He let out a load groan as he swallowed her small cry of pain as he broke through the evidence of her innocence and buried himself to the hilt. Once there he forced himself to stop. It didn’t matter that this was the wettest, hottest and tightest hold he’d ever experienced. The only thing at the moment that mattered was his little recluse. He had to make it good for her and judging by the way her body went rigid he knew that she wasn’t enjoying this nearly as much as he was.

Not thrusting into her body was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but for her he suffered through it as he slowly kissed her back to the point where she needed this, needed him. When she rolled her h*ps experimentally against him he knew she was ready. He slowly pulled out, groaning at the sensation of a thousand wet tongues licking his c**k and pushed back in.

His pace never increased and his thrusts were gentle as he took her. It was the most erotic experience of his life. He’d never taken a woman like this, never.

Whenever he took a woman to bed it was always a f**k and nothing more. He’d also never taken a woman without a condom and that thought was just registering in his mind when he felt her tighten around him. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her to hold her tightly against him. When she shattered around him he lost control and with three deep, hard thrusts he was joining her, barely bighting back a curse at the biggest f**kup of his life and silently praying that this didn’t come back and bite him in the ass later.

When the last spasm tore through him he rolled over onto his back and pulled a panting Jamie with him. A moment later when the haze of pleasure began to wear off he felt the change in Jamie almost immediately. When she tried to pull out of his arms he held her tighter. She wanted to escape what happened and she couldn’t any longer. It was time to give into the grief of what her family put her through. When the first sob finally broke through, his arms tightened around her and didn’t relax until the last sob left her body hours later and she fell into an exhausted sleep in his arms.

After he was sure that she was asleep he carefully crawled off the bed. He walked into the bathroom and shut off the shower and gave Rick a call asking him to cancel their plans for the day. Rick didn’t need to ask why and for that Nick was grateful. With that done Nick walked back into the room and looked down at his little recluse as she curled up into a ball on her side. He bent to grab his shirt only to discover that he didn’t want to leave her.

Deciding not to question his need to stay at the moment, he quickly pulled off his now damp clothes and threw them over the shower rod before joining Jamie in bed. Once he had her back in his arms something inside of him calmed and found himself falling into a deep peaceful sleep.

Chapter 19

“We need to talk,” Nick announced when she made the mistake of opening her eyes. That of course was also the moment her stomach decided to inform her that it was quite angry with her. Actually, the way it was tightening and twisting let her know that it hated her.

One look around the room at the empty junk food wrappers and empty soda cans reminded her exactly why her stomach was no longer on speaking terms with her. She pressed a hand to her stomach as she slowly, ever so slowly climbed off the bed and headed for the bathroom. Thankfully Nick didn’t argue when she shut the bathroom door in his face so that she could relieve herself.

Of course the moment he heard the sink faucet turn on he decided that she’d had enough time and walked into the bathroom. Thankfully the man was a saint and started the tub for her while she brushed her teeth. Once she was done she walked slowly to the tub, sending him a small smile of gratitude as he helped her into the tub, sat down and sighed with relief as the hot water pooled around her stomach and eased some of the ache.

She was never going on another junk food binge as long as she lived, she decided as she laid back in the tub. When Nick handed her a bottle of water she had to stop herself from asking for a Coke since she knew that would probably earn her a glare so she accepted her water and took a small sip, praying it wouldn’t set off her already too sensitive stomach.

“Jamie, we really need to talk about last night,” Nick said, looking adorably sexy with his hair mused and a sexy five o’clock shadow painting his face.

“Okay,” she said, wincing when her stomach sent up a warning not to talk so much. She was done with sweets. From now on she was sticking to tasteless, bland food that didn’t give her cravings or stomach aches.

“We didn’t use a condom last night, Jamie,” Nick started to say, reminding her of the other thing she’d done last night.

She’d had sex!

Really great, fun sex and it hadn’t been pity sex or even sex with a stranger.

It had been with Nick and he’d been sweet, gentle and so good that just thinking about it made another part of her ache. She wondered if her stomach would be okay if she had sex again, because she definitely wanted to do that again.

Of course her mind chose that exact moment to remind her that she broke out in sobs pretty much after the deed was done. The memory was pretty mortifying and she decided that she was going to just go ahead and drown herself now. Nick stopped her with an exasperated sigh and a hand. He gave her elbow a gentle nudge to sit up and when she did he shocked her further by lathering up his hands with her bar of lemongrass soap and began to wash her.

“I wanted to tell you that I am clean. I’ve never had sex without a condom before and I always get tested,” he paused mid wash to meet her eyes and stress, “Always.”

She nodded slowly, wondering if this was his way of asking her if she was clean. She opened her mouth to reassure him that she was when she remembered that he was well aware of her virginal status last night and probably realized that she was clean as well.

“If it will make you feel better I’ll go out today and get tested again, but I want you to know that it has been several months since I had sex and I’ve been tested since,” he explained.

“Okay,” she said, nodding and not really sure what else there was to say.

When he became quiet she got a little nervous. “Is there something else?” she asked, trying not to worry. She hoped this wasn’t the moment he chose to let her go or worse tell her that she sucked in bed, because if that was the case she was more than happy to keep trying until she got it right.

“Are you on birth control?” Nick asked grimly, looking less than pleased with the idea of having a baby.

“Oh,” she said, feeling like an idiot. Of course they should talk about birth control. Thankfully it was of those things she had covered. “Yes, I’ve been on birth control since I was fourteen,” she announced, trying not to laugh when the announcement noticeably startled him.

She decided to take pity on him and explain, “My periods were too irregular so the doctor thought it would help me.”

He nodded, looking relieved as he returned to washing her. “I guess that’s one less thing to worry about,” he said quietly.

“I guess,” she agreed, worrying her bottom lip as she tried to sort through the other things that she didn’t have a choice but to worry about.

Actually, now that she thought about it she wondered if her little monthly problem was something that she inherited from her birth mother since her mother, well, the woman she thought was her mother, she reminded herself sadly, didn’t have that problem and neither did Caitlyn. It also reminded her that she had about a thousand questions that she wanted to ask her father. She also wondered who her real mother was and where she was now.

The one thing that she couldn’t help but wonder was what was so wrong with her that her mother gave her away. It was more than obvious, at least to her, that she must have done something bad. According to the paper she’d been four years old by the time she went to live with her father. She wanted to find her mother and ask her what she’d done to make her so angry that she’d give her away to a father who ignored her and a woman that made it obvious that she wasn’t welcome and she had to do it in person.

It was bad enough that she had to find out about the origin of her birth with the rest of the world by newspaper and the internet search she’d done last night when she arrived back at the hotel. She didn’t want to have this conversation over the phone. She wanted her father to look her in the eye when he explained why he’d never told her and he decided it was okay for the rest of the world to find out about her before she did.