He really should look away.But I can’t.
Kaia glanced at Orion, seeming confused about how she’d come to be where she was.
He couldn’t stop staring at her breasts, a bit less than a handful, tipped with hard, rosy nipples just begging for a bite.
It took her a long moment to realize she was naked. “Oh.” She grabbed the covers and held them over her chest, a pretty blush coloring her cheeks. “Thanks a lot.”
A little sarcastic there, Kaia.“For saving your ass from demonic lycans? You’re welcome,” he growled.
She blinked. “That wasn’t a dream?”
He leaned against the back of his door and crossed his thick arms over his chest, bursting with muscle. The shorts he wore came to just above his knees and only emphasized his powerful thighs and trim waist. And that bulge between his legs grew as she stared.
He wished he couldn’t read her thoughts, but her need was obvious. Hell, he could smell her creaming for him as she watched him, her gaze zeroed on his cock that felt like steel the longer she stared.
Orion cleared his throat, wondering how far to take her game.
She whipped her gaze to his. “What?”
He wanted her to want him, needed her like he needed blood. And the feelings, emotions cascading through him as he looked at his pretty, frail mate. It felt like a trap, so much pressure to protect her, to be what she needed. Fuck, he couldn’t handle it and not want her so desperately.
None of which felt remotelyrealto him but like that fucking enslavement spell cast by her mother and then Kaia.
He snarled at her, not buying for a minute her cringe as real. “Youdid this.”
“What?”
“You get off on me wanting you.”
“I do not.” She bit her lip, and he smelled a more intense desire emanating from the sea nymph. What would be natural coming from her sister nymphs, but what had never been normal from Kaia before.
“Cut it out.”
“I’m not doing anything,” she cried and clutched the coverlet in front of her.
“So this intense need is all my doing, huh?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She did the vulnerable bit a little too well.
“Come on. Let’s just get it over with. We both know you want this.” He cupped the raging erection his shorts couldn’t hide, so he dropped them. “It’s not a spell. It’s normal need.” Bullshit, but he wanted to see if he could get her to admit the truth. “You want sex. So do I. How about you give that V-card you’ve been saving up for a rainy day? Maybe then I’ll believe you’re not putting a spell on me.”
“How does that correlate or make any kind of sense?” she asked, her temper high.
Not so frail now, eh, princess?“It doesn’t. But maybe I want to know that the woman I’m going to sleep with is real. That she didn’t use magic to get what she wants. You give me that V-card you’ve been saving up. I’ll give you the best sex of your life, because it will be real, not a spell.” He paused. “And maybe I’ll forgive you for putting me under your spell the last time.”
She turned a bright red with what seemed like shame, not anger. “I never meant to hurt you. I was trying to help.”
He hated how he felt. Suffocated by affection and unfamiliar feelings he couldn’t trust as his own. Wanting her to the exclusion of all sense. “Damn it. I want to trust you, but I can’t, and it hurts,” he said, his voice thick with uncertainty, that he didn’t know his own mind anymore. Afraid. A vryko, feeling fear. It was unheard of. “What the fuck are you doing to me?” he yelled, clutching his head, trying to look away but unable to resist her.
“You’re acting like this is all my fault. I didn’t mean any of it. But I can’t sleep with you to prove it, you big bastard.” She started crying, and he couldn’t tell if her tears were true or not. “I don’t want my first time to be coerced. That’s rapey.”
It was, and he had never in his life forced sex. It went against everything the vryko believed in to sexually assault one who could give birth to young, the act of conception a sacred one first born by Alecta.
Orion cringed deep inside while taking refuge in anger. “You’re right. It is! So get the fuck out. Go stay with Macy or your dad. Or hey, I know. Why not hang with Sabine so you can share stories of how you take advantage of ensorcelled males?”
Kaia stared at him, that blue in her eyes returning, so beautiful he felt ensnared and hated himself for it.
Waiting for her to just cast her spell and be done with it, he wasn’t prepared when she burst into tears and turned away from him, sobbing her heart out as she cried. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I’m sorry.”
