Tori couldn’t help it. He was too big. She felt him way too deep yet still had to somehow accommodate his breath-stealing girth. She gritted her teeth. Tears blurred her vision as she writhed against him.
His whole face tightened. He groaned, his hips flexing as he thrust in again and again, as though he couldn’t help himself. Slowly, the pain lifted. Heat began to wash over her. Tingles sprang to life between her legs, making her gasp. It was happening. Oliver was inside her. She couldn’t wait to feel the sense of connection, like they were two people becoming one.
He buried his face in her neck and picked up the pace, faster, faster. A minute later, he grunted long and low, then pressed deep inside her, his body shuddering. Something warm coated her insides.
He rolled off and stared at the ceiling. “Damn it.” His chest heaved. He gritted his teeth and dragged his hand down his face. “What the fuck was that?”
Tori struggled to suck in a deep breath, not to cry in the face of his biting anger. She rolled over, wishing they’d pulled the comforter down so she had something to cover up with. The best she could do was turn onto her side so he could only see her butt. She calculated her odds of dashing to the bathroom without him stopping her. “I think you should go.”
After feeling packed full just minutes ago, Tori hadn’t expected to feel so empty…so used. She hadn’t really expected him to notice her virginity at all, much less be angry that she’d still possessed it.
“There’s blood on my cock. Would you like to explain that?” Ice dripped from his words.
She felt him move, the bed shifting under her. She sat, her feet hitting the floor. Carefully, Tori kept her back to him because she felt too naked now. Somehow she hadn’t envisioned lovemaking ending between them this way.
But it hadn’t been lovemaking. Just sex.
She wasn’t stupid. She’d known her first time would be uncomfortable, but Oliver had prepared her and the penetration should have been easy. It could have felt fabulous. They both should have been satisfied. She should be lying in his arms right now, feeling adored. Instead, she was cold and naked and alone. “I told you to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I get an explanation.” He launched to his feet, his hands settled on muscular hips. “Tori, tell me you weren’t a virgin.”
She stood up and started for the bathroom where her robe hung. She wasn’t having this conversation with him, especially not while she was naked. Something between them had gone very wrong. Until she figured it out, she was covering up and not getting naked for a man for a very long time.
An ache pulsed low in her pelvis. Moisture seeped from her sore sex, onto her thighs. Oh god…
She spun around to send him an accusing glare, complete horror threatening to take over. “You didn’t use a condom. Damn you.”
Tori couldn’t stay naked and near him without falling apart. She strode across the room and toward the bathroom.
He caught her before she could escape, gripping her elbow. “I wasn’t thinking straight, but then I assumed that, since you have a fiancé, birth control wouldn’t be an issue, Torrance. I believed I was having a mutually pleasurable encounter with an experienced woman. Wasn’t that what you wanted me to believe?”
He was accusing her of something but she couldn’t quite grasp what. “I only wanted a night to make some good memories with you before I leave in the morning. And you want me to tell you I wasn’t a virgin. Neither of us got what we wanted.”
“You’re not going anywhere now.” He released her elbow suddenly as if he couldn’t stand touching her. The look of utter disdain on his face sent a chill through her. “I should have seen this ploy coming. You’re quite good. Tell me something. How long did it take you to set this scam up? Who was the original target?”
“Scam? Target?” How could she possibly be standing here with him, vibrating with anger, crushed by such hurt, when moments before she’d been shuddering in pleasure beneath his mouth? The abrupt shift felt surreal. She’d been more intimate with Oliver than she’d been with anyone in her life, and now he felt like a stranger.
“Yes, target of your scam. That’s what we are to you, isn’t it? Or perhaps you prefer the word mark. What do con artists call their victims?”
He might as well have slapped her. “Con artist?”
“Gold digger, in your case. So tell me, if I hadn’t interrupted you and Callum at the hotel, would he be the one reeling with the notion that he might have knocked up a lying little virgin?”
Oh, she was so done with him. Tori gritted her teeth. She should have listened to her sister, to her brothers-in-law. Oliver Thurston-Hughes was a wounded beast and he didn’t want to be healed. Deep down she’d known it. She simply hadn’t listened to the instinct that told her he could lash out like a predator and rip her apart.
“Get out.” She turned away and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it with shaking fingers. Tears rolled down her face.
“I’m not leaving until we get a few things straight,” Oliver shouted through the door between them. “If you think for one second you can use a child to manipulate me, think again.”
“I’m not Yasmin,” she cried back.
She knew his story. Sadly, everyone in the world did. Yasmin’s infidelity and the fact that she’d manipulated him with pregnancies she’d later terminated and called miscarriages had been on the front page of every tabloid in Europe after her death. Stupid. Tori realized she’d been so stupid to think Oliver could be fixed, even for a single night.
“You’re not Yasmin, and I’m going to bloody well make sure you can’t play her games. Get out here because I have a few things to say to you.”
“Just go away, Oliver. I’m leaving so you don’t have to worry about seeing me again. Keep your nasty words for the next fool who thinks she has feelings for you and that you’re worth the risk.” More tears scalded their way down her cheeks. She felt hollowed out, as if someone had taken an ice cream scooper, carved out all the happiness, and left a sad shell.
She stared into the mirror. She’d wanted to be as happy and as brave in love as her sister. That was all. She’d wanted to be adored and she’d thought for a moment she’d found something special. Those men needed a woman to become the center of their world like Piper was for her husbands. Tori realized that wasn’t going to be her.