Page 37 of All the Pain of Promises
He approached her slowly, standing close enough so that if she wanted space between them, she would have to be the one to step back. To step away. Besides, he didn’t exactly tower over her by any means, but his height did offer him an excellent vantage point. One glance downward and he was greeted by the swell of her perfectly splendid breasts. Her delicious scent of sandalwood, salty sea air, and heady florals wafted over him, and he reached between them, tracing the delicate deep cut line of her gown with one finger.
She sucked in a sharp breath, her skin flushing beneath his intimate assessment.
Solarius wasn’t sure why she was acting so reserved. Usually she met him head-on with a vicious smile and a sharp tongue. Yet now she was almost apprehensive. There was hesitance in the way she couldn’t quite meet his eyes, and it drove him mad. He rather liked her when she was demanding and forceful, when she glared at him as though he was the last person in the world she wanted to see, when her verbal assaults left him desperate for more of her.
Unless, of course, it was all an act. An exceptional performance for reasons still unknown to him.
He bent lower, brushing his lips along the lobe of her ear, taking great pleasure when she shivered against him. Her hands moved between them, her fingers curling into the lapel of his coat.
“Let me kiss you, Rissa love,” he whispered, skating his lips up to the tip of her ear. “Let me take you to bed.”
Another one of those tempting sounds slipped from between her lips and his cock throbbed to life. She swayed into him andhis hand slid around to the small of her back, dipping lower. He pressed her firmly against him, so she would know the exact effect she had on him, and like a naughty midnight siren, she ground her hips into his bulging shaft.
“Let me taste you,” Solarius groaned. He would absolutely beg again if necessary. Anything to finally be able to feel her fully, with nothing between them but sweat and skin. “Let me fill you.”
“Sol.” His name on her lips was hardly more than a strained whimper. The bond flared to life, but Narissa’s fingers unfurled and she pressed her hands against the solid wall of his chest. “I…I can’t.”
Solarius locked his jaw, inhaling deeply, then slowly recovered from his mate’s refusal. Again, she was determined to deny him. Not that he was owed intercourse or any other kind of intimacy with her, but stars be damned, certainly she had to at leastfeelsomething for him. Even if her attraction toward him was strictly because of the bond, he told himself that would be enough, that he would find a way to manage a purely physical relationship. If she didn’t want to give him her heart, he would accept that, but not without trying.
Not without begging.
“Tell me why.” He spoke every word with soothing tenderness. He wanted to understand her reasoning, but more than that, he needed to know why she was continuously putting up a wall around herself, why she wasn’t allowing herself to get too close to him. “If you’re nervous, I promise I’ll worship every inch of you to keep you calm. If you’re worried it might hurt, I promise we’ll go as slow as you need.”
Narissa shook her head, a familiar sheen glazing her eyes.
Fuck.
“It’s not that.” She sniffed once and a tear slid down her cheek. “I’m just…”
Solarius caught the small pearl and shoved it into his pocket before it could hit the floor. “What is it then, Rissa? Tell me. Please. Help me understand.”
Her chest shuddered and she wrapped her arms around herself, taking a step back. Coldness expanded between them. She gnawed on her bottom lip, her eyes darting all over the room, looking anywhere but at him.
“Rissa,” he urged.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them, they were filled with a vast and deep hurt that hollowed out his heart. He’d never seen so much sorrow, so much agony, all of it kept safely hidden away by a façade of aversion.
“If I do this, if I share this part of me with you now…I’ll never forgive myself.”
Solarius stared at her.
That was not at all what he was expecting her to say.
“I don’t understand.” Again he stepped forward, and this time she quickly stepped back, not allowing him to get too close.
She threw her hands up between them, warding him off. Her eyes continued to shine but no tears fell as she said, “I’m not enough for you, Sol. I wasn’t the first time, and I know?—”
“Wait a damn minute.” His blood ran cold, like someone shoved a dagger made of ice right into his chest. “What do you mean,the first time?”
Narissa’s lips parted, and a tiny frown crinkled her usually smooth brow. She was twisting her gloves in her hands now, wrinkling the fine fabric. Her gaze darted to the floor, but then she rolled her shoulders back and raised her chin.
“The first time we were intimate.”
Solarius’s mouth fell open, and then he snapped it shut. His mind was reeling, unable to process the words she said, because they were an outright lie. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, trying to make sense of the sceneunfolding before him, but a gnawing sense of unease, of growing disquiet, coursed through him.
“The most intimate we’ve ever been was when you were sprawled across my lap in the back of that carriage.” He jerked his thumb toward the door for emphasis, and with painstaking slowness, he closed the distance between them. A sick, twisted sensation wrenched through his gut. “So, I will ask again. What first time?”
Devastation etched into her pretty face and the flames flickering in the hearth cast her in a mask of shadow and light, haunting her with a chilling sort of beauty.
