Series: Charmaine Pauls
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
“What do you mean our mating isn’t complete? You came inside me.”
Possessiveness sparks in his eyes, but his expression is veiled, his voice almost toneless. “Yes, I did a good job of filling you with my seed. I stuffed you to overflowing. Even now as we’re connected, I can feel what you can’t hold inside spilling from your pussy.”
Fuck.
Birth control.
How could something so crucial have slipped my mind? It’s this damn mating urge. It clouded my reason and drugged my brain.
“I don’t want to have children,” I say in a hoarse voice.
At least, not now. Not like this.
He wipes every trace of emotion from his face so efficiently that he’d give Kian a good run for his money. “Then we’d better hope you didn’t conceive.” Then, just as quickly, he gives me a cold, wry smile. “But don’t worry. Alit women don’t conceive easily. It rarely happens on the first try.”
Not reassured, I ask, “Why didn’t you use protection?”
“Because it’s assumed that a mated couple would welcome a child. Couples don’t only welcome the idea; they wish for it desperately.”
“Well, we’re not a mated couple. You said so yourself.”
“Yes,” he replies like a robot, not allowing me to get a read on him.
“If you did such a good job, how come it’s not complete?” I ask with a good dose of sarcasm.
I’m physically sated, but I’m far from satisfied. A part of me wants to hurt him like I’m hurting. I want to punish him for keeping me here against my will and for making it impossible for me to fight our attraction. I want to punish him for making me submit to him. Finding myself on the losing end is a humiliating experience. Pleasurable but humiliating. I don’t have a choice but to bend under this incontrollable need. He can only win, time and again, and it’s not fair.
He adopts a stony look as he lets me go, lifts off of me, and gets to his feet. Like earlier, the loss of his touch leaves me oddly bereft. I have no idea why I’m so disappointed. I only know that he’s disappointed too.
Was the sex not what he expected? Did it not please him? Was I too inexperienced?
Was that what I saw in his expression before he hid it so well? Disappointment?
For some reason, the thought floors me. It hurts me much more than it should. His opinion of my skills in bed shouldn’t affect me. I shouldn’t care. I don’t. Then why do I feel like crying as he walks away without as much as a backward glance?
The unwelcome tears I can’t hold back anymore run over my cheeks. Wiping impatiently at my face, I push up onto my elbows. As he walks to the other room, I watch his chiseled ass and the muscles of his back that seem to be sculpted from marble.
Whatever. He can go fuck himself.
I didn’t expect pillow talk, but I don’t appreciate being left cold when he’s just claimed my V-card.
I swallow my tears as he returns with one of those big, folded bath sheets in his hand.
“Here,” he says in that same emotionless tone, holding it open for me.
So much for post-sex intimacy. If anything, we’re more like strangers than ever. The atmosphere is so uncomfortable I wish I were anywhere but here. The sex must’ve been truly awful if this is how he’s behaving. He’s shown me more warmth in our non-sexual interactions than he has after the act.
He wraps me up in the sheet, telling me he doesn’t want me to be cold, and then he holds out his hand. When I take it on autopilot, he leads me to the cleansing room.
He gets into the water and waits for me to drop the sheet before helping me in too. I settle on the bench facing him, and he doesn’t invite me to join him on his side or to sit on his lap as he did before. Instead, he seems caught up in his thoughts, far away from me and what we just did.
As if it doesn’t matter.
Because it doesn’t.
Why should it?
He got what he wanted, and he liked it less than he hoped. I should be relieved. Then why does a heaviness settle in my heart and more of those cursed tears burn at the backs of my eyes? Why does it hurt with enough force to reduce me to sobbing?
He rinses his face and brushes back his hair with his big hands. Drops cling to his long, dark lashes.
“Do you need a pomade or a drink to dull the pain?” he asks casually, factually, as if he doesn’t really care but is asking because he feels compelled by some weird sense of duty to take care of me.
Yes, that’s it. He’s not asking as if he gives a damn but as if he has to, as if it’s nothing but a pesky responsibility.