And then Nathan followed her, pushing deep, grinding his hips against hers at an urgent, violent pace. Lips peeled back off his enormous canines, he bucked into her, riding her hard.
Jordana loved the wildness of his passion. Nathan, the cold, cool warrior—the ruthlessly in-control Gen One male—scorching her with desire-drunk eyes and an expression caught somewhere between fury and rapture. That she had done this to him, turned him so savage with lust, was astonishing. Empowering.
The headiest aphrodisiac she could imagine.
She was already coming again when a fierce shudder gripped him. Nathan roared her name, his voice unearthly, untamed. One hand clamped on her hip, he buried himself to the hilt and yet another coarse shout ripped from between his teeth and fangs as a jet of fluid heat shot inside her.
Jordana lay there, floating on a strange new plane, her senses both satiated and hyperaware. She heard every breath, felt every heartbeat—her own and Nathan’s both.
Her body felt loose and relaxed, newborn in many ways, as it recovered from the dull pain of her lost virginity and the even greater pleasure of what she and Nathan had just shared.
He was still inside her, still firm, stretching the walls of her sheath as his erection pulsed with renewed life. The feel of him growing bigger, hard all over again, made her own body react like tinder near an open flame.
She exhaled a deep sigh, moving beneath him in effort to create more delicious friction.
Nathan’s muscles twitched, and inside her, he thickened in swift response. Eyes narrowed on her, he lifted his head and uttered a low groan.
“Too soon for you,” he cautioned. “Your body needs time to mend, Jordana.”
No, it didn’t. What it needed was more of him.
But Nathan withdrew and rolled off to the side of her. He reached up and freed her hands from the soft tether above her head. He paused for a moment, the length of silk crushed in his tightly clenched fist.
When his gaze met hers again, she saw regret there. An apology he didn’t speak but communicated with his light caress on the bare undersides of her arms, then in the tender stroke of his fingers along her flushed cheek and parted lips.
The torment in his expression pulled at her. He struggled with very private demons; she might have guessed that, in light of his background. Now she saw his internal struggle playing across his handsome, tortured face. A struggle he seemed accustomed to battling alone.
Her heart clenched at that thought. There was so much about this solitary, remote man that she didn’t know. Things she wanted to understand.
She didn’t know if he would share any more of himself than what he gave her tonight. And despite the real fear of his rejection, Jordana couldn’t let her questions go unasked.
“Nathan,” she said softly. “Will you tell me … why?”
Black brows furrowed—an instantaneous reaction, and one that he swiftly schooled into the cool aloofness she’d come to know and expect in him.
How adept he was at erasing all traces of emotion from his face, even from his eyes. What had he endured that he could mask his feelings with such little effort?
He held her inquisitive stare, almost as if he challenged her to see through him. “I told you what to expect before we began any of this.” Mouth flat, grim, he poured the crushed length of silk out of his fist and onto her nude torso. “This is the way it is with me. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Cold words. No doubt meant to freeze her into silence as he pivoted away from her on the bed. His defensive walls had gone up, blocking her out. That is, if he’d ever been inclined to let her inside in the first place.
His bare feet hit the floor and when he went to stand up, Jordana tossed the sash aside and drew up onto her knees behind him. “That’s not what I meant. The bondage … it doesn’t matter to me. Your need to be the one in control doesn’t matter.”
She took a fortifying breath and crept closer to him, very much aware that of the two of them, only he seemed frozen and silent now. Jordana edged up behind his broad back, with its masterpiece of dermaglyphs adorning the flawless canvas of his skin.
She lifted her hand, but drew it back, unwilling to dare that much.
Not when she could feel the caged power radiating off him. A menace so dark it nearly stole her voice.
“Nathan,” she whispered carefully. “Why is it that you can’t bear to be touched?”
The answering silence seemed to stretch on forever. He sat on the edge of the bed, unmoving. Jordana wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
She’d overstepped. She realized that now. They had shared something incredible tonight—something intimate and real to her, at least—and now she’d ruined it by pushing him to open up a part of himself that wasn’t hers to examine.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I shouldn’t pry—”
“Would you want to touch the bloodied edge of a blade?” He spoke without turning to face her, his deep voice even, utterly devoid of emotion. “Or willingly put your hand in the jaws of a fighting dog?”