Even without having her own memories of the events, she knew what he said to be true as soon as the words came out of his mouth. And she understood now the vague feeling of guilt that always cropped up when she tried to get him to talk about their past.
She again tried to look up at him, but he kept her pinned, breasts pressed to the cool covers, while he rutted her from behind, like an animal. Finally he yelled out and spilled into her, nearly overflowing her hot tunnel with his load. She came, too, then, unable to fight it any longer, and she tremored around his cock, all but drinking in his seed as he released wave after wave of it inside of her.
She thought that would be the end of it, but he remained hard inside of her. “Say you’re mine,” he whispered, his voice harsh and ragged.
***
Nathan knew he should have let her go after the third time. He had never taken any woman that roughly, and he realized he was out of control at this point. If he had any sense of self-preservation, he’d get up, zip his pants, leave the room, and put as much distance between him and this woman as possible, considering she drove him crazy with both lust and anger.
But the animal that was in control of him now wouldn’t let logic intercede. He wanted her. He wanted her on his terms, without fear of having his brother steal her away again. “Say you’re mine.”
“Nathan,” she said, gasping for air underneath him. “Please let me up.”
Coming back to himself a little bit, he released her, pulling out of her and sitting back. Then he waited to see if she would say the words he needed to hear or if he’d need to provide her with yet another example of how very much he owned her body.
But when she sat up and turned to face him, her wrists still bound to the bed post, he realized his mistake, because there were tears in her eyes. And just like that, she reversed the power between them.
“I hurt you,” he said. He released her hands from the tank-top handcuffs. “I’m sorry I did that. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“No.” She folded her arms over her breasts and clasped her hands underneath her chin. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“You’re lying. I did hurt you.”
But she guided him down to the bed, and arranged it so they were facing each other with their heads on separate pillows. “I just want to look at you. Just lay here with me, okay? You didn’t hurt me, I promise you. I would have told you to stop if you were hurting me.”
“Then why are you crying?” he asked. On one hand he wanted to bury himself inside her and punish her some more for seeking out his brother behind his back—again. On the other hand, he felt like punching himself for causing her any pain. It was hard, he was discovering, to feel like someone’s victim and protector at the same time.
“I’m crying because I hurt you,” she said. “And I’m sorry.”
She scooted closer, and pressed her soft lips to his. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
And this time it was she who guided his him inside of her, stroking her hips against his in penance for something she couldn’t remember doing. “But I know myself well enough to know I didn’t lie to you. My father used to tell the women he dated that he loved them just to score more money off of them. He broke a lot of hearts, and I promised myself back when I was a little girl that I would never pretend to love someone. Love is a beautiful gift, and I don’t toss that word around lightly. I never have. So if I told you I loved you, I must have meant it.”
“Don’t say that.” He shook his head, fighting the ray of hope that lit up his heart before he could contain it.
But she shook her head, too. “No, I have to say this, because you need to understand. I love you now, and I’m sure I loved you then. I’m sorry if I wasn’t strong enough to leave Andrew for you.”
Compared to the angry, primal sex they’d just had, Layla’s soft velvet strokes against his dick shouldn’t have excited anything within him. But he felt his balls tightening as she conquered him with the one word he hadn’t been prepared for.
“You don’t have to love me back,” she said, her breath hitching as her own orgasm built inside of her. “I understand why you can’t love me the way I love you, but I need you to know how I feel. I do belong to you, but only because I love you now, and apparently, I loved you back then. I’ll always love you, Nathan.”
That declared, she kissed him, and his orgasm burst through him, touching every nerve in his body before he released into Layla, kissing her back with all the love he’d been trying to deny ever since she’d come back into his life.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FOUR times proved to be too much for Layla, and sleep began to overtake her, even as Nathan pulled out of her. But he gently shook her awake before she could drift off and whispered, “Let’s go” in her ear.
She pulled her clothes back on, feeling awkward and raw inside and out. She could barely look Nathan in the eye after what has just transpired between them and when she rose from the bed, her thighs and vagina protested, sore from not one but four sessions of the most intense sex she’d ever had.
She peeked sideways at Nathan in the car, but his face revealed nothing.
“I’ll send Kate for your car,” he said. Then he didn’t speak again until they were back at his loft and she’d come out of the bathroom after taking a shower.
“You’re in pain,” he said, noting her ginger steps as she walked over to the bed.
She winced. “Yeah, we might have overdone it.”
“I’ll take a shower, too, then we need to talk,” he said.
She was already curled up under the silky sheets, her head nuzzled into his glorious pillows. “Okay, I’ll be right here when you get out,” she said with a yawn.
After the terrible weekend of sneaking around and keeping things from Nathan, and the big confrontation in the Sinclair guest cottage, she must have truly been spent because she fell asleep at once, not waking up until several hours later.
This time when she opened her eyes, though, she was greeted with the surprise of a gray wall blocking her view of the rest of the loft. Nathan had shown her the retractable walls cleverly embedded into slots strategically situated in various spots around the place, so he could create rooms on the fly around the office space or the bedroom. But so far they’d never had occasion to use them. For someone who claimed to value his privacy, Nathan had yet to really insist on it.