Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood #3)(81)

There was a long silence, and she spent the time measuring the sorrow and the yearning and the fear in his eyes. A chill shot through her. She couldn’t believe the leap of logic her mind was taking, but she had a really vivid impression that he’d never let himself orgasm before. Or was she just jumping to conclusions?

Whatever. It wasn’t like she was about to ask him. He was teetering on the brink of bolting, and if she said or did the wrong thing, he was going to tear out of the room.

“Zsadist, I won’t hurt you. And you can be in control. We’ll stop if it doesn’t feel right. You can trust me.”

It was a long time before his grip loosened on her wrists. And then finally he let go and set her back from his body. Haltingly, he pulled down the shorts.

That arousal shot out into the space between them.

“Just hold on to it,” he said with a cracked voice.

“You. I’ll hold on to you.”

When she wrapped her palms around him he let out a moan, and his head fell back. God, he was hard. Hard as iron, yet surrounded by skin soft as his lips.

“You’re—”

“Shh,” he cut in. “No…talking. I can’t…No talking.”

He began to move in her grip. Slowly at first, and then with increasing urgency. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, and then his body completely took over with a wild pumping. He was going crazy, shooting higher and higher, his chest and hips so beautiful as he moved in that ancient male surging motion. Faster…faster…jerking back and forth…

Except then he reached some kind of plateau. He was straining, the cords of his neck nearly breaking through his skin, his body covered with sweat. But he couldn’t seem to let go.

He stopped, panting. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Just relax. Relax and let it happen—”

“No. I need…” He took one of her hands and placed it on the sac below his arousal. “Squeeze. Squeeze hard.”

Bella’s eyes flashed up to his face. “What? I don’t want to hurt you—”

He wrapped his hand around hers like a vise and twisted their grips until he cried out. Then he held her other wrist, keeping her palm against his erection.

She struggled against him, fighting to stop the pain he was inflicting on himself, but he was pumping again. And the harder she tried to pull away, the more he crushed her hand to that most tender place on a male. Her eyes went wide and unblinking at the pain of the act, the agony he must be—

Zsadist shouted, his loud bark ricocheting around the marble until she was sure everyone in the mansion must have heard him. Then she felt the mighty jerks of his release, hot pulses dampening her hands and the front of her robe.

He sagged onto her shoulders, his massive body falling all over her. He was breathing like a freight train, his muscles quivering, his big body trembling with aftershocks. When he released his hand from hers, she had to peel her palm from his testicles.

Bella was cold to the bone as she bore the weight of him.

Something ugly had sprouted between them just now, some kind of sexual evil that blurred the distinction between pleasure and pain. And though it made her cruel, she wanted to get away from him. She wanted to run from the cringing awareness that she had hurt him because he’d made her and he had orgasmed because of it.

Except then his breath caught on a sob. Or at least seemed

She held her breath, listening. The soft sound came again, and she felt his shoulders quake.

Oh, my God. He was crying….

She wrapped her arms around him, reminding herself that he hadn’t asked to be tortured as he’d been. Nor had he volunteered for the aftereffects.

She tried to lift his head to kiss him, but he fought against her, drawing her close, hiding in her hair. She cradled him, holding him and soothing him as he struggled to mask the fact that he wept. Eventually he pulled back and scrubbed his face with his palms. He refused to meet her eyes as he reached over and turned the shower on.

With a quick yank he stripped the robe from her body, then wadded it up and threw it into the trash.

“Wait, I like that robe—”

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

He urged her under the water. When she fought him he picked her up easily, put her in the spray, and began to soap her hands with undisguised panic.

“Zsadist, stop it.” She pulled away, but he caught her. “I’m not dirty—Zsadist, stop. I don’t need to be cleaned because you—”

He closed his eyes. “Please…I have to do this. I can’t leave you all…covered with that stuff.”

“Zsadist,” she snapped. “Look at me.” When he did, she said, “This is not necessary.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“Come back to bed with me.” She shut off the water. “Hold me. Let me hold you. That’s the only thing you need to do.”

And frankly, she needed it, too. She was rattled to the core.

She put a towel around herself and pulled him into the bedroom. When they were under the covers together, she curled herself around him, but she was as stiff as he was. She’d thought proximity would help. It didn’t.

After a long while his voice came through the darkness. “If I had known how it had to be, I never would have allowed that to happen.”