Seduced The Unexpected Virgin - By Emily McKay Page 0,50

inherently sensual as she was, she kept that part of herself tightly under wraps. Hidden under layers of prickly defenses and steely determination.

Whatever emotions she’d been wrestling with when she’d stormed off into the bathroom were now tightly under control. She looked very much as she had the first day they’d met. Wary. Reserved.

She gave him a quick once-over, judging his emotional state more quickly than he’d judged hers.

Her expression shifted to exasperated, as if she’d just read every thought that had passed through his mind while she was dressing and then dismissed them as being tiresome.

“Stop torturing yourself,” she muttered, walking past him and out of the bedroom.

“Torturing myself?” he asked, following her.

She marched straight to the kitchen. “Yes. Obviously you’ve been playing it over and over again in your mind, trying to figure out what you should have done differently. Or maybe telling yourself how you should have guessed. Or—”

“Enough.” He reached out for her arm, spinning her around to face him as he cut her off. So far, she was right on target and as whiny as he sounded in his own mind, he sure didn’t need to hear her voice his doubts aloud. “If you think you know me so well, then you should understand exactly why I’m…what was the word you used? Oh, right, torturing myself.”

“Honestly, though, I don’t.” For a moment, genuine confusion flickered across her face, then she shrugged. “I guess I didn’t think you’d notice.”

“Trust me, that’s the kind of thing a guy notices. How could you imagine otherwise?”

Again she gave a little shrug, this one seeming almost self-effacing. “With all the women you’ve been with, and all the experience you have, I just thought…” She let her words trail off, leaving him to draw his own conclusions.

“That I was such a self-indulging wastrel that I wouldn’t notice your virginity?”

“No! I just—”

“Thought I was too self-absorbed? Too selfish? Too what?” His anger grew with each question until he was looming over her, glaring down at her upturned face.

She met his gaze defiantly. “Why are you so sure this is all about you? It was my virginity. Why can’t you just accept that if it’s not a big deal for me that it shouldn’t be a big deal for you, either?”

“Because I can’t.”

“Why?” Her chin bumped up and her gaze narrowed in determination. This time it was her stepping closer to him. “What would you have done differently if you’d known? What would you have changed?”

“I…” But before he had a chance to think of an answer, she continued, getting right in his face.

“Would you have been more sensitive?” she continued. All signs of the nervous virgin had vanished. Or maybe that had merely been a figment of his imagination, anyway. “Would you have been more attentive to my needs? Would you have made sure I climaxed three or four times, instead of merely twice?”

“That’s enough,” he all but growled out, his own temper rising to match hers. Her flippant tone was driving him crazy.

She arched a haughty brow. “Or what?”

“Let’s not go there.” He stepped away from her before he did something he regretted, like pull her back into his arms and make love to her all over again. Which would so not be helpful right now, even though the tension between them was still simmering.

“Look,” she began again, her tone marginally softer. “I never meant to deceive you.”

“Then what was it you did want?”

“I just didn’t want it to be a big deal.” She spoke slowly, enunciating each word.

“But it is. You were a virgin. At… How old are you? Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”

“Twenty-seven,” she muttered, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. As if her age were something to apologize for.

“Nobody’s a virgin at twenty-seven by accident. Certainly no one who’s as beautiful and vivacious as you.”

Again, that defiance flashed in her eyes. As if his words were insults rather than compliments.

“How I look doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s not as if I didn’t have opportunity.”

“That’s precisely my point.”

“It’s just the way I was raised. That’s all.” She spun away from him, stalking to the other side of the room to stare out the window. “From the time I was twelve, my mother drilled it into my head. I couldn’t mess around with boys. I couldn’t sleep with them. I couldn’t even date them. If I fell in love with some boy, and fooled around or had sex, I’d just end up pregnant and married by the time I was