"Why did you let me?"

Chapter 16

Nate swore viciously, struggling to hold on to the titanic orgasm, which screamed along every nerve ending and threatened to destroy the last thin threads of his control.

"Am I your first?�� he said, the glazed shock in Roisin's eyes almost as devastating as the feel of her massaging his thick length. So tight, so ready, so right… And yet, so wrong.

She'd been ready for him, as eager and desperate as he was, or so he'd thought. But he could see the tears in her eyes, feel the shuddering shock. But worse, far worse, was the stunned emotion in the mossy depths. The vulnerability yanking him past desire into a devastating intimacy.

He struggled to hold on. The need to claim every inch of her almost more than he could bear. But he wasn't an animal, not anymore, not the way they'd tried to make him.

He cupped her cheek as she looked away, forced her gaze back to his.

"Why did you let me?" he said, needing to hear her say it, even though he already knew the truth.

She'd never given herself to any man. Why would she let a man like him have something so precious? Something he could never deserve?

"Because I wanted you," she whispered.

But he didn't believe her. There would be a price to pay for this. Somehow, she'd trapped him, just like the last woman he'd slept with… But this time the price would be higher, and much harder to avoid.

He pushed the thought to one side and trailed his thumb down to caress the pulse in her neck, acknowledging the echoing pulse in his groin, the erection still buried deep.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked.

She shook her head. But avoided his gaze again.

He captured her chin. "Tell me the truth, Roisin."

"It's a little sore," she admitted. "But it feels good too."

And just like that, the wall, which had always protected him, ever since he was a little boy, lost and grieving and scared, and later, in that damp, dark cellar, started to crumble.

Raw, terrifying emotion tumbled in through the fissures, destroying everything in its wake, flooding the barren landscape inside him like a river rushing through a broken dam.

It hurt, more than he had ever been hurt before.

He dipped his head to capture her lips, determined to ignore the pain and focus only on the pleasure. She kissed him back—the artless play of her mouth on his as intoxicating as everything else about her.

He licked, sipped, capturing her essence, then delved, exploring, exploiting as she relaxed in slow increments and let him in.

The desire to move tore at his self-control as her fingers glided down his back, touching and tracing the scars which would always be a part of him now. But somehow, as his body sank deeper into hers and he began to rock, her eagerness, her hunger made the scars less ugly, less humiliating. They were simply a part of a past that had turned him into another man. Not the entitled playboy, but the solitary, self-sufficient man he had become in that cellar.

He tugged his mouth from hers, the urge to move harder, faster, too much to resist. But as he cradled her hips, held her steady for his deep thrusts, she welcomed him, her body pliant, eager, as famished for him as he was for her.

The climax built, as he thrust farther, took more. The coil cinched tight at the base of his spine, insistent, urgent, devastating.

She bucked, cried out, her slick, swollen sheath milking him, as she surrendered at last. He crashed over behind her, soaring higher, and higher still. Until the wave fell over him, the pleasure shattering into a thousand glorious shards.

He shouted out and collapsed heavily into her arms. But as he pulled out of her, the pleasure dimmed and cold, hard reality—the agonizing intimacy, which threatened to breathe life into emotions long dead—returned.