The Man to Be Reckoned With (11 page)

She was wet there and she was hot all over, and together, the sensation continued to build.

His gaze never leaving her, Nathan unbuttoned his white dress shirt, pushed it off.

All that bronzed, glinting skin, the whorls of copper chest hair, the black string hanging with a pendant over his pectoral muscles, the jut of his shoulders, the flat male nipples so unlike her own, the washboard plane of his stomach, the line of hair that went down below his navel. He was so utterly male.

And all of it was hers tonight to do with as she wished.

With sure movements, he unzipped his trousers and kicked them away. Then his boxers.

Riya licked her lips at the sight of him completely naked. Her heart thudded incessantly, her sex pulsing.

His guttural groan surrounded them, and she raised her gaze to him.

He moved closer, in touching distance. Riya raised her hand, eager to touch that hardness, eager to learn everything about him. “You won't touch me, is that clear?”

Frowning, she tilted her head up. “Why not?”

He didn't answer.

Pushing her back against the bed, he climbed into the bed and on top of her in such a predatory, masculine way that all of her possessive claims, all of her risky resolve fled.

Leaving nothing but gloriously alive sensations toppling against her, drowning her, demanding her utter enslavement.

He was heavy over her, he was hard against her, he was hot all over and he didn't let her move. His arms cradled her upper body, raising her to him, locking her so tight against him. She was aching to touch him, dying to feel his muscles harden under her fingers...

But he locked her, leaving her no escape but to feel every assault of his fingers, his mouth, his tongue, his breath.

He kissed her until there was no breath left in her. He played with her hair...

Her toes curled into the sheets as he dragged his open mouth down her neck and to the valley between her breasts.

Need knotted at her nipples as he cupped her breasts reverently, kneaded them, lifted them to his mouth. She bit her lip, scrunched the silky sheets with her fingers, bucked against his grip. “Nate, please let me touch you, let me move or—”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?” she cried.

He rose above her like a dark god, intent on pulling her under, every inch of his face carved from stone. His icy blue eyes wide, he was panting too. And Riya realized what tremendous control he was exercising, how tightly reined in his desire was. How, even being in the moment, he wasn't truly with her.

But before the thought could take root, he licked her nipple and she lost all coherence again.

“Do you want me to stop, butterfly?” he whispered hotly against her breast, his tongue laving the skin around her eager nipple.

“No,” she said so loudly that the word reverberated in the silence.

His fingers tweaked her other breast, pulled at her nipple, while his mouth closed over the first one. Riya kicked her legs against the bed, and still he didn't let her move.

She gasped under the attack, she sobbed, she twisted and turned as he suckled, laved with his tongue. And a frantic pulsing began at her sex.

“I wondered,” he whispered against the valley between her breasts, taking a shuddering, reverent breath.

All she could manage between catching her breaths was to say “What?”

“Your nipples,” he said, rolling off her and lying on his side. His muscular leg covered her legs, his arm holding her tight against him. He dipped his mouth and suckled the swollen tip again and she arched her spine as sensations rippled and splintered through her.

The heat built intolerably between her legs and she rubbed her thighs restlessly.

His large hands stole between them, denying the friction she needed, and Riya was ready to beg. “I wondered what color they would be.” This against the underside of her breasts.

“I guessed it right.” This against the planes of her stomach. “Like chocolate.”

He looked up then, and Riya looked down, her skin slick with sweat. She saw his gaze move over her face, her mouth and her breasts again, and felt a shyness come over her.

This was so intimate, intrusively so.

This moment when something else arced beneath the simmering chemistry between them was everything she had avoided her entire life. Here, lying naked below him, all of her exposed to his eyes, was the biggest risk she had ever taken.

For a startling second, she wondered what she had started. Wondered how she would face him tomorrow, how she would...

Moving up, he devoured her mouth in a kiss that left no breath in her. Pressed another one at her temple. “You okay, butterfly?”

Riya nodded, not at all surprised at how easily he read her. She had never met anyone who had understood her so well. Grabbing his forearm, she pressed a kiss to his biceps, flicked her tongue over the birthmark that had fascinated her so.

“You're still thinking. And I won't tolerate that, Riya,” he said, traveling down her body again, trailing wet heat over her skin. His mouth hovered over the waistband of her thong, his teeth dragging against her skin. His breath sounded harsh. “You're driving me insane and I very much want to do the same to you,” he said, sounding almost angry.

She could do nothing but sink her fingers into his hair.

Moan loudly as he tugged the string of her thong tight against her clitoris. And pulled it, up and down.

She bucked off the bed as his fingers explored.

Jerked as he learned her with clever, lingering strokes.

Dug her nails into his shoulders as he tweaked the spot aching for his touch. Dragged her nails over his back as he eased a finger and then two into her wet heat.

The softness of her sex felt amplified around the intrusive weight of his fingers. Every inch of her contracted and pulsed at that spot, and Riya sobbed.

“Nathan!” she said, the invasion of his fingers, the relentless rub of the pad of his thumb, the building pressure, driving her out of her own skin.

She laughed or cried, she didn't know which, her body, her heart careening out of control.

“Look at you!” His hot mouth pressed against her midriff, and her muscles clenched. “You're the wildest thing I've ever seen.”

He moved his head between her thighs. The stroke of his tongue against the tight bud was like touching a spark to a building storm. “Let go, butterfly,” he said, and without warning, sucked at the slick bundle of nerves.

Screaming and thrashing, Riya shattered around his fingers in a dizzying whirl of such exquisite sensations that she thought she would fall apart. Sobbing, she tried to bring her knees together, but with his fingers still inside her, he clasped her against him. Continued the relentless pressure of his fingers so that the small tremors continued until she was nothing but a mass of sensation and pleasure.

As the tremors slowed down, she opened her eyes, saw the stark need, the possessive pride written in his face. He'd watched her explode and liked it. Took her mouth in a possessive kiss that knocked the remaining breath out of her lungs. “You're a screamer, Riya...”

Fighting the shyness that he had witnessed it with such blatant thoroughness, Riya pressed her mouth to his chest. If she stopped to think, she would stop altogether.

And she didn't want to stop. She wanted all of him.

She moved her fingers down his hard stomach and down farther. Clasped the hard length of him. Flicked the soft head with her thumb, heard the guttural groan that fell from his mouth. His chest was hollow with his breath held.

The most powerful feeling exploded inside Riya. He was so hard in her palm, and he was big. She felt the sharp need begin in her all over again as she stroked him.

He moaned so loud that she did it harder.

He jerked his hips into her hands, and whispered the filthiest words she had ever heard. Gasping at the renewed urgency in her own body, she moved her fist up and down.

He dug his teeth into her shoulder and she gripped him harder, going hot all over. Sweat beaded his skin, every muscle so tight that she wondered if he would break into a thousand shards.

Moving down, she kissed her way down his body, licking, tasting, reveling in the shudders that racked through him. When she reached his shaft, his fingers tightened in her hair, staying her. Looking up, she jerked her head. “Let go, Nathan.”

His eyes were the darkest she had seen yet, his nostrils flaring, his control nearly shredded. “Tonight's about you, Riya.”

“No, tonight's about what I want to do,” she said boldly. Leaving him no choice, she licked down the long, hard length of him. He cursed.

She closed her mouth over him and sucked experimentally, a wet heat gathering at her own sex. She felt no shame, no shyness, only the gloriously alive feeling coursed through her. Licking the tip, she looked up at him.

And before she could blink, she was on her back and he was lodged between her thighs. “Enough,” he said with such vehemence that Riya stared at him.

She watched increasingly boldly as he sheathed himself. She hadn't even given thought to protection. Coloring, she pushed up and kissed the hollow beneath his pectoral, tasted the salt of his skin, breathed in his musky scent.

The head of his shaft rubbed against her entrance. Feeling restless again, Riya met his gaze and held it, wanting all of him in that moment.

He pushed slowly at first, letting her accommodate to his length. Long fingers left deep grooves on her hips, holding her still, the way he wanted her. Kissing her mouth again, he dragged her closer, tilted her hips so she was right for him. And then swept in with one hard thrust.

Her head thrown back, Riya gasped at the sharp sting and the heavy intrusion, every inch of her stiffening. Her hands clasped his shoulders, the bones protruding out of them pressing against her palms.

His head went back in a recoil, the corded length of his neck stiff. Thick veins pulsed in his neck, his face clenched tight in satisfaction. His gaze was unfocused; then he blinked, as though fighting for control. In that moment, he looked savage, like a roaring volcano of emotions and needs, the hard shell he encased himself in falling away by the heat between them.

“Riya, you'll be the death of me,” he said in such a grave tone that her focus shifted from the already receding pain.

But instead of being scared, Riya felt like a victor. Because this Nathan who wore his needs and passions in his eyes was the true Nathan.

* * *

Hiding his face in her neck, Nathan breathed hard. “You're a virgin.” Of course she was.
Damn, damn, damn.

He heard the accusatory, sinking tone of his words, but for the life of him, couldn't do anything about it.

Couldn't think about anything except the need surging through him, demanding release. She was like a fist around him, smooth and tight, and he was going to burst at the seams if he didn't move. For a man who abhorred having sex merely for the release it provided, this need to plunge into her until she was all he felt...he was drowning in it.

What had he done?

He was truly gone if it had taken him until now for that little fact to filter though.

Somehow he found an ounce of his shredded self-control, and raised his head.

Her pinched look slowly fading, Riya looked up at him. Beads of sweat glistened over her upper lip, and he fisted his hands to stop touching her.

“Do you want me to stop? You should have warned me, slowed me—”

“Would you have done it differently if I had?” the minx demanded. She sounded husky, a ragged edge to her words that seared him. “Would it have stung less? Was there a pain-free way of deflowering that you would have employed?”

Damn it, he had no wish to hurt her. In any way. “No.”

This was getting too complicated. He was breaking each and every one of his rules with her. “But I would have resisted you better.”
Lies, all lies.

He saw the hurt in her eyes before she hid it away. “Then I'm glad I didn't.”

“Damn it, Riya, this is not what—”

“It's just my hymen, Nate, not my heart. Except it played the gatekeeper to my heart until now.”

“If you waited this long, it means you wanted it to be special.”

“I waited this long because I was like Sleeping Beauty, except I wasn't sleeping but just functioning. Isn't it better I'm doing it with someone I know than a stranger? With someone I trust?

“You're my best bet, Nate. And I took it. Now it's up to you to make sure I made a good one.”

She wiggled her hips experimentally, and Nathan felt the walls of her tight sex grip him harder, the slow rub of friction driving him out of his own skin.

“Please, Nate. I swear, I won't fall in love with you. Do something. I want—”

He licked her already swollen lower lip, the pleading tone of her words sending him over the edge.

She ran her palms over his thighs and sighed. His thighs turned into hard stones. Wiggled again.

“Stop doing that.”

This time, she rotated her hips, and his hips responded of their own accord. He pulled out and thrust into her. Pleasure spiraled up and down his spine. He cursed again. “How do you know how to do that?”

She smiled and winked at him, arched her spine, thrusting those beautiful breasts up, and Nathan felt himself move another inch.

Nothing was in his control anymore, not the situation, not his body and not his heart.

Her fingers moved to his hips, and she scooted closer and sighed. The rasp of it grated against his skin. The blunt tips of her nails dug into his buttocks as though she couldn't wait to be as close as possible. “I think I'm going to be a natural at this. How stupid that I waited this long...ah...”

And that broke the last thread of his control. Grabbing the rounded cheeks of her rump, he tilted her hips up, pulled all the way out and thrust back in. Slow, but letting her feel him every inch. And again. And again.