I turn to leave and as I do, his hand grabs mine. His voice breaks as he says, “Don’t leave.”
I can’t turn around. Can’t let him see the tears. My heart tugs with my hand as I remove it from his. “You’re right—it wouldn’t be... appropriate.”
I leave the room.
When I get to my door, I slide behind it, closing and locking it hastily. I throw myself down on the bed, realizing I’ve left my dress in the bathroom, my shirt and panties in his room and I’ve nothing to wear. I lie on top of the down comforter and cry, the feathers masking my sound.
There’s a soft knock at the door, and I ignore it.
How could I have been so stupid? To think he would want me? He’s a grown man. A ridiculously handsome, confident man who turns women on just by the way he carries himself walking down the street. I’ve seen the way the girls in town react when he strides by. How they flutter their hair, adjust their clothing, lick their lips. He must have a dozen girls back on the mainland. A different girl every night.
Experienced ones who haven’t been sat on a shelf their early adulthood, shriveling up with loneliness. Ones that know how to please him in the bedroom.
He felt sorry for me that my family kept me from being touched. Took pity on me and gave me some release. I misjudged that pity for desire, thinking he wanted me. Misread the glances from those emerald eyes as longing. Mistook the huskiness in his voice for yearning.
Silly girl.
My tears subside. I dry my face on the sheet, throwing it to the floor. I crawl beneath the covers, and fall into a dreamless sleep.
I’m awoken by my own tears.
What am I doing here? The pain, the humiliation of his rejection—it’s all too much.
I’m leaving.
Damn the shield. Damn the landmines. Damn the fence. I’m going to find a way out of here.
I desperately search for my clothing. More tears sting my eyes as I remember where I’ve left them. Nudity won’t stop me. I wrap the sheet tightly around my body. I’ll get out of here, run under the cover of night along the forest and find my old house. I left plenty of clothing behind. I’ll dress, pack a light bag, then find a brother to take me to the nearest village. Where I’ll decide what’s next for me.
Anything to no longer be under the same roof as him.
I can’t believe I was so stupid. To think he would want me. To think he would... sleep with a virgin.
Ignoring my self-hatred, I climb out of the bed. Tiptoe across the room. Open the door slowly, silently. Listen for any movement from his room. I hear nothing. My heart rate accelerates as I slink down the stairs, my fingers wound tightly in the sheet I hold against my bare skin. I’m in the living room, past the couch. At the back door.
My gaze settles on the black box. Suddenly, I’m sure he was lying to me. There’s a way to get this shield down, now. I just know it. There has to be.
Because I can’t spend another minute in this prison of shame.
My fingers tremble as I reach out to grab the latch. I take a deep breath and flip it, opening the door.
An alarm blares. My hands go to my ears, covering them as I swear underneath my breath.
What the hell was I thinking? My plan now seems so juvenile as I run from the door, trying to get away from the piercing noise. The sheet falls to the floor as I flee. I’m naked, running up the stairs, my plan now to go back to my room, pretending this was all a nightmare.
I run into a hard wall of muscle at the top of the stairs. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Grabbing my arm, he pulls my body down the stairs with him. He brings us to the black box. Punching the buttons harshly. Finally, the blaring stops.
“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stay here any longer. I had to go.”
He gives me a hard glance. Tugs me over to the couch. “Go where? I told you exactly how this works. You stay here under my protection and try to behave yourself so you don’t die.” He thrusts me over the back of the couch.
My hands go to the cushions of the couch. Palms pressed into leather. “What are you doing?”
“Punishing you.” Before I can protest, his big hand falls hard and heavy on the center of my bare ass. I cry out in pain. His hand comes down again, in the very same spot.
“Stop! I’m sorry, okay, I just—”
“Just thought you’d break through three billion dollars’ worth of security and prance through the forest naked?” His hand strikes again.
“No! Well, yes, but—” My words catch in my throat at the searing pain from the barrage of spanks that are now landing on my stinging ass.
“Great idea, princess. Just flip a switch and then you’re off to see the wizard? Doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid.” His hand lands, hard and fast, over and over again. Tears fill my eyes. I’m gasping for breath. The pain is everything—it’s all I can feel, all I can think about. I’ve got to make it stop.
I beg. “Please! I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do anything stupid like that again!”
His hand hovers over my throbbing ass, but it doesn’t fall. “What made you run in the first place? You were in my bed just a few hours ago. And now, you’re trying to break out of here?”
“I... you... it’s complicated,” I finally manage.
“Try me. I’m a pretty sharp guy. I think I can keep up.”
I force myself to answer. “You didn’t want me.” Releasing the truth make my heart feel heavy. My eyes are sore from crying. My bottom aches. My body is uncomfortable where it hangs over the couch. I just want to crawl into a hole and die.
Suddenly, his arms are around me. Turning me toward him. His gaze searches my face. “Not want you? God—you’re beautiful. You’re like no one I’ve ever met—” He looks as if he wants to say more. I wait, wishing, hoping, yearning that he will tell me how he feels.
Tell me that he wants me as I want him.
He says nothing.
But then, his mouth is on mine.
His kiss is passion and heat. His words no longer necessary as his mouth presses against mine. His hands tangle in my hair, squeeze my bare breasts. Run over my skin and send delicious shivers over my body. His fingers find their way between my thighs, dipping and pressing over my slick bud. My head lolls back. He kisses my neck, nipping at my tender flesh.
He moves with a fury, burning with desire. The intensity of his kiss soothes my dejected soul. He’s consuming me as a fire would a parched forest.
I moan as his fingers find their way inside of me. His other hand presses into my lower back, pulling me closer to him.
He releases me. Holds my face in his hand and gives me one long, searching stare. Then lifts me up into his arms. Carries me over to the couch. Lays me down. I wait, holding my breath as I watch. He’s taking off his shirt, exposing his smooth, hard muscles. Nerves dance in my belly as his hands go to his waist. With a tug, he drops his sweats to the floor.
His cock stands hard and proud. The sight of it makes me quiver. Gazing over his naked body I’ve never felt more untouched, inexperienced. I worry I won’t know what to do but then he’s leaning down. Pressing his bare chest against mine. Covering my body in a way that tells me he’ll be in charge of this escapade.
My nipples peak against his skin. His mouth goes to mine and he’s kissing me hard.
His hands tug at my ass. Parting my cheeks.
For the first time in my life, it’s me, not the girl in the story, who feels the full head of a throbbing cock pressing against my slick entrance.
My breath catches as he enters me for the first time. There’s a delicious stinging pain. A stretching. He inches further in. My slick pussy burns as he enters me further. Pain turning to pleasure as a warm liquid feeling fills me. He moves in harder and I gasp as a searing pain tears through my core.
His mouth is by my ear. “I’ll be gentle.”
He slows and the pain once again melts into pleasure. With each gentle press from his cock, my pussy gets wetter, more welcoming. Soon, I’
m stretched and open and taking in the full length of his cock.
Now we move together as one.
It’s nothing like I’d imagined it to be. The sensation is so much more than just pleasure. There’s a yearning within me, deepening with every thrust. An intense building, like that of a wave as it rises to a crest. His hands are on me. Grabbing, pulling, caressing. His mouth kisses and licks and bites my mouth, my neck, my collarbone.
My breath is coming in short bursts. Perspiration dots my skin as blood flows through my body, molten like lava. He moves inside me, harder, faster. Causing my emotions to expand, my head light and unable to think of anything other than the sensation he’s created within my trembling body.
I want. I need... something. The deep desire rises from my very soul. My legs wrap around his waist. My ankles lock tightly around one another. The wave builds, a coil tightening within me threatening to burst.
“Adrianna.” The sound of my name on his lips is a sweet song.
His cheek is against mine. His hands circle my wrists, lifting my arms above my head. His chest presses against mine as he moves within me, deeper and deeper. My body sings, a humming vibration of pulsing ecstasy as the wave rises into a heady peak. The sound that lifts from my chest is one I’ve never before made. There’s a tightening and releasing in my body, something I’ve never felt.
My mouth gapes, my toes curl.
And the wave crashes.
Leaving me trembling like a new leaf in the winds of a storm.
His arms circle me. Cradling me. His soft words caress my mind. “Adrianna, you are a gift.”
I know in this moment, I’ll never be the same.
Chapter Four
Adrianna
I wake in an empty bed, no longer a virgin. Instead of the warm afterglow I should be feeling, there’s a heaviness within my chest.
Why has he gone?
I open the door the tiniest crack and find the clothes I’d arrived in washed and folded and waiting for me. I grab them, pulling the door shut and locking it back. I quickly slide into the panties I’d left on his floor. I latch the bra, slip on the dress. The scent of soap—lemongrass—fills my nose. The same scent as the tee-shirt he’d lent me.
He’d left after I’d fallen asleep. Was that a bad sign? That he thought he’d made a mistake? He was the one that made love to me, after all. A tiny voice of doubt enters my mind, telling me that it was a pity fuck. That he had just felt sorry for me.
But it hadn’t felt that way.
There’s a soft knock at the door. “We need to talk.”
We do need to talk. Clear the air. I can’t spend a day and a half trying to avoid him. I open the door. And I’m not prepared for what waits for me.
He’s inches from my face. Exuding his sexy masculine energy. His very nearness has my body awakening. His hands are planted on either side of the doorframe, filling it. Blocking my exit. Dressed in his usual black tee and jeans, his muscular figure on full display.
But what has me mesmerized is his gaze. His eyes lock on mine and the longing I see there forms a welling in my chest. I’m certain I’m not mistaking it this time and all the memories of last night come flooding back. My skin warms, my tongue loosens. My nipples strain against the thin lining of my bra.
“Excuse me,” I say, breaking his gaze and pushing past him. I can’t keep looking at him, it will be my undoing and I will fall to his feet, begging him to take me again. His arm drops and he lets me pass. I head down the stairs to the living room. He silently follows. I take a seat in the armchair. I expect him to sit on the couch, giving me some space. Instead, he takes a seat on the ottoman directly across from me.
His knees are only inches from my own. I scoot back further in the chair. “Let’s talk.”
“Adrianna, I apologize if I offended you by leaving your bed last night.”
Offended. The word makes me cringe with embarrassment.
“I think it was you who was offended at first by my initial advances. You didn’t have to...” I lift the hem of my skirt in my hands, staring at it as I twist the fabric in my fingers.
“Let me finish.” His tone is cold, demanding. It makes my bottom clench and my mouth snap shut. He waits to speak until I lift my gaze to meet his. Sensing my compliance, he continues. “I’m responsible for you. I work for your cousin. I wasn’t placed over you in the hierarchy so I could take advantage of you—I’m meant to protect you. And giving yourself to someone for the first time, it should be someone you care about. It should be special. I shouldn’t have taken that from you.”
His words are sweet. Kind. Thoughtful. But they make an anger burn like fire in my chest. “Why is it that men think they should be the ones to dictate the loss of my virginity?”
His mouth opens but he has no argument.
I continue, “Who are you to orchestrate the parameters of what’s acceptable? I mean, think about it—you’ve all made it your prerogative to decide when and how I will lose it, and that’s resulted in me never, ever having sex. You think I should have waited till marriage? Would that be an acceptable time?”
“Maybe. It’s not the worst thing to wait—”
“Okay, Dante. I’ll wait till marriage. Now tell me, exactly how I’m supposed to meet a man to marry with the brotherhood swarming me every minute?”
“I—”
“And what if I don’t want to get married in my twenties? Huh? What then? What if I want to travel, or have a career, or God forbid, date? If I want to delay marriage? Does that mean that I remain sexless, loveless till I’m thirty? Forty? Fifty? And... what if I don’t want to marry at all? Because I’m a woman, do I lose the right to have my body pleasured by another being—”
“Stop.” His hand rests on my knee, his single word a command.
I stare at him, hard, wait for him to speak. To fix this. To tell me how it’s fair that I should have had to wait, maybe forever, and risk missing my chance at love because my family overprotects me. I’m waiting, watching, fuming... but his eyes are the color of the sea before a storm and soulful, and they stare into mine and now I’m melting. My anger leaving. My fight dissipating.
His hand is still on me. His fingers tighten around my knee.
He says my name, once. The sound is beautiful, and it strikes me in my soul.
Adrianna.
Before I can think, I’ve pressed my mouth against his. I kiss him with a hunger that he returns. Too soon, he pulls away. He shakes his head. “I can’t. Not again. I never make the same mistake twice.”
I feel the breath leave my body. The word twists my gut. “Mistake?” Tears form in my eyes as I gaze into his.
And in that moment, I finally begin to understand.
He’s made a commitment. He’s doing what he thinks is right. And I respect that. I have to respect it because otherwise I’ll crumble. Fall apart, heartbroken from his well-meaning rejection.
As much as he might want me, he has a job to do. An oath to uphold. A brotherhood to answer to.
I nod my head. I say, “I understand.”
He gives me a long look. Cups my face in his hands for a moment. Kisses my forehead softly. Drops his hands from my cheeks. Pats my knee. Stands and goes to the kitchen.
Leaving me fighting back tears.
I brush them from my eyes. At least I had that one amazing night. At least I won’t die a virgin. I scan the room—I’ve got to find something to fill the rest of my time here, or I’ll go crazy. I pick up Pride and Prejudice.
I read while he cooks. I hear the sound of the coffeepot brewing, smell the baking of something delicious. My eyes scan the pages but I’m not able to focus. About an hour later, he calls me into the kitchen. He’s got two plates set. Our same two mugs from last night, clean and filled with fresh coffee. He says, “I found a pan of Margarite’s cinnamon rolls in the back of the freezer.”
“Lucky us. They’re always my favorite at Saturday brunch.”
He holds my chair out for me and I slide into
it, blushing at the memory of him plugging me over it yesterday. I sit, squirming at the soreness between my legs, reminding me of last night. That moment seems so long ago, as if time moves more slowly when the shield is up.
He dishes one of the huge, fluffy rolls onto my plate, the warm gooey icing melting off the side, dripping down. I take a sip of the coffee; it’s black and I prefer cream but I remember his bare refrigerator.
He sits next to me and we eat in silence for a moment. But luckily it’s not awkward anymore. There seems to be a truce between us. There’s still a pulsing line of electricity dancing between our two almost touching arms. At least there is for me.
He says, “What part of the book are you at?”
I wasn’t paying attention as I read, and I had no idea what had happened. I scan my memory for the last part I remembered reading. “Oh, the part where Colonel Fitzwilliam is visiting—” Feeling flustered and wanting to take the attention from myself, I ask, “Where’d you learn so much about literature?” I lift my cup, taking a deep sip of coffee.
He swallows a bite of his food. “Prison.”
“P-prison?” I stutter, spitting coffee from my mouth. He hands me a napkin and I thank him, dabbing at the tabletop I’ve sullied. “You were in prison? When?”
“A few years ago.”
“For what?”
“Theft. My little sister was sick. Very sick. The medicine she needed was too expensive for my family. So, I broke into a pharmacy and took it. When the police came around, I confessed, wanting to spare my village the interrogation.”
“That’s terrible. And... your sister?”
“My efforts were in vain. We lost her a few months later. And guess who wasn’t around to say goodbye.”
“My God. That’s... gut-wrenching... I’m so sorry. How long was your sentence for?”
“I was only in for six months. Spent as much time as possible in the library. That’s when I printed out the list of classics. Started with book one and worked my way down. When I wasn’t reading, I was working out. Biding my time, strengthening my body, my mind. Then, Rockland found me.”
Virgin: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Page 7