Her body clenched around Riker, bucking and writhing. It was only as she came down, her panting breaths filling the room, that she realized he wasn’t moving. He’d gone still, his thick arms trembling on either side of her, his gaze dark with pain.
Chapter 19
Riker couldn't believe this. How the hell could he be in bed with a beautiful female and not be able to get his body to cross the line of ultimate pleasure? He was hard as a rock, his balls tight, his cock throbbing with the need to come, and yet he couldn’t quite get there.
“Riker?” Nicole breathed. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She shifted, squeezing her hot, silky core around him, and he hissed.
“I can’t. Fuck, I can’t.” Shoving his fi sts into the mattress, he pushed himself off her on trembling arms.
When she sat up and reached out, he lurched to his feet.
“What is it? I mean, it’s, um, obvious you can.”
He stood there like a pathetic dolt, his chest heaving, his skin coated in a glistening sheen of sweat.
Between his legs, his sex stood erect, shiny with her desire and swollen with his.
“I can’t,” he repeated, this time with a frustrated, angry edge.
“Come here.” She reached for him again, but he spun away, swiping his wadded jeans off the fl oor.
“It’s not happening.”
The mattress creaked. “I thought that when a mate dies, the imprint is destroyed.”
He swung around. “What do you know about imprinting?”
“I know it happens to male vampires but not females. I know a male vampire can only imprint on vampires, not humans. And I know imprinting doesn’t happen by choice, but we don’t know what makes a particular female imprintable for a particular male.”
“Imprintable?”
She sniffed. “It’s a valid word in this case.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, but if she was trying to tame it, she’d failed. She had the most gorgeous, sexy bed head ever. “The bond also means you can only have sex with the female you imprinted on, but I thought that link broke when the female died.”
“It’s not a bond,” he muttered. “A bond implies that two parties are involved.”
She rolled her eyes. “But it’s supposed to dissolve when the female dies, right?”
“Let it go, Nicole.” He tugged on his pants. “And males can have sex with females other than the one they imprinted on. They just don’t usually want to.
The link is so powerful that if a male imprints on a female he hates, he’ll usually fall for her in time.” He gripped the zipper tab and cursed when the zipper stuck. “Guess they don’t teach you everything in your vampire anatomy classes, huh?” It was a low blow, but she didn’t seem fazed.
“I just want to understand.”
“You don’t need to.”
She threw up her hands in disgust. “So that’s it? You break into my room like a madman, convince me that you want me, and then get me off while you hold on to your precious control? Is this a joke? A way to humiliate me?” She snatched up her own jeans and shoved her feet into them.
He stared. Stared more when she bent over to pick up her bra. “Why would I want to humiliate you?”
“Maybe because I’m a lowly human? Maybe because you hate me? I have no idea. But what else am I supposed to think? If your imprint will still allow you to have sex with me, why did you stop?” If anything, the fact that he’d wanted her despite the fact that she was human was a rebuttal to her argument. “I’m not imprinted.”
“So it does break with the death of a mate.” He turned away, but she grabbed his arm and forced him back to her. “Right?”
“Yes.”
“But?”
Shame and self-loathing made his skin tighten.
“But I never imprinted on Terese,” he snapped. “It was just one more way in which I failed her.”#p#分页标题#e#
Nicole blinked. “So this is about Terese? How have you managed to have sex with anyone else, then?”
He shook his head, feeling abruptly deflated. “I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”
“How long?”
He really wished she’d stop with these probing questions. “Long enough.”
“Long enough that what? You forgot how to do it?” She tugged on the flannel shirt that nearly swallowed her but somehow looked good on her. Maybe because it brought to mind images of her wearing one of his shirts . . . with nothing on underneath. “Because I have to say, you handled yourself pretty well a few minutes ago.”
He smiled, his ego getting a nice stroke. His cock jumped as if feeling left out of the stroking. “Trust me, I remember how.”