“No.” She fought his hold on her hair, but the tugging pressure was just another caress, another sensation adding to the others. “Aiden, please,” she screamed out his name as she felt her pu**y clamp harder on him, instinctively preparing for what was to come. Her womb shuddered, her ni**les swelling harder against his chest, the blood surging through her veins, harder, faster, erupting…
When her orgasm hit her, she lost herself. All she knew, all she could feel was the agonizing pleasure that pulsed over her as Aiden locked inside her, his c**k filling her, his seed spurting inside her with heated blasts of yet more sensation.
The pleasure/pain whipped through every cell, every molecule of her body. Nerve endings exploded in rapture, muscle and tissue filled with ecstasy. Her keening cry as her legs locked tighter around him was rife with her pleasure, with her agony as her womb responded with a hard, breath-taking tremor. It stole her breath, washed over her with an echoing orgasm so fierce, so hot she knew it would change her forever.
“Mine.” His growl was a vibrating, animalistic sound at her shoulder as his body jerked with his own release.
A hard spurt of seed shot inside her. The knot anchoring him to herthrobbed, pulsed, as he shuddered in reaction. Seconds later, the action was repeated. Each throb of his c**k was another pulse of agonizing
pleasure inside her body; another pulse of hot, rich se**n through her womb. Her legs slid weakly from his hips, her arms falling to her sides as the swelling inside her cunt began to ease, the hard throb slowly fading away. Aiden’s body was a comforting weight against her,a warmth she had thought she would never know.Until he moved.
She opened her eyes, watching carefully as he moved slowly to her side. Echoes of pleasure still trembled through her body, though the torturous arousal had, for the moment, been eased.
“A mating.”Confidence surged through his dark voice as he watched her. Regret filled her, washed over her as a small bitter smile shaped her lips.
“A mating?” she asked him sadly. “No, Aiden, not a mating.A reaction.Nothing more.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Your feet are doing much better. Evidently the f**king drugs were good for something.”
He had fed her, bathed her, dried her, helped her dress, then re-bandaged her feet after apply the healing salve to the rapidly healing welts on her feet the next morning. He hadn’t acknowledged her denial of the mating the night before, or this morning.
It infuriated him. He could feel the knowledge of their mating clear to his bones. It was a part of him. His body would not lock to her, the swelling would not occur, if she wasn’t his mate. And it had occurred before the drugs had been given to her. He knew and he knew she knew it. Yet still she denied it.
“I need to see Armani,” she told him as he straightened before her and picked up the comb he had laid on the night table, beside the bed.
She sat on the edge of the mattress, watching him warily.
“I’m aware of this. Turn around and I’ll comb your hair.”
She turned slowly, sitting cross-legged on the bed as he began to work the tangles free of her damp hair.
“Aiden.”Her voice was tired. Even after the hearty breakfast he had forced on her and the long bath, she still looked too pale, her body trembling at the least exertion.
“I called Armani while you were soaking,” he told her quietly, knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer.
“No tests, Charity. Your body isn’t ready for it, even though you believe it is. The arousal and resulting sexual activity is too much as it is. I won’t allow you to push yourself further than absolutely necessary.”
Her body relaxed, though only marginally.
“Thank you.” He heard the relief in her voice and wondered at the clenching of his chest.
“Charity,” he whispered, leaning close to her as she trembled beneath his hands. “You have your hopes set that there is a cure for this need you have of me. There is no cure. It is natural.Whether you admit it or not.”
He heard her breath hitch as though she were holding back tears. He didn’t check to see if it were true, didn’t want to know if it was. To know she cried because of the bond they shared would shatter something inside him, he thought. He had somehow, in the space of a few short days, lost the hatred that had sustained him for six long years.
That change alone was abrupt enough. To realize his acceptance of her as his mate, and to have her deny it, more than bothered him. It infuriated him.
“It’s a virus,” she said simply. “I’ve tracked it that far. It’s triggered by a hormone in the male se**n that infects the ovaries…”
“Stop, Charity.” He smiled, though with an edge of sadness as helay his finger against her lips. “I don’t have any desire to know how or why it occurs. If you need this to accept what cannot be changed, then I won’t fight you. But neither will I allow you to harm yourself in the process. Armani knows this, and she knows to take care. But you will hear it as well. If I see it affecting you adversely, then I will put a stop to it.”
She lifted a brow mockingly, causing his c**k to twitch at the implied defiance. “I’m weak, Aiden, not stupid.”
He sighed wearily. “No, you are not stupid, just incredibly stubborn. That stubbornness makes me horny, Charity.”
“Well gee, Aiden, why not just be romantic about it,” she snorted as her face flushed with arousal and shyness.