Page 20 of The Warrior's Captive

What was happening? How could he not know?

“I didn’t know it would be like this,” she said quietly. She was still trapped under his weight, in the cage of one strong arm at either side of her shoulders.

“I thought… I thought you were eager to fuck like this. That you liked it rough.”

“How would I know what I like? I’m a virgin! I was a virgin.” Tears welled up and spilled over. She hadn’t felt shame at wanting him so unabashedly, she hadn’t felt shame parting herself so he could see how wet she was for him. But admitting that she’d never been touched by a man, that her body had failed at the one thing that was supposed to be instinctive—this was shame.

She thought she could do it, she’d wanted to do it, but she couldn’t.

He reared back like she’d shot him point blank. “No.” His hand travelled down her body. He didn’t touch her, just hovered it over her skin, his fingers shaking. She was trembling all over, both from shock and the feeling of invasion. He stopped at her thighs and gently, with so much care and tenderness urged them apart.

She looked down too. She saw the smears of red on her thighs at the same time he did. He cursed violently. Loudly. It sounded heartbroken.

The stupid thing was, he looked stricken.

He carefully rearranged his features, but he couldn’t slam that uncaring mask back into place. There was a big crack right down the center of it. The center of him. “I didn’t know. Christ. You’re…you’re…”

“Yes, probably the oldest virgin in the world,” she spat out. Shame was burning her skin, there was an ache between her legs. But it couldn’t match the gaping hole she felt in her chest. All she wanted him to do was to take her into his arms and stroke her back and her hair and make it better. But he wasn’t going to do any of that. He didn’t have the first clue at how to be tender. She couldn’t blame him… He’d told her what he was going to do? Had she been expecting fucking doves and hearts and flowers?

What was that saying? When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He blinked fast. Furiously. He looked ruined. Like he was actually dangerously close to breaking down.

Watching the first true emotion play over his face, naked and uncertain, her heart wept. She didn’t know enough about him, anything really, but she did realize that he’d grown up in the sort of environment that didn’t produce lighthearted individuals. Had he ever known love or tenderness? While she’d been raised on kind words, hugs, understanding, visible tokens of love and in a time of peace, that clearly wasn’t so for him.

She was half ashamed that the tears kept coming. The other half of her just wanted to let them flow. She wasn’t just weeping for herself any longer.

Warrior or not, no matter how hard he was or what happened to him in his life, or what his motives were for taking her in the beginning, he would never have intentionally hurt her. She believed him. If only she’d warned him. If she had, would he have touched her at all? He might have treated her like she was fragile and breakable, and she didn’t want that either. She just honestly hadn’t expected it to hurt so badly. Maybe there was something wrong with her besides being a virgin. Sometimes, that happened. People had pain during sex. She’d read about that. Medical conditions.

“I don’t know.” She swiped some of the tears away. “I thought it would be okay. I read all this stuff in books. About this. Everyone talks about it like it’s such a good thing.”

He swept a hand through his hair. “It can be, but I wouldn’t have ever, ever just gone in like that if I had known. I would have been gentle. Taken care and time with you. I would have prepped you with my fingers first.” He blew out a frustrated breath, but he was only frustrated with himself. “I was half mad for you. Like an animal. I can’t ever tell you how much I regret that this is your first experience. That I’m your first. You deserve so much more. You deserve a man who can talk to you about feelings and hold you and give you a future not a heartless bastard.”

But he wasn’t a heartless bastard, the fact that he could show empathy and regret, showed her that there was the potential for tenderness inside him. She wished she could make him believe that he had good in him, that with a little care and attention it could be nurtured and could bloom.

They stared each other down, him breathing like he truly had just been to battle. She hadn’t seen her brother Rome’s face when he’d learned that his mate was killed. She hadn’t seen him, gory and bloodied after taking vengeance on his enemies. She’d been asleep when it happened. No one came to get her. Kieran and her father handled all of it. She’d been debriefed only after Rome was gone, banished from the pack for bringing the wrath of the Rangers upon them. She hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. She hadn’t been brave enough, like Kieran, to go to the city to find him.

She couldn’t imagine what he would have looked like, how he’d nearly been driven insane with grief. There were different kinds of sorrow, and she was seeing a stinging, sharp one now. A brutal regret etched into the lines around Castor’s strong mouth.

Her lips wavered so she bit down on the bottom one. It stung where her teeth hit a bitemark. She’d wanted all of it, the pain included, this man’s special brand of brutality and pleasure all twisted up, right until it hurt too much. What if he could make it hurt less? More pleasure mingled with the sting?

She pushed her shame and regret to the side, she had to know. “Can you still make it better?”

Chapter 8

Castor

He felt like the biggest bastard on the face of the earth. He was a cruel man, he enjoyed harsh pleasures and sex had always been a battlefield of wills for him. But any pain that he doled out was always wanted, the sex might have been a battle, but it was a battle with both parties knowing the score and both parties willing.

Seeing Briar May looking so broken and fragile cut him to the core. He’d been all ready to take a cold shower, wait out the night and then make sure she got back to her pack without further ado, until she’d spoken the words that had almost floored him.

Can you still make it better?

Did that mean she still wanted him? He snorted in surprise. Not a laugh. It was pure shock. “If you let me, I’ll try with everything I have.”

He knew she still wanted him. Despite the pain and humiliation he could feel radiating from her, he detected her arousal, a faint spicy bloom that needed to be coaxed back into full blossom.

She should have told him. Confided in him. If she trusted him enough to let him into her body, she should have trusted him with the knowledge that he was the first, but he supposed that he couldn’t blame her for that.

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