“This is not a big deal.” It wasn’t like I still had an intact hymen. My arsenal had taken care of that.
“Then why in the hell are you on birth control?”
So he’d seen the patch on my hip? “Various reasons.” Mainly, I used it to regulate my periods.
But he wasn’t listening to me. “It’s bad enough to do this to a woman of experience.” He shot to his feet, prowling the suite from one wall to the other. “It’s another to despoil a girl who’s never been touched!”
“Despoil? You didn’t just say that archaic word! Well, it’s only to be expected since we didn’t have a chaperone and your manroot is so virile.”
He scowled. “I might not look at it in such an ‘archaic’ way, but I don’t know how others will react.”
“Others? Like my father?”
Brusque nod.
“I thought you knew him so well. Well enough to tell me how great my new life is going to be.”
“I do know him well. But he’s never had a daughter before. I have no idea how he would take this.”
“And what if I weren’t his daughter?”
“You are.” He stabbed his fingers through his thick hair.
“Answer the question.”
He swung his head around, giving me a look so raw and primal that I gasped. “If you weren’t, I’d be buried inside you right now. Devstvennitsa ili net.” Virgin or not. “What was supposed to sate my appetite has only whetted it.”
Facts: He’d fantasized about me for the last month. He craved ha**ng s*x with me, even if I was a virgin. He’d seemed to like certain things about my personality. He wanted more of me; I sure as hell wanted more of him—
“But this can never happen again,” he added, his tone ringing with finality.
Was I going to be cock-blocked by some twisted kind of mafiya logic? I rose, walking on my knees to the edge of the bed, loving how his brows-drawn gaze followed the sway of my br**sts. “I want it to happen again. And I usually get what I want. If you’re not strong enough to resist me, then that’s on you.”
He narrowed his eyes at the challenge, seeming not to realize that he’d stepped closer to me. And then again. “If you tempt me, I won’t be so gentle with you.”
This had been gentle?
When I shivered with eagerness, he made a blustering sound. “You said I confused you? You baffle me. Is it me that you think you want, or merely the pleasure you crave?”
“I want the opportunity to find out.”
“I believed that you would know better than this, that you had better instincts with men.”
My eyes shot wide. “You didn’t just say that. My instincts are untouchable!”
“Don’t you get it? Your father intends to give you the goddamn world; even if I wanted it, a man like me will never be in your future.” He turned toward the cabin door.
Staring after him, I murmured, “How strange.”
He paused at the threshold without turning around. As if he couldn’t help himself, he said, “What is strange?”
I tilted my head. “That you think I won’t be deciding who gets to be in my future.”
Shoulders bunched with tension, he slammed the door behind him.
Chapter 10
“My alarm!” I shot upright in bed, knowing I was late for work, wondering why the hell my clock hadn’t gone off. “Late!”