“Has to stay on,” Vaughn finished for her. He climbed onto the bed and straddled her waist, stealing her remaining reservations with his size, his commanding energy. With determined but methodical movements, he jerked his leather belt through the loops of his jeans. “You think I don’t remember the one rule we made, doll? A man doesn’t forget being kept away from virgin * by a little strip of material. Knowing a girl loves the sight of his dripping prick before she even knows what it’s capable of.” He growled above her. “Uh uh, Riv. I didn’t forget that. It might be the last thought that runs through my head when I leave this world.”
River’s hands lost their function and fell to the side, taking her sheer bra along with them. She barely registered the exposing of her own breasts until Vaughn reacted. He fell forward, bracing a hand on the headboard above her head at the last minute, the other hand fighting with his zipper. As she watched in riotous anticipation, Vaughn drew out his erection, already stroking the length of flesh with a guttural groan.
“Fuck, you’re even better than I remember.” He heaved the words, close enough to paint her mostly naked body with hot breath, tightening her nipples into straining peaks, shifting the flyaway strands of hair on her forehead. “I’ve been inside that body. I’ve pleasured that body. Haven’t I, Riv?”
Tearing her attention away from the fist pumping up and down on thick, ruddy flesh was near impossible, but the note of distress in Vaughn’s voice attracted her like a bee to honey. Soothe. Correct. It was like falling back into a rhythm she’d been born to play. “Yes, you were inside me…pleasured me.”
He exhaled on a shudder, that hand moving, squeezing, faster, faster. “I’m sorry,” he groaned. “I’ve jerked so much come out of my dick thinking of you, I should be ashamed of myself. And I didn’t even know you’d gotten sweeter.” Those brown eyes had gone deep, almost black, staring down at River, right through her. “I…are you really underneath me right now? Jesus, I can’t breathe.”
It took her a moment to realize Vaughn wasn’t just rambling in that dirty way she’d never stopped craving. No, his breathing was labored, sweat trickling down the sides of his handsome face. Overheated? That was all River’s lust-coated brain could conjure up, so she pushed up on one elbow, reaching for the hem of his T-shirt. “M-maybe you should take this off.”
She’d only lifted the garment past his belly button, catching just a hint of blue ink on Vaughn’s skin—a new tattoo?—before his voice stopped her dead. “No.” Seeing that he’d startled her into dropping the hem, he reached for her wrist, rubbing a comforting circle onto her skin with his thumb. “No, it’s not the shirt. It’s you, okay?” His lids dropped into slits. “Christ. Maybe I’m too fucked up for this.”
All she heard from Vaughn’s mouth was it’s you, and insecurities dog piled on top of one another, cutting off her air. I don’t feel the same way anymore, River. God, was he doing this out of guilt in some attempt to apologize? She shot up into a sitting position, attempting to slide her legs toward her chest, away from Vaughn, but his face went tight with alarm, and she found herself pinned to the bed. Both of them were breathing wildly into the sliver of space separating their faces.
“Get off me,” she whispered.
Vaughn’s head dipped forward, a tortured sound fleeing his lips. “No.”
Chapter Seven
Something fucked up was afoot. Most of it was him. Almost all of it, actually. Looking down at River while taking his pleasure had felt beyond wrong. So damn wrong. He’d torn them apart—hurt this beautiful creature—and the last thing he deserved was an up close and personal peep show while he got his rocks off. Self-disgust came part and parcel with self-pleasure in his world, but not like this. He’d sensed the wrongness in the center of his chest, like a hunting knife twisting.
And now…now, River had that look. One he recognized well. If she were still that twenty-year-old girl, he would say it meant she was insecure about his feelings. But that ship had sailed and he’d been at the helm. Still, nothing would stop him trying to repair it.
Without hesitation, Vaughn kicked into fix-it mode, grasping the sides of her face, forcing eye contact, focused on the patchwork quilt being stitched together inside her head. Not an easy feat considering his hard cock was now wedged up against her cotton panties, like a man begging entry to the only home he’d ever known.
“Stop looking off to the side,” he grated. “You know damn well I’ll stay like this all night.”
“I don’t know anything about you anymore,” she said through her teeth.
Those words had the effect of a cheese grater rubbing up the back of his spine. “I’m the same man.” Only a shit ton lonelier and only half complete.
There she went, trying to evade his gaze again, so he pressed their foreheads together, keeping her head still on the pillow. A hint of challenge sparked in her baby blues, and he almost howled with relief. “The same man wouldn’t have stopped halfway through what we were doing,” she said.
“No, you’re right about that. One hundred percent.” Sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, Vaughn rolled their lower bodies together, watched her eyes go glassy. “Let me try again. I’m the same man with a different perspective.”
“After you explain that nonsense, will you leave?”