HER FACE FELL, HER body flinched, and she dissolved into tears.
Jesus fuck.
“Elyssia,” I demanded with more force than I intended. “Talk to me.” Goddamn it, I didn’t mean to sound like an asshole, but the second I came, she looked like she was going to fucking lose it. And now she was crying. Fuck. Fuck.
Her head hit my chest, and she quietly sobbed. It was like everything else about her, delicate and beautiful and heart-wrenching.
Guilt consumed me. “I’m sorry.” Fuck. I stroked her back, wishing I was sorry for being her first, but I fucking wasn’t. “I’m sorry, baby. Don’t cry.” Goddamn it, I didn’t want to make her cry.
My cell vibrated on the nightstand.
She swiped at her face. “You should get that.”
I glanced at the screen. Talon. “It can wait.” I gripped a handful of her hair. “Tell me why I made you cry.”
“You didn’t.” Her eyes averted, she moved to get off me, but it was careful and slow.
Feeling like an asshole all over again for taking her, I lifted her by her waist. “Careful. You hurting?”
“I’m okay.” She untangled herself from me and moved to get off the bed.
Christ, I wanted to hold her in my arms. “Stop. Lie down.” My issued commands making me sound like an asshole, I tried to tone it the fuck down. “Just relax, I’ll get you whatever you need.”
“I’m not an invalid.”
She was exactly that, and I’d taken advantage of her. Worse, my dick didn’t get the fucking memo. Still hard, wanting more of her sweet tightness, it pulsed like I was a goddamn teenager. Ignoring it, I stroked her cheek. “What do you need? Let me get it for you.”
Standing completely naked, she closed her eyes for a second and leaned into my touch, but then she reached for her borrowed T-shirt and nodded at the bathroom. “I’m going to shower.” Still graceful, she moved slower than usual, but not with the pain in her step I’d seen yesterday.
Torn between staring at her gorgeous body and the bruises marring her back, I let her get halfway to the bathroom before I moved. Intercepting her, I grasped the back of her neck, and bent to kiss her once. “I want to hold you and tell you all the ways that felt incredible.” I paused, waiting for a reaction, but I got none. “But you’re pulling away from me, and I don’t know why.”
She averted her eyes. “I’m shy.”
No she wasn’t. “You’re standing in front of me naked.”
“I’m not sure what you want from me.”
Everything. “The reason you cried is a good start.”
“I was… overwhelmed.”
“Did I hurt you?”
One of her shoulders tipped up.
Her half shrug wasn’t what I wanted. “More than taking your virginity.” I laid my hand over her heart. “Did I hurt you here?”
She sucked in a breath. A full breath. One she wouldn’t have managed yesterday, but she didn’t respond.
“I can’t address what I don’t know,” I reminded her.
Her gaze cut to mine and pain etched across her face. “Why did you push me away the first time I kissed you?”
My heart fucking stopped. Then it kicked at my chest, and my stomach bottomed out. I didn’t want to tell her why, not after how she’d reacted when I’d told her I’d been tested. But I wasn’t going to lie to her either. “I felt guilty.”
It was as if she didn’t hear me. “Why didn’t you want to… be inside me, even after I told you the timing was okay?”
What the fuck was I missing? She thought I didn’t trust her? “I didn’t want to put you in an uncompromising position.” I couldn’t say I didn’t want to get her pregnant, because I did. God help me, I did.
“Just because I’d never”—she waved at the bed—“done that, it doesn’t mean I don’t know how the timing works.”
“Elyssia.” My tone was one hundred percent warning, but I wasn’t even sure why.
She ignored it. “You pulled away when I kissed you for the same reason you wouldn’t come inside me. You don’t get close to people.” Her voice broke. “You won’t get close to me.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “You know that’s not true.”
“It is.” Sorrow clouded her features as she pulled away from me.
I gave her the ugly truth. “I’d been with someone else earlier that day.”
Hurt contorted her features, crushing me.
I soldiered on. “When you kissed me that first time, I wasn’t expecting it. I’d wanted it. I’d wanted it for so damn long I’d forgotten what it was like not to want you. But I didn’t know you were coming down to Miami. I didn’t know about Helen.” Fuck, fuck, fuck, I hated the look on her face. “If I had, I never would’ve touched another woman that day, but I did. Then you kissed me, and I felt guilty as hell.”
With a stricken look on her face, I saw her piece that night together. “The woman in the hall. The one Myles took away.”
I didn’t deny it was the groupie, but I didn’t fucking confirm it either. “That was the last time I let another woman touch me, Elyssia.”
“Touch you?”
Fuck, I didn’t want to talk about this with her. “I didn’t touch her.”
She took a stilted breath. “You didn’t… you didn’t kiss her?”
“No.” I cupped her face. “And I’m done talking about it. I’m not going to discuss my past with you. It doesn’t matter. Not for us. I only told you because I’m not letting anything get between us. I wasn’t pulling away from you last year. You need to understand that.” Jesus, she was beautiful. “Just like you need to understand that I wanted to come inside you more than anything.” My dick was fucking pulsing just thinking about it. “I was protecting you. That’s all.”
Her shoulders and her gaze dropped. Her words came out in a quiet sigh. “I don’t want that kind of protection.”
It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was close enough for my lungs to fill with air. “Then get on the pill, or marry me and we’ll have all the unprotected sex you want.”
Her head snapped up, and her eyes went wide with shock.
I didn’t fucking smile. I was dead serious. I put her initials over my heart. “I meant every word.”
The sound of my front door flying open and banging on its hinges made her jump.
“Wonderboy!” Talon bellowed. “Make sure your Wondergirl is decent. She’s gettin’ a fuckin’ house call!”