“Did I hurt you?” Horror held him so still he couldn’t breathe.
That snapped her attention to his face. “No! God, no. It’s me. I’m… I just can’t…” She was back to staring at the ground and avoiding him.
His mind was flooded with a haze of lust and sex and the sweet wetness of her body still coating his fully erect cock, waving in the air between them.
He hadn’t hurt her. That seeped in, quickly followed by, But she’s still hurting.
He pulled her close, ignoring her protest and tucking her head against his chest, warming her with the heat of his body. His cock throbbed against her belly, but that couldn’t be helped.
“Tell me,” he commanded. His hand cupped her bottom and pressed her body against his. “Tell me what I can do.”
“Nothing,” she mumbled against his skin. But she wasn’t trying to move away. “You can’t do anything. I’m just… broken.”
He frowned. Broken? What in the name of magic did she mean? He pulled her back so he could peer down into those beautiful green eyes. “In what way?”
Her gaze averted, so he brought it back up, a finger under her chin. Then he kissed her, gently, on the lips. “I can’t taste what’s wrong, Arabella. There’s too much, too many conflicting things, all mixed together. You have to tell me.”
She swallowed, but held his gaze. “I… I can’t come.”
His scowl grew deeper. “This is how you’re… broken?”
Red rushed her cheeks, more than the heat of their fervent coupling, and she averted her gaze again. “It’s not you. It’s me. I just can’t. Not with a man. Not since…” She stopped and the small hairs on her arms lifted.
Not since… the darkness in her past. It was still haunting her. He had no idea what had happened, and he certainly wouldn’t press her to tell the story of it… but that remnant was like a demon that had invaded her body and taken possession of it, robbing her of the very thing that she owned by birthright. The pleasure of being a woman.
“This needs to be fixed.” He swept her up in his arms and carried her out of the hallway, across the great room, and toward the spiral stairs that led to the second floor. He was going to do what he should have done in the first place…
Take this treasure to his bed.
God, she was an idiot.
For some reason, Arabella thought sex with a man like Lucian would be different. He was the most insanely sexy man she had ever met, gorgeous across every inch of his muscle-rippling body, and the sexual tension between them had been killing her for days. If there were anyone who could plunge her into a lust-filled frenzy, it was him. But she was even more broken than she thought.
This is permanent. I’ll never be normal again. That thought had brought the tears gushing down her face, even as Lucian was still trying to bring her to climax, doing all the things a man should do. It was her. It was the horror of that night—it had reached deep inside her, to a place that reason couldn’t touch. No amount of talk therapy or intellectual understanding could fix that primal part of her mind. It had shut down that one fateful, dark, horrible night… and it wasn’t ever coming back.
And now Lucian was carrying her up to his bedroom, cradling her so gently in his arms, the power of them so immense, so strong, that she didn’t feel awkward at all. In fact, the way he was holding her naked body solidly against his—not in a sexual way, just with complete tenderness and concern—made her feel safer than she’d ever been with a man.
It still wasn’t enough. His hotness wasn’t enough. His insanely erotic lovemaking wasn’t enough. She’d tried again and again with men, ever since that night, and it always ended the same—massive frustration on her part. Some men didn’t even care, they just did their business and were done. Some took it as some kind of personal affront that they couldn’t bring her to climax. But Lucian… he was whisking her away to try again, determined to fix this.
Only she knew it was hopeless.
She should tell him. The whole thing. Then maybe he’d understand and not put them both through the torment.
Lucian elbowed open the door and walked her inside his expansive, beautifully-appointed bedroom. He kissed her temple before climbing onto his enormous circular bed with the mirror on the ceiling and setting her gently on the comforter. So sweet. It threatened to spring tears out of her eyes again as he settled in next to her, his skin hot against hers where they touched. His cock was hard and heavy against her side—God, that had felt good inside her. He was so damn big, easily the largest man she’d ever had, and she thought that would make a difference.