Marriage of Convenience
: Prologue

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my god!

When I imagined my first time having sex with a man, this was not at all what I’d conjured in my mind. Growing up sheltered in a strict conservative family, my only experiences with romance came from fairy tales. Sex was taboo, and something I’d learned about by eavesdropping on girls in high school talking about it.

Not that I didn’t understand sensuality. I blossomed early, starting with my breasts and then my hips. My mind hadn’t changed during puberty, yet boys, and even men, treated my eleven-year-old self differently. My parents punished me for growing a woman’s body at such a young age, making me wear loose clothes and limiting my access to anyone or anything outside of our church.

Even so, now nineteen, I wasn’t a stranger to arousal. Mostly I turned myself on with thoughts of handsome men desperately in love with me ravishing my body, since the boys at Catholic school only touched the girls they would someday marry. The summer before college, I had a flirtation with the young man who ran the concession stand at the park near my house. He touched my breasts under my shirt, and I touched the hard length in his pants. At the time, it had been titillating, and I’d felt more alive than ever before, but it hadn’t been anything as incredible as the stories I heard from other women or read in the Cosmo I hid under my bed.

In college, I thought I’d have my chance to discover love and sex with Glen Walker. He was the epitome of the all-star handsome jock: athletic, strong, and blond with a mischievous, yet charming smile. He’d been the Prince Charming to my Cinderella, except when he wasn’t. I’d been willing to give myself to him, but when he decided that we’d get married after college, he said we’d have to wait to have sex. Like me, he came from a conservative religious family.

It didn’t stop him from having sex, with my roommate no less. It always struck me as strange when spiritual men didn’t abide by the wait-until-marriage-for-sex rule themselves, but were insistent that the women they married were virgins. When Glen decided I’d make a perfect, subservient wife, he’d kiss me, but that was it.

I’d been so needy emotionally, I’d agreed to all of his demands and conditions until one day I realized I was living under the same stifling, controlling rules I’d fought so hard to leave at home. On top of that had been Glen’s anger. Something about how it would seethe and fester scared me. What would happen when it exploded? So I ended it and did what I had to do to get an internship in New York with Raven Industries.

Chase Raven scared me too, but not in the same way Glen had. What scared me was how much I wanted him, and the things my body felt when, with a swipe of his hand, he sent a vase flying to make room for me on his hall table with desperate desire that I’d never seen in a man. Lust, I’d seen, but this was like he was going to fall apart if he didn’t touch me. It was exactly how I felt. It was exactly what I’d read about and always longed to feel.

He pulled my shirt off, pushing my bra aside and then he sucked my nipple into his mouth, and holy hell, I was on fire. His fingers pinched my other nipple as he bit and sucked my aching breast, and I swore to God, I felt it right between my thighs. My hips rocked as a torturous need built in my core.

He pushed my skirt up and then yanked my panties down, as his lips followed course, his tongue running a trail over my belly and lower.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my god!

“Are you wet?” he asked hoarsely, as he rubbed his finger through my folds. My body jerked at his touch. Every nerve ending on my skin was firing, and I felt like at any moment I was going to blast off. I loved it and at the same time, I was scared to death. There was no doubt that Chase had tons of experience in sex, and while I appreciated being on the receiving end of it, I didn’t know how to reciprocate. I wanted to touch him too, but my senses were on overload and all I could do was try to breathe and feel.

“Fuck, you’re dripping.”

Was that bad? His tone suggested that he liked it. But maybe it was gross.

And then his mouth was on me there, and I was probably going to hyperventilate and pass out. His tongue was hot and soft on my sensitive core. My hips were rocking, wanting something more.

“Oh my God.” I gripped his head to hold him to me.

“You like that, Sara?” His deep voice reverberated against my center, sending waves of pleasure through my body.

“Yes, oh please…” I was panting as tension grew and grew. I was going to snap or maybe explode.

“Do you need to come?”

I needed him to stop talking and make whatever was happening reach its pinnacle. “Yes. More, Chase… please more.”

He chuckled, and I wondered if what I said was wrong. Cosmo often had articles about letting your man know what you wanted in bed, but maybe Chase preferred someone who was quiet. I bit my lip, just in case.

Then I knew I’d done something wrong when he pulled back and stood. I was getting ready to apologize for whatever I’d done, when he’d undid his pants, shoving them along with his boxers down. His hard length sprung free, and I had to gasp at the size of it. It was long and thick, pink along the length, and a darker plum on the tip. It looked soft to the touch, and I hoped it was when he put it inside me because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to manage it.

His cool gray eyes watched me as I looked at him. “Like what you see, Sara?”

I swallowed hard. I’d touched a man’s dick before, but I’d never seen one. And what I’d felt hadn’t seemed as large as the one Chase was now aiming at my burning core.

He sheathed himself in a condom, then rubbed the tip through my folds and the sensation sent a flash fire through me. I let out a long moan. He brushed his tip over my aching nub, making my hips buck again.

“You’re going to be fucking fantastic,” he groaned. “You’re so tied up. You need me bad, don’t you baby?”

“Yes.” Oh God, just do it, I wanted to say, and at the same time, I was afraid. Would it hurt? Would it feel as good as every sensation running through my body seemed to indicate it would? When we were done, would Chase be as careless with my feelings as everyone else I’d ever let myself be vulnerable with had?

His tip pressed against me, opening me. I sucked in a breath, readying myself.

“Do you like slow or fast, Sara?” His voice was hoarse, the muscles on his jaw were tight, as if he was trying to control his own urges.

How the heck did I know?

Was this like a Band-Aid? Do it fast or would slow give me time to adjust to him?

He pushed in a little further, and I could feel myself stretching to accommodate him.

“Mmm… you’re tight. I like that.” He withdrew, and it was only at the loss of sensation that I realized how much I needed him to fill me.

“Don’t stop,” I begged him.

He laughed, making me feel silly.

He pushed in again, his eyes watching me as he did. His fingers gripped my hips, and he adjusted his stance.

“Ready baby?”

I nodded.

He withdrew again and then surged his hips forward until they were flush against mine. A sharp stab of pain had me gasping.

“Ah fuck!” He growled as his dark gray eyes flashed with shock and glared down at me. “You’re a virgin?”