“Now would be the time to stop me, luv. You’re about to be undressed, and trust me when I say it will be too late after that.”
My body was overpowering my mind. I couldn’t think. I could only smell and taste and see and hear and feel him.
An annoying whisper sounded from the depths of my mind again, but something else was there too: something I had managed to flatten to the bottom of my consciousness until now. The demonic doubt.
We were damned for simply being born. So why was I holding fast to rules that didn’t really apply to me anyway? Why shouldn’t I take from this life what I could in the time I had? This had nothing to do with what Pharzuph demanded of us, and everything to do with what Kaidan and I had become to each other.
“No, Kai,” I said, arching my back under his hot fingers. “Don’t stop.”
His face was in front of mine again, our mouths moving in a harmonic frenzy. My hands moved from his hair, over his hard chest, down the ripple of his stomach, around his waist, and up over his firm back. I pulled him to me. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Excitement and fear coursed through my blood.
And then there was... confusion.
He was murmuring something to himself that I couldn’t make out, then shaking his head. I pulled him to me again, but he reached down, taking my wrists and holding them between us. I lifted my hips to him and was shocked to meet resistance. What was going on?
“We can’t,” he barely whispered.
“Kai?” He was pulling himself away from me, and it was such torture that I could hardly bear it.
I made one final attempt to revive the closeness, reaching for him, but he had gone to stone above me.
“Damn it, Ann, please! Don’t. Move.”
I lay still, breathing hard and staring into his deep blue eyes until he ripped his gaze away.
He rolled to the side of the bed and got up, moving an agonizing distance away. He groaned and grabbed his hair hard in both of his fists, then began to pace, shaking his head from side to side. His bloodred badge pumped as hard as my heart.
I sat up, mindful of my heated, exposed skin in the room’s cool air. I grabbed a pillow and pressed it to my chest in a tight hug. Every inch of skin he had kissed felt like it was on fire.
Rejection swept over me, turning my heat to ice. Saying he wouldn’t be my boyfriend was one thing. But this?
“You don’t want me.” Such a pathetic revelation would have been better left unsaid.
He groaned again, louder this time, and squatted to the floor, pushing his fists into his eyes. He was in obvious pain. I wanted to reach out to him, but I knew I couldn’t.
“Don’t do that.” His voice was jagged. “That was the single most difficult thing I’ve done in my entire life.”
He stood again, the sight of his body slamming into me full force.
“I don’t understand, then,” I whispered.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, okay?” His voice edged on frantic. “And don’t think for a second I don’t want you—” He had to stop and growl at this, pressing his knuckles to his forehead. “It shouldn’t be like this,” he said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Uncommitted. In a hotel room.”
“Then commit,” I said. His face tightened and he held his arms out in frustration.
“I can’t!” he shouted. “And I’m not taking your virginity. You would regret it.”
He turned away from me, leaning his forehead against the wall. He was still out of breath as he slid downward, turning and slumping in the corner of the room, elbows on his knees, face in his hands.
I let the meaning of what had just happened soak in. We’d come so close, and Kaidan denied himself. For me. He’d made his very first self-sacrifice. For me. He’d defied his demon father. For me.
A vibrant energy rushed through my body as the pieces slammed into place. Oh, dear Lord. I was in love with him. And there wasn’t a thing on earth, in heaven, or in hell that could have stopped me.
In that moment of shocking realization, he turned to me and stared. My emotional guard was down. I snapped my mind back into hiding mode, but it was too late. He’d seen it. I held my breath for his reaction. He closed his eyes and let his head drop to his chest, posture slumping. Not the response of my dreams.
I focused, finding it difficult to contain the hugeness of my emotion for him. Now that I saw it for what it was, it was all-encompassing. I closed my eyes and kept it hidden with every scrap of willpower in me.
I stood, still hugging the pillow, and walked quickly over to retrieve my shirt from the top of the television. Dropping the pillow, I pulled the tank top over my head and buttoned my shorts. I needed to leave—take a walk to clear my head and give him time to himself.