TIGHTENING HER ARMS around his neck, Riya nudged closer to Nathan, the warmth of his body a cocoon she didn’t want to leave. As though sensing her reluctance, he didn’t put her down. Not when he lingered outside the sitting area, not when he walked through it into the bedroom.
Finally he sank down in the armchair and settled her in his lap.
How had she never learned how good it felt to be held like this, to be cherished as if she was precious? How many more things had she missed tucked away in her own world?
She had erected a fence around her heart, around herself, and she had missed out on so many things. While other girls had been going on first dates and experiencing first kisses, she had been studying for a place at the university, giving Robert a hand when she could, managing her mother’s moods.
She had bound herself so tight that a little truth from the past had splintered through her. Nothing had really changed. And yet everything had.
It felt as if someone had stuck a pin in her side to jolt her awake from a slumbering state. She sucked in a breath and opened her eyes. His gaze clashed with hers, his long fingers splayed out over her bare arm.
An infinitesimal tension spun into life around them. His other hand tipped her chin up. “Why this dress? Why drinking? Why this route to show your anger, your hurt?”
And just like that, he shot straight to the heart of the matter. “I don’t remember when I had decided that no man would ever hurt me like my father’s abandonment did, when I decided I would live my life in this frozen state. I wanted to prove to myself that she didn’t ruin me forever with her lies.”
“And?”
She tucked her head into his shoulder and sighed. “It’s not that simple, is it? A lifetime of sticking to the safe side, suppressing any small urge that could be deemed unsafe, that could risk pain, it’s a hard habit to shake.” She gave a laugh, tinged with sadness. “I was dancing and I had a little to drink, but I realized it wasn’t that simple to change myself inside. Like flipping on a switch. I can’t suddenly do something I’ve trained myself not to do.”
“No, it’s not simple.” There was a roughness to his voice, an edge, a desperate sense of being tightly leashed. As if he was forcing himself to laugh instead of...something else.
Her hand clasped in his. Long fingers with blunt nails and hers, slender and pink tipped, coiled around his.
“It takes years to defeat that kind of conditioning, years to conquer that fear. Doesn’t take much to trigger it back either.” He sounded strained, almost resigned. He squeezed her arm and Riya caught the sigh that rose to her lips.
How did he understand her so well?
“How about you start with small steps, butterfly?”
She smiled and nodded, the scent of his cologne drifting over her. And the huge chasm that she couldn’t cross toward living her life suddenly didn’t feel so daunting.
In the shifting confusion of her own emotions and thoughts, he was constant, her awareness of him sharp and unwavering.
Nathan, who had brought so much upheaval into her life, felt like an anchor. All he lived for was the thrill, the fun, the moment. Who better to show her what she’d been missing? Who better to show her what it meant to be daring, to be wild, to grab life by the horns and shake it? Who better to start on her path to living than a man who would never affect her in any other way?
With Nathan, there would be no expectations, no disappointments. When it was time to leave, he would, and this fact had nothing to do with her. Therein lay her safety net.
A sharp hunger bursting inside her, Riya slid her fingers toward the nape of his neck. Pressed her mouth to the pulse flickering on his throat. “Is a kiss a small enough step, Nate?”
Instantly he stiffened beneath her. His fingers landed on her jaw, pushed her face away from his neck in a gentle but firm grip. Desire was a relentless peal in her, as if her pulse had moved just from some points to all over her body.
Fear and safety were taboo. Daring and living were her words of the moment.
She clasped his wrist with her hand and laid kisses against the inside of it. His palm was rough and warm, and as she pressed her lips again to the center of it, she felt the rightness of it.
“Tonight’s going to be your lucky night,” she said, her throat working to get the words out. She had to brazen it out, didn’t want him to know how huge this was for her.
A sharp grip at the nape of her neck caused her to look at him. “My lucky night?” he said.
He looked as if his face were carved from pure stone, his blue eyes molten with desire. There was no frost, no ice tonight.
Nathan was all fire and passion, and she wanted that fire; she wanted to lose herself in him. “Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep, butterfly.”
Straightening in his lap, she pushed into his touch, determined to have this. “It’s okay if you’re not up to it, Nate. No one wants to be a pity f—”
His fingers tightened their grip in her hair. His breath landed on her mouth, until there was nothing to do but breathe the same air as him. “You’re doing this for the wrong reasons, Riya.”
Feeling gloriously alive, she bent and kissed a spot just beside his mouth. The bristle on his jaw rubbed against her mouth. Heat spread everywhere, incinerating a need she had never known. So she did it again. And again. Like a cat rubbing herself against her favorite surface. Until her lips, her cheeks, her chin stung in the most delicious way, scraping against the roughness of his jaw. Until he made a feral sound that in turn scraped against her very senses.
And her desire went from a risk, a dare, to need for him. Only for Nathan.
Finally her mouth landed at the corner of his luscious mouth. And she spoke the words against his lips, felt a shudder vibrate in his lean frame. Reveled that she could do this to him.
He was like a fortress of leashed desire around her.
“I’m doing this for the only reason that it should be done for.”
“And that is?” he whispered back against her mouth, and Riya ached. Ached to feel that mouth everywhere, ached to lose herself.
“That it feels so good, Nate.” She moved, to get closer to him, and felt the hard evidence of his arousal against her thigh. “From the minute you stepped into my life, this...it’s like a fever.” She pulled his hand and pressed it to her chest. “And in all the lies and confusion, this is the one thing that’s unwavering. Make love to me, Nate. I want to do all the things that I told myself I didn’t feel.”
She didn’t wait for him to deny her. She just jumped off the ledge, hoping he would catch her. Kissed him with everything she had in her.
* * *
When her lush mouth touched his, it was all Nathan could do to pull in a breath. There was no hesitation, no doubt in the way she pressed little kisses over the edge of his lips, over his chin, over his lips, her breath coming in little pants all around him, her scent filling his nose, her fingers scraping against his scalp, holding him in place for her pleasure.
No one had ever quite so thoroughly seduced him. No one had even come close.
She was an explosion. She was a revelation. And under her honest, raw hunger he came undone. No amount of honor could compete with the liquid longing coursing through him, could puncture the desire to return her kiss, to give her what she wanted. And to allow himself what he had been craving.
When she stroked his lower lip with her tongue, tentative but still powerfully maddening, he was done being a passive participant.
Clasping her jaw, he sucked her lower lip with his teeth and she shuddered. Gasped into his mouth.
And they were sucking, nipping, their teeth scraping, their tongues licking with a searing hunger that brought the world down to only them. Pasts and futures were forgotten, only the present mattered.
Panting, he moved away from the temptation of her mouth. Sank his hands into her hair and tugged at the lustrous locks until she was looking at him.
Golden skin flushed, pink mouth swollen, beautiful brown eyes dazed with desire and daring, she looked at him without blinking, without hiding. Pushed into his touch. She was inexperienced; her kisses told him as much. But the sensuality of the woman, the way she responded, so hot and fiery. This was a battle he’d already lost.
But this was a defeat he welcomed.
When she thought of him, he wanted her to do so with a smile and a sigh of pleasure.
He leaned forward and dug his teeth into her lower lip. A gasp fell from her mouth and he blew softly over the trembling lip. “This means nothing to me except that I want you with a madness that knows no reason.” He could leave no doubt in her mind. And if she wanted to stop, he was going to head straight for a cold shower. But he couldn’t take a chance on risking her emotions. “I’ll leave when it’s time, butterfly. And if you want to stop this, do it now. We’ll forget about it. You can take the bed and I’ll take the couch.”
Her gaze flickered to him, a shadow in it. And then she smiled. Her gorgeous, perfect, dazzling smile. “Falling in love, risking my emotions, it’s never going to be easy for me. And with you...I could never fall for you. We’re really the worst kind of person for each other, aren’t we? But that’s what makes this easy, that makes one night with you everything I want it to be.”
Her honesty stung him, but he slashed the feeling away.
One night to satisfy this craving, desperate need for each other. That was all they could afford of each other.
Pulling her arm to his mouth, he kissed her wrist, licked the vein flickering there. Kissed a path upward, all the glorious skin warm to his touch.
Her soft tremble, her gasp as he reached the crook of her neck swept him away hard. “Shall I shock you and tell you all the different ways I’ve imagined having you?”
He licked the pulse there, sucked on her skin. She shivered, sank her hands into his hair. Shuddered, writhed, but he didn’t let go. He continued until she was panting, moving restlessly in his arms, rubbing her breasts against his chest. He was rock hard, her volatile response tightening his own need, fraying his control.
He fisted his hands, fighting the urge to push her dress up, to drag her on top of him and thrust up into her wet heat.
Sweat beaded on his brow. And that couldn’t be borne. He would enjoy this; he would drown himself in the scent of her, but his control couldn’t falter.
It was all about release, all about his body. As long as he kept it to that, as long as he didn’t think about what this might have meant to her, to him in a different world, beyond tonight, it was good.
Laughing, she tugged her hair away from her shoulder and looked down at herself. A blush spread upward from her neck as she ran a pink-tipped finger over the blemish. A soft pant fell from her mouth, and it was the most erotic sound he’d ever heard.
There was innocence in it and there was a raw hunger in it. For more. He had been right. She had repressed so many things, and that flicker of undisguised hunger now, of playful curiosity, turned him inside out.
Her gaze moved to his mouth and stayed there. “It stings.”
Picking her up, he mumbled his apology into her mouth.
She kissed him with a searing hunger that rocked through him. Scraped her teeth against his mouth. Stroked it with her tongue when he groaned.
“Only in the best way,” she whispered when he let her breathe. “I want more.”
Laying her down on the huge bed, Nathan shucked his jacket and loosened his tie.
Raising an eyebrow, he let his gaze travel all over her. “Unzip, Riya.”
Coming to a kneeling position, she reached for the zipper on her dress. Her fingers trembled around it. But she slowly tugged it down.
His mouth dried as the dress came loose around her chest. He was dying to see those lush breasts, those long legs, every inch of her. Just as the fabric flapped down, she held it to herself, her cheeks flushing. “Can we turn off the light, Nathan?”
“Nope,” he said so loudly that she smiled. “Those prim dress shirts and trousers have been driving me mad.” When she still hesitated, he stilled his hand on his shirt. “You can’t see me either, then.”
Something flickered in her gaze. Lifting her chin, she straightened to her knees and pulled her dress down. Over her chest, over her midriff. Leaned back onto her elbows and kicked it from around her feet.
Nathan felt his heart pump harder and harder, and for once, something else took precedence over the malfunctioning organ. His breath balled in his throat.
Her slender shoulders bare, her lush, rounded breasts thrust upward, the shadow of her brown nipples visible through her strapless bra, the concave dip and rise of her stomach, the flare of her hips, the V between her thighs hinting at dark curls...
If his heart stopped right then, Nathan would have had no fear, no regrets.
And the lack of fear, the lack of any other emotion except his feral hunger to possess the woman in front of him, was a sensation he reveled in.
Because it made him feel alive as nothing else could.
* * *
Riya had never understood what the fuss was about sex, how it drove people to the most unwise decisions.
Until now.
She’d never understood how completely it unraveled you, this desire, how completely it exposed every part of a person, how it connected one so deeply with another.
They hadn’t even undressed completely, but the look in Nathan’s eyes—so demanding and all-consuming, the possessive challenge that lingered there—would have sent her running to the hills.
He would demand complete surrender, of her body, her mind, even her very soul. And beneath the flicker of fear, there was also a freedom in giving herself over.
The soft fabric of her bra chafed against her nipples and her thong, which had been a necessary evil for this dress, suddenly felt intrusive, making her sharply aware of the ache between her legs, the incessant peal of need there every time his gaze traveled over her.
She was wet there and she was hot all over, and together, the sensation continued to build.
His gaze never leaving her, Nathan unbuttoned his white dress shirt, pushed it off.
All that bronzed, glinting skin, the whorls of copper chest hair, the black string hanging with a pendant over his pectoral muscles, the jut of his shoulders, the flat male nipples so unlike her own, the washboard plane of his stomach, the line of hair that went down below his navel. He was so utterly male.
And all of it was hers tonight to do with as she wished.
With sure movements, he unzipped his trousers and kicked them away. Then his boxers.
Riya licked her lips at the sight of him completely naked. Her heart thudded incessantly, her sex pulsing.
His guttural groan surrounded them, and she raised her gaze to him.
He moved closer, in touching distance. Riya raised her hand, eager to touch that hardness, eager to learn everything about him. “You won’t touch me, is that clear?”
Frowning, she tilted her head up. “Why not?”
He didn’t answer.
Pushing her back against the bed, he climbed into the bed and on top of her in such a predatory, masculine way that all of her possessive claims, all of her risky resolve fled.
Leaving nothing but gloriously alive sensations toppling against her, drowning her, demanding her utter enslavement.
He was heavy over her, he was hard against her, he was hot all over and he didn’t let her move. His arms cradled her upper body, raising her to him, locking her so tight against him. She was aching to touch him, dying to feel his muscles harden under her fingers...
But he locked her, leaving her no escape but to feel every assault of his fingers, his mouth, his tongue, his breath.
He kissed her until there was no breath left in her. He played with her hair...
Her toes curled into the sheets as he dragged his open mouth down her neck and to the valley between her breasts.
Need knotted at her nipples as he cupped her breasts reverently, kneaded them, lifted them to his mouth. She bit her lip, scrunched the silky sheets with her fingers, bucked against his grip. “Nate, please let me touch you, let me move or—”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?” she cried.
He rose above her like a dark god, intent on pulling her under, every inch of his face carved from stone. His icy blue eyes wide, he was panting too. And Riya realized what tremendous control he was exercising, how tightly reined in his desire was. How, even being in the moment, he wasn’t truly with her.
But before the thought could take root, he licked her nipple and she lost all coherence again.
“Do you want me to stop, butterfly?” he whispered hotly against her breast, his tongue laving the skin around her eager nipple.
“No,” she said so loudly that the word reverberated in the silence.
His fingers tweaked her other breast, pulled at her nipple, while his mouth closed over the first one. Riya kicked her legs against the bed, and still he didn’t let her move.
She gasped under the attack, she sobbed, she twisted and turned as he suckled, laved with his tongue. And a frantic pulsing began at her sex.
“I wondered,” he whispered against the valley between her breasts, taking a shuddering, reverent breath.
All she could manage between catching her breaths was to say “What?”
“Your nipples,” he said, rolling off her and lying on his side. His muscular leg covered her legs, his arm holding her tight against him. He dipped his mouth and suckled the swollen tip again and she arched her spine as sensations rippled and splintered through her.
The heat built intolerably between her legs and she rubbed her thighs restlessly.
His large hands stole between them, denying the friction she needed, and Riya was ready to beg. “I wondered what color they would be.” This against the underside of her breasts.
“I guessed it right.” This against the planes of her stomach. “Like chocolate.”
He looked up then, and Riya looked down, her skin slick with sweat. She saw his gaze move over her face, her mouth and her breasts again, and felt a shyness come over her.
This was so intimate, intrusively so.
This moment when something else arced beneath the simmering chemistry between them was everything she had avoided her entire life. Here, lying naked below him, all of her exposed to his eyes, was the biggest risk she had ever taken.
For a startling second, she wondered what she had started. Wondered how she would face him tomorrow, how she would...
Moving up, he devoured her mouth in a kiss that left no breath in her. Pressed another one at her temple. “You okay, butterfly?”
Riya nodded, not at all surprised at how easily he read her. She had never met anyone who had understood her so well. Grabbing his forearm, she pressed a kiss to his biceps, flicked her tongue over the birthmark that had fascinated her so.
“You’re still thinking. And I won’t tolerate that, Riya,” he said, traveling down her body again, trailing wet heat over her skin. His mouth hovered over the waistband of her thong, his teeth dragging against her skin. His breath sounded harsh. “You’re driving me insane and I very much want to do the same to you,” he said, sounding almost angry.
She could do nothing but sink her fingers into his hair.
Moan loudly as he tugged the string of her thong tight against her clitoris. And pulled it, up and down.
She bucked off the bed as his fingers explored.
Jerked as he learned her with clever, lingering strokes.
Dug her nails into his shoulders as he tweaked the spot aching for his touch. Dragged her nails over his back as he eased a finger and then two into her wet heat.
The softness of her sex felt amplified around the intrusive weight of his fingers. Every inch of her contracted and pulsed at that spot, and Riya sobbed.
“Nathan!” she said, the invasion of his fingers, the relentless rub of the pad of his thumb, the building pressure, driving her out of her own skin.
She laughed or cried, she didn’t know which, her body, her heart careening out of control.
“Look at you!” His hot mouth pressed against her midriff, and her muscles clenched. “You’re the wildest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He moved his head between her thighs. The stroke of his tongue against the tight bud was like touching a spark to a building storm. “Let go, butterfly,” he said, and without warning, sucked at the slick bundle of nerves.
Screaming and thrashing, Riya shattered around his fingers in a dizzying whirl of such exquisite sensations that she thought she would fall apart. Sobbing, she tried to bring her knees together, but with his fingers still inside her, he clasped her against him. Continued the relentless pressure of his fingers so that the small tremors continued until she was nothing but a mass of sensation and pleasure.
As the tremors slowed down, she opened her eyes, saw the stark need, the possessive pride written in his face. He’d watched her explode and liked it. Took her mouth in a possessive kiss that knocked the remaining breath out of her lungs. “You’re a screamer, Riya...”
Fighting the shyness that he had witnessed it with such blatant thoroughness, Riya pressed her mouth to his chest. If she stopped to think, she would stop altogether.
And she didn’t want to stop. She wanted all of him.
She moved her fingers down his hard stomach and down farther. Clasped the hard length of him. Flicked the soft head with her thumb, heard the guttural groan that fell from his mouth. His chest was hollow with his breath held.
The most powerful feeling exploded inside Riya. He was so hard in her palm, and he was big. She felt the sharp need begin in her all over again as she stroked him.
He moaned so loud that she did it harder.
He jerked his hips into her hands, and whispered the filthiest words she had ever heard. Gasping at the renewed urgency in her own body, she moved her fist up and down.
He dug his teeth into her shoulder and she gripped him harder, going hot all over. Sweat beaded his skin, every muscle so tight that she wondered if he would break into a thousand shards.
Moving down, she kissed her way down his body, licking, tasting, reveling in the shudders that racked through him. When she reached his shaft, his fingers tightened in her hair, staying her. Looking up, she jerked her head. “Let go, Nathan.”
His eyes were the darkest she had seen yet, his nostrils flaring, his control nearly shredded. “Tonight’s about you, Riya.”
“No, tonight’s about what I want to do,” she said boldly. Leaving him no choice, she licked down the long, hard length of him. He cursed.
She closed her mouth over him and sucked experimentally, a wet heat gathering at her own sex. She felt no shame, no shyness, only the gloriously alive feeling coursed through her. Licking the tip, she looked up at him.
And before she could blink, she was on her back and he was lodged between her thighs. “Enough,” he said with such vehemence that Riya stared at him.
She watched increasingly boldly as he sheathed himself. She hadn’t even given thought to protection. Coloring, she pushed up and kissed the hollow beneath his pectoral, tasted the salt of his skin, breathed in his musky scent.
The head of his shaft rubbed against her entrance. Feeling restless again, Riya met his gaze and held it, wanting all of him in that moment.
He pushed slowly at first, letting her accommodate to his length. Long fingers left deep grooves on her hips, holding her still, the way he wanted her. Kissing her mouth again, he dragged her closer, tilted her hips so she was right for him. And then swept in with one hard thrust.
Her head thrown back, Riya gasped at the sharp sting and the heavy intrusion, every inch of her stiffening. Her hands clasped his shoulders, the bones protruding out of them pressing against her palms.
His head went back in a recoil, the corded length of his neck stiff. Thick veins pulsed in his neck, his face clenched tight in satisfaction. His gaze was unfocused; then he blinked, as though fighting for control. In that moment, he looked savage, like a roaring volcano of emotions and needs, the hard shell he encased himself in falling away by the heat between them.
“Riya, you’ll be the death of me,” he said in such a grave tone that her focus shifted from the already receding pain.
But instead of being scared, Riya felt like a victor. Because this Nathan who wore his needs and passions in his eyes was the true Nathan.
* * *
Hiding his face in her neck, Nathan breathed hard. “You’re a virgin.” Of course she was. Damn, damn, damn.
He heard the accusatory, sinking tone of his words, but for the life of him, couldn’t do anything about it.
Couldn’t think about anything except the need surging through him, demanding release. She was like a fist around him, smooth and tight, and he was going to burst at the seams if he didn’t move. For a man who abhorred having sex merely for the release it provided, this need to plunge into her until she was all he felt...he was drowning in it.
What had he done?
He was truly gone if it had taken him until now for that little fact to filter though.
Somehow he found an ounce of his shredded self-control, and raised his head.
Her pinched look slowly fading, Riya looked up at him. Beads of sweat glistened over her upper lip, and he fisted his hands to stop touching her.
“Do you want me to stop? You should have warned me, slowed me—”
“Would you have done it differently if I had?” the minx demanded. She sounded husky, a ragged edge to her words that seared him. “Would it have stung less? Was there a pain-free way of deflowering that you would have employed?”
Damn it, he had no wish to hurt her. In any way. “No.”
This was getting too complicated. He was breaking each and every one of his rules with her. “But I would have resisted you better.” Lies, all lies.
He saw the hurt in her eyes before she hid it away. “Then I’m glad I didn’t.”
“Damn it, Riya, this is not what—”
“It’s just my hymen, Nate, not my heart. Except it played the gatekeeper to my heart until now.”
“If you waited this long, it means you wanted it to be special.”
“I waited this long because I was like Sleeping Beauty, except I wasn’t sleeping but just functioning. Isn’t it better I’m doing it with someone I know than a stranger? With someone I trust?
“You’re my best bet, Nate. And I took it. Now it’s up to you to make sure I made a good one.”
She wiggled her hips experimentally, and Nathan felt the walls of her tight sex grip him harder, the slow rub of friction driving him out of his own skin.
“Please, Nate. I swear, I won’t fall in love with you. Do something. I want—”
He licked her already swollen lower lip, the pleading tone of her words sending him over the edge.
She ran her palms over his thighs and sighed. His thighs turned into hard stones. Wiggled again.
“Stop doing that.”
This time, she rotated her hips, and his hips responded of their own accord. He pulled out and thrust into her. Pleasure spiraled up and down his spine. He cursed again. “How do you know how to do that?”
She smiled and winked at him, arched her spine, thrusting those beautiful breasts up, and Nathan felt himself move another inch.
Nothing was in his control anymore, not the situation, not his body and not his heart.
Her fingers moved to his hips, and she scooted closer and sighed. The rasp of it grated against his skin. The blunt tips of her nails dug into his buttocks as though she couldn’t wait to be as close as possible. “I think I’m going to be a natural at this. How stupid that I waited this long...ah...”
And that broke the last thread of his control. Grabbing the rounded cheeks of her rump, he tilted her hips up, pulled all the way out and thrust back in. Slow, but letting her feel him every inch. And again. And again.
Until he thought he would die from the pleasure building in his veins, until she was sobbing his name again. But she didn’t look away, didn’t let him look away, and Nate wondered who was in charge, who was in control, even though he was the one who set the rhythm.
His heart pounded, raced as sensation built and clawed up his spine.
And he wanted her with him. He wanted her as unraveled as she was making him. On the last thrust in, he bent and dragged his teeth on her nipple and she exploded.
As she climaxed around him, Nathan pumped into her heat. And the tremors in her sex pushed him over. His own climax thundered toward him, splintering him into a million shards of pleasure and sensation. And nothing else.
He felt as though he was done for. His heart rushed in his ears, and he smiled, in defiance.
Take that, you useless organ, he challenged it. Stop this moment and it would all still be worth it.
Riya was still trembling beneath him, he realized, and he was crushing her with his weight. He meant to move off her, but her fingers clenched around his biceps, holding him still.
“I’m too heavy for you. Let me go.”
She hid her face in his chest, and his muscles clenched under her tender kiss. “I can breathe. Just a minute... Please, Nate.”
For a few minutes, which actually felt like an eternity, Nate cradled her face in his hands. Rubbed his lips against hers, heard the thundering roar of her heart and her breaths trying to keep up with his.
Lingered in the moment until his heart swelled in his chest.
And slowly, as the haze of the pleasure faded, as his breathing resumed normality, regret and remorse rushed in.
He felt her kiss his forehead, wrap her arms around his shoulders.
Found his own arms moving to wrap around her, to hold her close, to tell her how explosive it had been. To tell her that sex had never been this personal for him.
“Nate?”
The whisper of his name at his ears was an intimacy that had him hardening inside her again. “Hmm?”
“Is it always like that?”
No, it wasn’t always like that. In fact, it had never been like that for him.
Looking into her eyes, he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “With the right partner, it could be.”
Her palms traced the ridges of his back. “Oh.”
He pushed a lock of hair that fell forward. “And you were right. You’re quite the natural at it. You’re explosively responsive and any man would...”
The very idea of Riya with another man made him sick to his stomach.
Sudden panic surging up within him, he jerked away from her. Rose from the bed and walked into the bathroom without looking back. Turned the shower on and stood under it.
He never indulged in the intimacy of holding his lover or sleeping with one in his bed. He had never wanted to, if he were honest. In that first year after he left home, all he had done was take, as if the whole world were for his own personal enjoyment, everything in it his prize.
And waking up tangled with a woman whose name he didn’t know and would never know, in an unending cycle of seeking comfort and escape from his fate and fears, bitterness had risen in his mouth one day.
Until he’d realized that at the end of all of it, the truth had never changed.
It hadn’t made him stronger or smarter or healthier. It had only made him disgusted with himself. And he had realized that even this total loss of control, this gorging on things, was also driven by fear. So instead he’d put rules in place for himself.
Never get involved. Ever. Sex, even as he hated the casual, transient nature of it, had to remain impersonal.
Traveling as he did, working as he did, he’d found it easier to keep to his tenet. He had never had a girlfriend; he had never had a first date or a second date. He’d never taken a woman to dinner, never gotten to know one.
He had never even hugged one or comforted one as he had done tonight. Never let a few minutes of his life be about anyone but himself. Never let anyone get under his skin.
And now everything inside him roared with a savage intensity, raged against an unknown fate. He pummeled his hands against the tiles, bent his head in defeat as the water pounded over him.
A longing like he’d never known burst free inside, spreading through him like an unstoppable virus, and he shivered under the hot spray.
Because he wanted to go back into that bedroom.
He wanted to hold her, kiss her, he wanted to tell her that what they had shared was special. Even his untried heart knew that. He wanted to tell her that he was glad that she’d trusted him for her first time, that for all the hurt she had lived through, there was an intrinsic purity and courage to her emotions.
He wanted to tell her that the thought of her sharing her body with anyone else lanced him like a hot poker, that the thought of her sharing her emotions, her fears and her joys with someone else filled him with a hot fury.
But if he did, he would only make it harder on both of them. Make it awkward for the rest of his stay. Would push her into making more out of it.
He’d never let anyone close in his entire life. And he didn’t intend to start now.
Even if she was the most extraordinary woman he had ever met.
* * *
He was gone.
Riya opened her eyes and felt the silence around her, touched the empty silk sheets and closed her eyes again. Locked away the sting of his withdrawal. Pulled the sheets up to her neck and scrunched tight into herself.
She ran the tip of her finger against her lips and found them swollen. Her arms trembled, her thighs felt as if she had run a marathon. Her body throbbed and ached after his deep thrusts. Even her scalp tingled, an aftereffect of how tightly Nathan had held her when he climaxed. Her hips bore the evidence of his loss of control, of his passion—pink grooves where his fingers had dug into her.
He had lost control in the end. He’d come as undone as she had. And Riya hugged the fact to herself.
She had known, after all these years of denying herself the simplest touch, it would be strange, weird. But she felt as if she had died and come out alive again.
She gazed at the corridor through which he had walked, his lean frame radiating with tension.
She had broken a rule she hadn’t known. That much was clear.
Had it been the kiss? Had it been the way she clung to him? Or had it been her question about it always being that good? Emotions, he didn’t do them. She knew that.
But whatever it had been, it was done. In a way, she was glad she had angered him. That left her alone to face what she had done, gave her a reprieve from what she felt around him.
Because nothing, she realized, could take away from the moment, from the beauty and wonder of what she had experienced. She wasn’t going to regret it; she wasn’t going to ruin it.
It had been the best few hours of her life, the most alive she had felt. The most fearless she had been. Free to look and touch and taste without wondering about the consequences.
And now it was over.
For a few more seconds, she let herself linger in the moment. Buried her face in the pillow. Breathed in his scent again. Remembered the heady pleasure of being locked under him, her every breath, every moment, every inch of pleasure she felt, all his to give.
Her emotions and herself, under his total control and how good it had felt.
Imagined that he was still there, pulling her into that lean body of his, wrapping those corded arms around her and holding her safe.
This was not a rejection. And even if it was, she couldn’t care.
* * *
It took only a few moments under the hot spray of the shower for Nathan to realize how heartless he had been. He didn’t have to break his self-imposed rules, but he could have at least said a kind word to her. Could have made sure she was okay.
For goodness’ sake, it had been her first time.
When had he turned into such a thorough bastard? He felt a distinct unease in his gut. Walking away shouldn’t have become this easy. All she’d asked was a simple question.
How could he forget that Riya was new to this, and not just physical intimacy? The hardened cynic that he was, even he’d been moved by the intensity of it.
Wrapping the towel around his hips, he trailed water all over the marble floor as he walked back to the bedroom.
The empty bed felt like a punch to his stomach. He looked around the bedroom and the sitting room and returned to the bedroom again. Her dress was gone. Her sandals were gone. Her clutch was gone.
She was gone.
His phone pinged and he picked it up with a vicious curse. He switched it on, suddenly unsure of where all the anger was coming from. He hated to be so emotional, so unbalanced, and she had done it to him.
“I never asked you to leave,” he said.
A short silence reigned before he heard her clear her throat. “I know. I thought it was best. I called to say I found your chauffeur and he’s driving me back.”
Another silence while Nathan fumed at himself. There was no accusation in her tone. And yet it grated at him.
“Nathan?”
He had taken her virginity and he had forced her into fleeing his bed after the night she had had.
“Nate? Please say something.”
Now she sounded wary, tired. And he remembered the emotionally draining day she had had, all thanks to him. “Riya, I’m sorry, I should have—”
“Thank you, Nate,” she said, cutting him off. There was no sarcasm or mockery in her tone. Only genuine gratitude.
His throat closed off.
“For...for everything tonight.”
“Hell, Riya. You don’t have to thank me for sex. I’m not a...”
What? What was he not? And what was he? What was he doing with her?
She laughed, and the ease of the sound only darkened his mood. Had it really been that simple for her? Just been about one night? Had he ruined all her innocence, changed her forever?
“Thank you for being there for me tonight, for your kindness. No one’s ever done that for me. No one’s ever let it be about me. That’s what I meant earlier. I...I will always cherish tonight. And the...sex...”
He had a feeling she was forcing herself to sound breezy.
“...it was more than I would ever have known if left to my own devices. Would never have known how beautiful it could be.” Another laugh, self-deprecating this time. “So yeah, thanks for that too, I guess.”
He couldn’t say a word, couldn’t get his vocal cords to work, couldn’t manage anything but a stilted silence. He didn’t deserve a word she said; he didn’t deserve her.
“Good night, Nathan.”
She didn’t wait for him to speak before she hung up, probably realizing he wasn’t going to say anything.
Her face disappeared from his screen, and he clenched his teeth, a soft fury vibrating through him.
He threw his phone across the room, his chest incredibly tight. He sank to the bed and instantly the smell of her, the scent of sex, hit him hard, and he buried his face in his hands. Gulped in a greedy breath.
There was an ache in this throat, something he hadn’t felt since his mother told him about his condition.
It was self-pity, it was fear, it was how he felt when his emotions were out of control.
With a curse, he swallowed it back.
No.
She wasn’t allowed to do this to him.
No woman was allowed to send him back to being that boy. No woman was allowed to pry this much emotion from him.
With a ruthlessness he had learned to survive without fear, with the resolve that had turned him from a runaway to a millionaire, he put her out of his mind. Dressed himself and ordered some coffee. Called housekeeping to change the sheets.
He didn’t want any reminder of her, of what they had done together, of how he had felt with her beneath him, of how incredibly good the intimacy with her had been. Neither could he focus on how much he wanted to repeat the night, of how he wanted to find her at the estate and sink into her bed, of how much he wanted to hold her slender body in his arms and drift into sleep...
She made him think of Nate Keys, the boy who had been desperately afraid for himself, who wanted to love and live, who wanted to be invincible. But he couldn’t be.
He turned on his laptop and went back to being the man he had trained himself to be.
Nathaniel Ramirez—billionaire, survivor and loner.