, and stubborn girl that she was, she kept it from him.

Fuck. This was a horrible idea. Why did I think she was ready for this? For me? And how could I have ever thought she wanted me as badly as I want her? I’m still a bastard when it comes straight down to it. A bastard with no right to touch her.

But before he could withdraw, Celia reached up with one hand, burying her fingers in the shaggy waves of his hair. Curving her arm around the back of his neck, she kept him from moving away.

“Don’t stop, Gabriel. I want this. I want you. No matter what came before us, I want you.” Her whisper was fierce, daring him to take her. “You can wipe away everything, can’t you? I want you to. I want you to erase all that came before...”

Gabriel sucked in a breath. The thought of fucking the memory of the men before him out of her memories had his cock swelling to impossible proportions.