Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,44

confident,” she joked, taking a sip of her drink.

“Well, we could make out.”

She choked on her scotch, breaking into a coughing fit with her lips pursed to keep the liquor in place.

I took her drink, depositing it on the nearby end table next to mine. Her hand fisted over her mouth as she tried to catch her breath through her seizing esophagus.

“You okay?” I asked, unable to put away my smile. I cupped her elbow with one hand and her cheek in the other.

“I’m fine,” she croaked, clearing her throat.

“Told you that you wouldn’t be interested. You told me as much the other day.” I ignored the sting of that rejection, which had been following me around for days.

She blinked up at me. I hadn’t let her go. I should have let her go. It was just that I really didn’t want to.

“I-I…well, did the chapel not count?” Her fine brows drew together in confusion.

I chuckled. “A chaste kiss in a Vegas chapel in front of cameras? No, Amelia. That didn’t count. It barely counted as a real kiss.”

“Oh,” she breathed, her cheek warming under my palm.

Something in the quality of her voice struck me like a bell.

“Did you think that counted as a real kiss?” I asked carefully.

“Well…I suppose I wouldn’t know. That was my first one.”

For a long moment, I stood there, holding Amelia, looking into her open, innocent face as the sum of my awareness shrank to a pinpoint in my chest.

I couldn’t have heard her right.

It was impossible.

Unthinkable.

Unbelievable.

A single laugh shot out of me.

She frowned.

I frowned back. “You…you can’t…you mean to say you’ve…” I stopped myself, gathered my wits. “That kiss in the chapel was your first kiss?”

She nodded into my palm.

Shock rose in my chest, followed by guilt and an unexpected feeling of ownership and possession. It was no wonder she’d refused my advances. I’d almost kissed her without care, without realizing. I’d almost taken her first in a way that would have been criminal.

“Please tell me how that’s possible.”

She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again. Gears whirred and clicked behind her eyes for a moment before she finally spoke. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. No one’s ever even tried to kiss me.”

“Impossible,” I hissed.

Her face crumbled. “You don’t believe me?”

My jaw clenched. “Of course I believe you. I just can’t believe no man would have tried.” My eyes widened at another realization, a realization that sent a tingling numbness down my arms and to my fingertips. “Amelia,” I said quietly, my anxiety barely tamped down, “does that mean you’ve never…”

Her big eyes were so wide, they almost overtook her face. She couldn’t speak. She shook her head instead.

My heart stopped. “You’re a virgin?”

Those crimson lips of hers pursed. She nodded.

I let her go like she was fresh out of the oven and stepped back. It was just one step, but her shoulders curved at the loss, her arms winding around her small waist.

I ran a hand over my mouth, unable to comprehend the reality I’d just been handed.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t think—”

“Don’t apologize,” I interjected. “Please, don’t apologize for that.”

Something dawned on her, breaking her face open with a gasp.

“Oh. Oh my God.” Her hands flew to her lips, her eyes ringed with white. “Tommy, I…” Her cheeks flushed deep scarlet.

“What?” I asked gently, though my mind was scrambling for what else she could drop on me.

“I have…” She shook her head, seeming to try to gather her thoughts. “I’m a virgin. As in clinically.”

It took a long, silent second for me to understand what she meant. “Oh,” I said. It was the only coherent thought I had.

She drew a breath and launched into a stammering spiral. “Oh God. Oh God. I can’t believe…I mean, I didn’t even think…but what if…I mean, is it even legal if I’m a virgin when we get divorced? Are there consummation laws? And what if…what if I date someone else, and he realizes, and ohmygod, what if he tells people? Will I have to have him sign an NDA on my virginity? What if—”

I cut her off, moved to touch her arm. “Let’s not worry about that right now. Okay?”

She blinked at me so rapidly, it could have been Morse code. “O-okay.”

For a moment, I watched her. “Can I ask you a…personal question?”

“More personal than my hymen?” she joked dryly.

I chuckled. “No, I don’t think so.” Another pause. “Do you…do you want to be a virgin?”

More blinking. A dangerously bright blush. “Of course