“You’re a what?” he repeated.
Despite the shock of her confession, while his mind yelled at him to abort, his dick grew impossibly harder. It liked the sound of being the only one to thrust inside Niamh Farren.
He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to breathe through the lust. “You’re twenty-six years old,” he argued.
He felt her stunning, warm, sweetly lush body tense beneath his. “Virgins come in all ages and sizes, Kiyo.”
Kiyo watched the fascinating gold that had spread through her eyes as he’d fondled her clit disappear back to aquamarine.
He tried not to look anywhere but there. Not at her swollen mouth or her luscious fucking breasts or the long legs he was dying to have wrapped around him while he fucked her.
There would be no fucking of a virgin version of Niamh.
“I didn’t think it would be a deal breaker,” she huffed, indignant.
Kiyo gave her an incredulous look, cursed under his breath, and forced himself to roll off her. He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to stare out the window while he tried to will his erection out of existence.
It was the worst case of blue balls he’d ever had.
Niamh was a virgin.
How the hell did that happen? How had a woman that appealing, powerful, confident, and beautiful not had sex? Ever?
And she wanted Kiyo to be her first?
Equal measures of male pride and emotional terror overwhelmed him. If she’d waited this long, then it was because she was waiting for it to be right. With the right person. With someone who would be gentle and adore her and take care of her.
Why the hell would she give a gift like that to Kiyo?
He didn’t deserve it.
He’d only hurt her.
And Niamh was the last person in this universe or any other that he wanted to hurt.
However, Kiyo didn’t say any of that.
Instead the first stupid words out of his mouth were said in a mocking, sexually frustrated tone: “I can’t believe you’re still a virgin.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath.
But she didn’t answer.
“Niamh?”
Suddenly his senses alerted him that he couldn’t smell her as strongly as he had seconds before.
“No.” Kiyo glanced over his shoulder.
The bed was empty.
“No.” Fury and guilt and resentment and worry collided inside him as he hurried out of the room and into the sitting room. No sign of Niamh. Rushing out onto the deck, he didn’t find her there either. And even though he searched the perimeter of the lodge, he knew he wouldn’t find her there.
Niamh had traveled.
All because he was an insensitive asshole who didn’t deserve to touch one hair on her head.
Kiyo was aware of a sharp ache as he turned to look up at the sky.
Niamh couldn’t travel too far at a time, which meant she’d probably travel far enough to find transport and then head back to the city. Panic and worry set his teeth on edge. What if the pack or Astra or any one of Niamh’s enemies got to her before Kiyo could?
Sweat dampened his body at the thought.
What had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been!
He’d walked out onto the porch, saw her crying, should have been a decent man who offered her comfort. Instead he’d stared at her like she was a juicy fucking steak. It wasn’t just the nonexistent nightshirt that bared those magnificent legs. It was the way she looked at him that broke his self-control.
Niamh looked at him like he made her world better.
No one had ever looked at him like that.
And he’d wanted her so much, he damned the consequences.
When she cottoned on to the fact that he was waiting for her to make the first move, however, he should have let her go. He didn’t.
He could blame his lack of control on the coming full moon, but the truth was, Kiyo hadn’t been able to think past anything but the desire to be inside her. To look into her eyes as he felt her come around him.
Her confession was a splash of cold reality. A reminder of who she was and who he was and …
He bowed his head, the sting of self-reproach burning worse than he remembered.
How could he speak to her like that? How he could take his own sexual frustration out on her and—
Kiyo threw back his head and howled.
His self-condemnation pierced the night sky.
He couldn’t race after her because he was about to change, but he’d make his way as close to the city as he could so that come morning, no matter if there was still one more night of the full moon ahead of him, Kiyo would be in the city. He was more aware of Niamh’s scent than he’d ever been of one single person.
And he’d find her.
If she wanted to kill him when he finally did catch up with her … well, he couldn’t say he would blame her.