She hadn’t moved, her long limbs vibrating with tension. She looked like a fawn, waiting for him to pull out a rifle and shoot her on the spot.
He almost winced, not a great analogy, given what had just happened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, trying to stay calm.
She simply stared at him. But the color in her cheeks went radioactive.
“That I was your first,” he prompted. She couldn’t have looked more guilty if she’d been a bank robber caught on the threshold of a vault with a bag marked “swag” gripped in her hands instead of a summer dress and lacy panties.
“I...I didn’t think it was significant.”
He stared her down, making it crystal-clear he wasn’t buying that argument.
“And I didn’t want to put you off,” she added, all but choking on her embarrassment.
Given the pulsing ache in his crotch at the sight of her, he wasn’t sure it would have, which only disturbed him more.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Don’t lie,” he said, taking a fresh bathrobe out of the closet.
Walking to her, he wrapped it around her shoulders and felt the tremor of response. The toweling engulfed her.
“Put it on,” he murmured, tugging her clothes out of her hands and dumping them onto a chair.
She shoved her arms into the garment and tied the belt, her fingers visibly shaking with the effort to hide her nakedness as quickly as possible.
“Really, it didn’t hurt that much,” she said. “I enjoyed it.” He wasn’t sure he believed her, not entirely—he’d heard the gasp of pain when he’d ploughed into her—but her obvious urge to make him feel better about the whole thing beguiled him in a way he wasn’t sure he liked.
He’d said he didn’t do emotional attachments during sex, but apparently he did. With her. Because he felt responsible—for her pleasure, or rather the lack of it. And as if he had something important to prove that he’d never had to prove before.
“I could have made it more enjoyable,” he said, touching a finger to her cheek. He stroked the soft skin,
captivated by the wariness in her eyes and the instinctive tremor of reaction. “If you’d told me what was going on. I would have been a lot gentler.”
Or he would have tried to be. Given the hunger that was already tearing at his gut again, with her quivering and blushing in front of him in nothing but a bathrobe, he wasn’t so sure.
“I should go back to my room,” she said, then went to walk past him.
He should have let her go. He wanted to let her go. But instinct took over and he grasped her shoulders, pulling her round to face him.
“You don’t have to go,” he heard himself say.
“You’re not mad with me?”
He was more mad with himself. So he shrugged, the movement stiff and forced. He didn’t want to feel responsible, but somehow he did. “You should have told me,” he said. “But it was your choice not to.”
Her shoulders relaxed and that stubborn chin sunk back to her chest.
She looked so confused—so devastated. And, whether he’d intended it or not, he was the cause.
“Come back to bed,” he said, finally giving into the unprecedented urge to hold her. At least for a little while.
Her head lifted, the blush firing back across her cheeks. “I don’t think...” She stammered, her gaze darting to the rumpled sheets. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, I’m a little...” She sighed. “Well, a little sore, frankly.”
He chuckled, the sound harsh and strained, but easing at least some of the tension churning in his gut.