‘Can’t what?’ he asked quietly.
‘Enjoy it,’ she said simply.
There was so much for him to process. To say he was surprised by her inexperience would have been a huge understatement. Nina wasn’t just a beautiful, famous woman. She was sweet and gentle and kind and wrapped in a killer body. She was irresistible, so it was hard to imagine that more men hadn’t broken their backs trying to woo her. And even over that, he couldn’t quite reconcile that the three men shehadbeen with hadn’t seen that anxiety and inexperience and gone slowly, taken the time to show her how that fire could be kindled.
‘I’ll show you,’ he promised. ‘We’ll go as slow as you need.’
When she nodded, Maverick closed the small distance between them – finally. When she didn’t move, he gently guided her arms around his neck, and the moment she tightened them, he reached down and lifted her.
Her legs wrapped around his waist instinctively and squeezed, sending all the blood in his head to his crotch. As he turned and carried her into his bedroom, closing the door with a kick, he said, ‘Anytime you want me to stop, you tell me. Okay?’
She nodded.
It was enough. Still, he silently promised himself that he’d take care of her, and that he’d show her what her body could do and that a man could be gentle and thoughtful.
‘Mav …’
‘Yeah.’
‘No fingers inside … Please. I don’t like it …’
Maverick stopped walking. He wondered over that. He worried, because she sounded scared. He wanted to ask her for more information but wasn’t sure how, so settled on, ‘Nina, are you sure this is what you want?’
‘Yes,’ she replied firmly. ‘Absolutely. It’s just … He—’
‘He touched you.’ It was not a question. But as he carried her, so light, so small, to the bed, he promised himself that if he ever met the man who had hurt her, he would break those fucking fingers.
Nina’s eyes glassed over, and she nodded. ‘I fought, and then he heard Markus on the phone, and he couldn’t …’ She placed her forehead on his chest, hiding her face from him. ‘He couldn’t …’
‘Shh, baby.’ He sat on the bed with her. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’ His hand stroked her back beneath her pyjamas, soothing her the only way he knew how.
‘I don’t want it here with us,’ she whispered. So saying, she raised both her hands to her hair and pulled as if she could simply rip it from the roots. ‘Make me forget, Mav. Please.’
Nina had never told a bigger truth. Sitting on Maverick’s lap, pressed intimately against his bare chest as he rubbed her back, was the most beautiful moment of her entire life. And she didn’t want to ruin everything she was feeling if he touched her intimately, which was the only reason she’d told him about the assault. She didn’t want any part of it in the room with them. She just wanted to keep this immense intimacy between them alive for as long as possible.
‘I know I’m supposed to be this …siren.’ She pointed to the television on his wall, whereDogs of Despairwas frozen in a blur of indistinguishable colour. ‘But I’m not.’
‘You are to me,’ he said quietly, and trailed his lips gently over her bare shoulder. ‘The first time I looked into those big eyes, I felt like I was drowning. It wasn’t reasonable or logical, and I tried to fight it. But it was no use, the draw was too strong. Those first few days, I looked for you everywhere.’ His lips moved, whispering up and over her jaw, making her tremble. ‘And that first morning when I saw you sleeping on the cabin porch, all I wanted was a few more minutes with you.’
‘You …’ Nina was shocked by his confession.
‘Do you think I offer every guest six a.m. riding lessons?’
‘I thought you were being kind.’
He shrugged. ‘I was being kind. I didn’t want to leave you alone when you looked so sad. But I’d be lying if I said that was the sum of it.’
Nina’s heart raced at his words, even as his lips caught hers in a gentle embrace. It was barely a kiss, just the softest touch that left her aching for more. She closed her eyes and welcomed him, sank into the kiss as he took them both deeper.
His tongue brushed seductively against hers. Those big, rough hands settledsogently, like butterflies, on her hips, not squeezing or groping, only gently holding her in place.
Nina wasn’t sure how only a kiss could set her on fire, but it did. Her body felt like a livewire – erratic and uncontrollable and dangerous. Her pulse skittered and jumped. Her breath started to come in small pants. And though she might have been mortified by her drenched underwear with another man, she couldn’t summon the emotion through the immense sense of pleasure. It had never been like this for her before.
The few times she had had sex, it had been awkward and uncomfortable. She’d been more scared than turned on, and, so, she had been unable to get her body to lie to each of the men she’d been with. They’d known as surely as she had that it hadn’t been pleasurable for her, and not one of them had called after, reaffirming her own sense of failure.
But here, now, with Mav … she was a goddess.
Beneath her, his hard thighs pressed against her intimately. His thumbs brushed against her hips where he held her, always soothing, she thought, always caring. He said, ‘Are you sure you’re ready for this?’
