“You mean lies.”
“That’s not the word I’d use.”
His fingers tapped at her chin, which was when Mattie realized she’d been frowning at the center of his neck this whole time.
And when she finally saw his face, she almost gave in to that hectic heat that threatened to spill over from her eyes. He looked drawn and furious at once. Something like wounded, and haunted around the eyes.
She had done that to him, she knew, though she shoved that aside and concentrated on the fact that once again, Nicodemus was not like other men. He wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever known, and she hated that acknowledging it made her feel that much more raw.
“How?” he asked again, his voice far more clipped.
It occurred to Mattie then that she hadn’t thought this through—mostly because she’d assumed that she was so old that none of the usual virginity concerns would apply. She certainly hadn’t anticipated having to defend something she’d hardly dared admit to herself had even been happening all these years, that seemed that much more silly and pointless now, when it hurt and he was looking at her like she’d done something to him.
“Why am I not surprised?” she flared at him. “Give the man a blow job and he has an extended temper tantrum. Give the man virginity—which I believe some women sell for astronomical prices on the internet, by the way, so prized is it in this modern age—and he acts like it’s some kind of communicable disease. My God, Nicodemus. What’s the matter with you?”
“You are an idiot,” he retorted, in a tone she’d never heard him use before. “I begin to believe it is entirely on purpose. A willful and deliberate course of action you choose to cause the most harm.”
“I’m not an idiot,” she retorted, stung, which only made her feel like one.
“Did you want me to hurt you, Mattie?” he gritted out. “Is that was this was—a carefully orchestrated scene to make certain I would feel nothing but guilt and regret and make you my victim, at last? Congratulations. You have succeeded admirably.”
He moved then, and she realized he was about to roll off her. About to end this whole strange experience—and that shot through her like a bullet, clearing out that terrifying rawness that hovered within her like a fragile thing and leaving only a desperate flare of fury in its wake.
“Don’t you dare!” She,tightened her legs around him as if that could keep him where he was, that or her sheer panic that if she let him go, she’d lose him forever. She opted not to consider why that would bother her so much. “If you stop now, all it will ever be is this. Painful and weird.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he told her bitterly, though he didn’t pull out of her. He’d stopped moving away, just as she’d asked. And she felt a deep relief she hadn’t earned, and wasn’t certain she even understood. “As you have demonstrated, going so far as to hurt yourself in the process.”
She realized her hands were on his chest, balled into fists, and she opened them, spreading her fingers wide and soaking in the heat of his skin, that chiseled perfection that was only Nicodemus. She felt his heart thundering there, under one palm, and became aware, then, of the way he breathed. Harsh. Like this hurt him, too. Experimentally, she moved her hips against his.
She couldn’t claim it felt good. But it didn’t make her want to cry, either.
“Make it better,” she ordered him, and his dark eyes widened slightly, in a kind of shock he hid almost as soon as she saw it. And then, behind that, she saw that heat she recognized.
Male. Primitive. Fire and need.
She wanted that back.
“What makes you think I can?” he asked, but there was less of that grimness in his voice, she thought. Less of that impenetrable darkness. And she clung to it.
“Because you’ve already proved that you can.”
Mattie didn’t know why she was whispering. She knew only this. Him, still and strong above her, holding himself off her with his fists dug into the mattress. She wanted him lower. Closer. She wanted him to do something with this strange yearning inside her, somehow physical and emotional at once. Twined and nonsensical, but all his fault.
Deep inside her, she felt him twitch, and it made her break out in goose bumps, all the way down her arms. She shuddered.
His dark eyes narrowed.
“And if I do this,” he said then, as if he was choosing his words carefully, “what do I get in return?”
Mattie frowned at him. “An orgasm, presumably. Unless something goes horribly wrong. Isn’t that what you usually get out of it?”