She still hadn’t looked him in the eyes, but her breathing pitched in the silence, her hands fumbling with her tank top’s edge, fingers quivering. He cupped her cheek to force her to look at him. “Mila—”
“I need the bathroom.”
He ran his thumb over her moist lips, but that sweet tongue did not peek out to tease him. “Not until we’ve talked about this.”
She still looked down, trying to shrug his hand away, but he touched her more tenderly, his fingers reaching to the hair at the nape of her neck, then retracting, tracing soft paths into her thick strands.
“Mila.” He didn’t want to sound commanding, but he knew she wouldn’t trifle with him when he used that tone.
Her gaze met his, unwavering, her brown eyes wet with the truth as she blinked.
Fuck. He hadn’t seen this coming. She’d been a virgin. A freaking virgin! A budding anger rose in him because playing games like this was the last thing on his agenda. “You cheating little minx.”
She stiffened under his hold, trying to pull away, but he didn’t let her.
Virgins needed to be held, to be kissed, needed to be made love to by men they were going to marry, especially if they’d held out until the age of twenty-four. Virgins shouldn’t be randomly fucked into oblivion by men like him. His type should be last in the world to have the pleasure of… deflowering… a beauty like Mila.
Fuck it. He would have taken it slower. He would have made it more—what—special? No wonder every movement, every breath, and every tremble had been in contradiction with the rest of her. If only he’d known. Had he really been that blind? They’d been playing a game, but it hadn’t been a game at all.
“Was last night your first time?” He stopped short of cursing. He couldn’t believe it. When she said nothing, his hand circled around her neck, pulling her closer, and he peered into her eyes. “Tell me, Mila?”
“Yes.” The blush that tinged her cheeks spread to her neck and lower to disappear below her tank top.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He let go of her, giving her space to breathe because she’d been holding her breath.
She stretched the tank top down, trying to pull it over the evidence. He stilled her by clasping both her hands in one of his. She shot him a glance, then gave a strained laugh.
“Laugh all you want, but I want to know why you didn’t tell me.”
She shot up, forcing him to move and took two steps away from him. “I didn’t know how to tell you, okay?”
“And?” By the strain on her face, she felt rotten about the lie she’d told. But there was something more here.
“I need the bathroom.” And off she went.
Mila was avoiding the question, walking off like that. He sure as hell wasn’t used to a woman closing up on him like this. The type he slept with normally spelled out what they had done, and would like to do—with him—and there was no guilt or repercussions. Not like now. There were stains on the linen… he must have hurt her. He crossed the floor in a few wide strides, catching Mila by the wrists and pressing her against the bedroom wall, trapping her, his cock nestling between them, still erect, wanting her.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his voice husky with the knowledge that he’d been too rough, too forceful and hasty in his drive to climax. She’d had no clue what was coming her way.
“No… it was fine.”
FINE. Freaked out. Insecure. He couldn’t remember the rest of the acronym Stacey always threw at him whenever fine came up in conversation. Had she been scared that she would disappoint him? Inside he felt himself shrink. He had disappointed her.
“Did you even come?” he asked, staring at her flushed face, into her eyes, which were brimming with tears.
Her breathing came hard and fast through those two beautiful, fuckable lips. They were rosy, moist, full, and had been playfully sassy with him last night. Playing the part. Which hadn’t been a part at all.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, trying to break free. Their gazes clashed, her face flushed as he held her there.
Seconds passed, then he smirked at her answer, incredulous. This was a novel experience. He leaned closer to her, his mouth at her ear. “I can’t guarantee you much in life, Mila, but I can guarantee you that, when I make a woman come, she knows about it.”
He let go and strode away from her, trying to contain the anger that had erupted out of nowhere. Behind him, the bathroom door closed with a click.
chapter 11
Mila leaned against the bathroom door, wanting to prevent James from following her. The door handle didn’t move and she closed her eyes on an exhale, killing the sob that battled in her chest. There was no lock on the door, but as angry as he’d been she half expected him to stomp in and give her a spanking for not telling him he’d been her first. He would pull her over those muscular rugby thighs of his, push up her tank top and pull down her panties and smack her hard on her naked butt.
The notion of James spanking her made heat simmer between her thighs. She shuddered. One night with him and she was totally debauched.
Why had he been so angry? It wasn’t as if he’d lost anything. She’d let go of the one thing she was supposed to keep sacred and unconditionally promise to the man she loved—the man with whom she was supposed to spend her life in married bliss.
So not James Sinclair.
He’d said he’d enjoyed it.
Dear Lord.
At least she hadn’t been a complete failure.
It had felt all too good. Inside her, the brooding frustration intensified. She was wound tight by the feather-light strokes of James’s hands, his kisses on her breasts, his body inside hers. She could still feel him pulsing inside her—sleep had done nothing to wipe out the traces he’d left everywhere.
She’d underestimated her body’s reaction to his and hadn’t expected this deep-seated sense of being unfulfilled.
She hated what her upbringing and small world had prescribed for her. She hated that her body and conscience were in opposition and that she couldn’t please the one without sending the other into a diatribe of shame.
Her fingers longed to go where James’s fingers had been, to find the release her body craved… When I make a woman come, she knows about it.
She didn’t doubt him for a second. She couldn’t touch herself, not with him on the other side of the door, waiting, knowing what she’d be up to. She hardly ever did. Good girls didn’t do things like that.
She got on with her morning routine, fingers trembling as she brushed her teeth and combed her hair. If she could afford to, she’d go stay somewhere else. But this trip had already been crafted on a too-tight budget. Her little shopping spree of a luxurious bottle of red wine had chewed into two days’ worth of her food budget. She’d had no idea things were so expensive in Paris, and being in the center of the city didn’t help. And she’d rather starve than miss any of the museums and galleries she’d flown thousands of kilometers to see.
Had she known sleeping with James would mess things up on more than one level, she might have taken her chances on the wingback chair in the lounge. But it had happened too quickly and she’d paid no heed to the secondary repercussions.
Because she’d wanted him. It was as simple as that.
And now his scent clung to her like fog on a cold window and she had to get it off. For her soul’s sake, there would be no repeat performance of last night’s intimacies. Her body would have to toe the line. She stripped and got into the shower, turning the heat up to scald her skin clean.
James stalked to the kitchen and tossed the crushed-up condom in the bin. He paced the length of the lounge, the carpet soft underfoot, the early morning light frank in its honesty: he’d fucked up. Big time. With Mila Johnson.
When had he become so out of tune? Okay, eight months without sex was an eternity, but given that he conside
red himself an expert in the field, he had just suffered a massive fail. If this were work, he would’ve lost millions of dollars.
He heaved a sigh, frustrated. When had he started comparing sex with money and million-dollar deals? Was it because there had been nothing else in his life for the past eight months? Had it always been like that? Breathing into his cupped hands, he tried to recall. Fuck it all.
He raked his fingers through his hair and stomped to the linen closet in the kitchen. He bundled together clean sheets from his housekeeper’s neat stack.
Back in the bedroom, he changed the sheets, the silence from the adjacent bathroom deafening. If Mila was crying, she was doing it so quietly he couldn’t hear her. He still had no idea why she hadn’t been open with him.
Had she been scared that he would have rejected her? Would it have stopped him?
Nope.
Yes.
He had no idea what he would’ve done. Virgins had never been on his to-do list. Even his own virginity had been claimed by a schoolgirl who’d worked her way through his team when he was on a rugby tour in his final year of high school. He played flanker, position four or five, and this lady had been counting down from fifteen to number one. The memory made him curse. It had been a messy experience. Fast, furious and unfulfilling.
Had it been like that for her?
With Mila, he would’ve paused, that was certain. He wouldn’t have pounced on her as he had but would have taken time with her and made sure it was memorable. Had she even enjoyed it? He couldn’t be sure.
He exhaled slowly. Her virginity was lost now, and the least he could do was make it up to her somehow.
By finishing off what they had started last night. By making her feel good. By making her come. Preferably again and again.
His dick went straight back to high alert, and he groaned. What if she said no?
She was so going to say no. Pastor Johnson’s daughter. Who had been fucked after a very dull sermon, living up to each part of his fantasy. He chuckled and his anger abated. Mila might have had a prudish, overprotected upbringing, but she’d been begging to be taught just how this game worked.
The toilet flushed, and the shower faucet turned on. He waited a minute, digesting the opening of the shower door, the water’s change of rhythm as she got in.
He pushed down the door handle, peering into the steam that already hugged the ceiling and swirled lower. She stood under the stream with her face raised to the water, her hair a black waterfall caressing her butt. She looked down and scrubbed her body almost viciously as if she could get clean… clean of what they’d done.
She was unaware that he was watching her, her hands gliding the soap over her perfect breasts, down her belly, and between her legs. He stepped into the bathroom, walked to the shower door, and opened it with a click. At the sound, she looked up, and the soap slipped from her hands, thudding onto the tiled floor. She raised her arms to cover her breasts, her back pressed against the wall as he got into the shower.
“Let me.” He reached down for the soap, giving her body a slow inspection as he straightened. Beautiful creamy legs, like silk, curvy hips but a flat tummy. A little mole close to her belly button marked its territory. And her breasts, which she tried her best to hide, were heavy, nipples jutting upwards, begging to be kissed. She was gorgeous.
“James—”
The burning water beat his back, his bulk blocking it from falling on her rose-tinged skin. “You think you’re in hell already, don’t you, for what we’ve done?” He turned the faucet to a cooler temperature and slipped the soap into the holder.
When he turned to her, he propped his hands on either side of her, hindering any means of escape. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes wide as she stared at him, her wet lashes clinging to each other in sharp little points. Her face shone with water, probably mixed with tears because her eyes were red.
“I’m not thinking anything.” Her voice was almost lost in the water’s rush because she’d spoken so softly. She dropped her gaze but lifted it again to his upper chest. Away from his erection, but not meeting his gaze. He only had those lips, which were being shredded by a set of perfect teeth, to go on. Her mind was churning, all right.
“Do your parents know you are here?”
“No.”
He raised his brows. “They don’t know that you are here by Stacey’s invitation?”
She shot him a glance. “No.”
Of course not. The Johnsons would have a conniption if they knew.
“They think I’m at a youth camp. Somewhere in the sticks. Where there is no network or cellphone reception.” She bit her lip to stop its quivering… or was it the start of a laugh? “My brother Ruben knows I’m here. He dropped me off at the airport.”
He wanted to laugh. This little bird had flown the cage, but he was still ticked off at the situation. He couldn’t give a damn about her condescending, two-faced parents or her brother. He cared about her.
A—she’d been a virgin.
B—she hadn’t come.
Had he lost his touch? He sighed. “I wished you’d told me.”
He felt a total idiot. The two most probably went hand-in-hand. Especially if he considered how she’d been brought up. He might not have been subjected to the same dogma as Mila, but he’d experienced enough of the thought process at school to understand what might be going on in her head.
“Are you angry?” She met his gaze, her face turning crimson.
Her question was frank, and so should his answer be. He was pissed off, but it wouldn’t help her already-brainwashed conscience to tell her that he was unworthy of her gift. That indeed, he would have preferred if she’d stowed it away for someone worthy who’d kept to a similar set of morals. That he’d feel like a real man—not a defiling dickhead—if he’d earned her virginity, by being in love with her, and she with him… by fulfilling a desire fueled by love.
“I’m not angry. But there are a few things going on in my head.”
She blinked. “A few things? More than one? How bizarre for a man.”
Little Miss Sassy.
“That mouth, Mila… I’ve promised to do some things to it—with it.” She slowly turned her face, inclined her head to meet him halfway, and he knew she needed it. Wanted it. Deserved it. He leaned closer, catching himself just in time to stall the kiss. He couldn’t go there. It was so dead set in his rules—even if those rules no longer had any bearing—that he deflected to her ear. “The one thought that keeps on coming back to me is that I’ve been taken for a ride twice, and you only once. Without any success.”
“James—”
“Let me,” he interrupted, his nose riding the ridge of her ear to her lobe, which he nibbled, sucked, making her shift on her feet. She raised her hands but stopped short of touching him, dropping them back to her sides.
“James, I—”
“Let me—” He broke off to lean into her, sliding his hands up the tiled wall, bringing his body closer to hers. As his cock touched and rode up the flat of her stomach, wet and pulsing with want, she rasped in a breath, her nipples hard as they rubbed against his chest.
It had been a calculated move to make her feel him, make her realize that he still wanted her, to make sure she still wanted him. “Let me show you what we can do when we take our time.”
The notion hung between them, full of promise and the release he knew she craved. Her body was speaking to him without saying a word, in the rise of her breasts against his chest, in the halting way she breathed, in the way she intuitively rocked forward to rub against his cock.
“James, I shouldn’t,” she almost pleaded.
A shouldn’t—not a wouldn’t or a couldn’t.
“Just once, baby. To finish what we started. So that you can feel how good sin tastes.”
Something caved inside Mila at his word
s, because she leaned forward and rested her head on his chest, hiding her face. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed and he pushed away from the wall to gather her in his arms.
James held her for a long moment, protecting her from the cleansing onslaught of the water that streamed down his back. He could only imagine what was going on in her mind, as her need for sexual release battled against her conscience. He caressed her back and waited for her to find herself. Eventually, her breathing evened and she hiccupped. He stroked her shoulders, then headed down her arms to her hands, which he clasped in his.
“Just once?” She looked up at him, her eyes shining with innocent desire. He’d never been worthy of that look in any woman’s eyes.
He had to break away from her intense gaze and closed his eyes. He rested his forehead against hers. “Trust me?” he asked, for that was what her gaze imparted.
She nodded and he pulled her hands to his waist, flattening her palms against him. Her hands settled, uncertain, quivering, seeking as they shifted under his.
“Touch me,” he whispered. He loosened his grip and she didn’t pull away. The relief of this small acquiescence pulsed through his veins. She hadn’t run off—yet.
Tame me. The words rushed through his mind, hovering on his tongue. He bit them back.
chapter 12
Just once. That was the deal.
Mila ran her fingers around the ridges of his stomach, James’s forehead still resting on hers as he guided her hands over his body. It was magnificent, sculpted from years of exercise which he obviously still did. She lifted her mouth to his as her hands slipped to his back and his glutes, but he pulled away. He dropped his head back in a soft moan as he let go, steadying himself by stretching his arms to either side of the shower wall. Her lips melded with his throat and trying not to look like an idiot she worked her way over his Adam’s apple and into the hollow of his neck instead.
The Paris Apartment (Love Nests Book 1) Page 6