A paroxysm of pleasure ripped through as he stroked his aching length, a convulsion of unbearable grief. His own hoarse shout cleaved through the thick cloak of his arousal.
Rill blinked open his eyes to the vision of his cock shooting an arc of semen onto the smooth harbor of Katie’s belly. It seemed to burn as it seethed out of his body. He’d needed to be rid of the scalding fluid. His body tightened and he ejected more . . . and more. He grunted each time he jerked his cock and more spilled onto the growing semen pool on Katie’s heaving belly.
In the last convulsions of climax, he shifted. He groaned in agony as he shot the final drops of his thunderous orgasm onto the dark gold pubic hair of Katie’s mons.
So close.
His body shuddered again, but his balls had been utterly emptied. He fell forward, catching himself with his hands next to Katie’s body, his eyes shut, struggling to regain his equilibrium. He felt a little like he’d been clocked in the head from an unsuspecting blow.
“Rill?”
Katie’s whisper penetrated his awareness. He slowly opened his eyes. He couldn’t describe the expression on her face as she looked up at him. Wary? Uncertain? Stunned?
She must be stunned. He’d been like a madman in those final moments, completely and utterly at the mercy of strangling lust.
He glanced down Katie’s naked body, pausing when he saw his semen wetting her abdomen and pooling in indention of her belly button. He moved quickly, hoisting his body off the bed and jerking up his underwear and pants. Even though the bathroom off the dormer wasn’t functional, there was a box of tissues on the sink counter. He returned to Katie and sat on the edge of the bed. He avoided her stare as he dried her belly and then untied her.
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly as he released her wrists. Her arms were falling back to the bed, but they paused in midair.
“Are you?”
His gaze flickered over her face. Her springtime eyes, golden hair and vividly pink cheeks created a vibrant palette of color. He’d thought it before, and he thought it again a hundredfold seeing a postorgasmic Katie; he wished he could put her image on film.
All of it except the doubt on her face.
He placed his fingertips over his shut eyes, blocking out the image of Katie’s uncertainty. Or maybe that was his own wariness he saw reflected on her beautiful face.
“I don’t know why I want you so much,” he muttered brokenly.
In the seconds that followed, his eyes remained closed, but he sensed her rustling on the bed.
“You make it sound like a crime,” she said eventually. When he pried his eyes open, he saw that she’d pulled the comforter around her. He was glad she’d covered herself.
He hated that she had.
There was something so elementally right about Katie’s nudity. Now that he’d seen her full glory exposed, it struck him as almost a crime to hide it.
But of course he was thankful she had. She was more of a temptation than he was prepared for, broken as he was.
“It’s not a crime,” he muttered.
“It disappoints you that you want me,” she whispered. “Because I’m not Eden.”
His chin jerked around. “No. That’s not it.”
A prickly sort of uncomfortable silence fell between them. She’d pulled herself up into a sitting position, her legs crossed beneath the comforter. She held her blouse closed over her breasts. He realized she felt vulnerable in front of him. He wanted to comfort her, but he felt just as confused . . . just as exposed by his blind, naked need.
She inhaled shakily. Rill sensed her resolve to try to make sense of the situation, to put it into words.
“Has it been hard for you . . . when you get aroused by another woman since Eden died?”
Her matter-of-fact tone annoyed him. He didn’t want to sit here and analyze why he went crazy every time he touched her. He certainly didn’t want to discuss why he’d avoided relationships ever since Eden had died.
“No,” he replied edgily.
“Why is it so terrible to want me, then? Why am I so objectionable?”
He gave her a disbelieving glance. “How could you think I find you objectionable? You know what just happened.”