Page 3 of Defiant Devotion

Hurry up. You have to try. You can’t go back and let them take this from you too.

I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and raised my gaze to his. “I plan to lose my virginity tonight.”

He didn’t react. Not a flinch. No lift of his brows in surprise. He was a serious guy, all right.

“I want to find someone to sleep with,” I said, amazed that my tone was stronger the more I spoke. Something about him relaxed me.

“Someone willing to show me a good time,” I clarified. It didn’t matter if I enjoyed it. It’d probably hurt having sex for the first time. But it would be my choice to make. My only choice to ever make again before I was some asshole’s wife.

Still, he watched me with that stern seriousness. But the longer he didn’t reply, the more I worried he would reject such an out-of-the-blue comment like that. Or maybe he knew an Ilyin guard. What if…

“Anyone would do?” he asked at last, his voice so gruff and thick, like the whiskey they might pour here.

I nodded, braving another small step toward him when his gaze darkened with lust. “Any?—”

He gripped the front of my coat and pulled me even closer. With the force of his tug, I almost crashed against him again. Stopped when I slammed against his chest, I held my breath at how he’dnearly wrenched me all the way forward until our lips could’ve touched.

He remained an inch apart from me, his mouth curling up in a slow, mischievous smile at my gasp of surprise. “Anyone?” he asked again. Dragging his hand lower until he snaked his arm around my back, until he hugged me as he studied me, he brushed my hair back and tucked it behind my ear.

Holy shit. How can… How can he be this good? This sexy and… and…

I’d come here desperate to seduce the first man I found. But I hadn’t been prepared for a cunning guy like him to turn the tables and make me needy instead.

His touch burned. That steady, deep stare of his unraveled me. It was the soft press of his lips on my cheek that had my pulse racing, though. “Even me?” he whispered against my ear.

Oh, my God.

“Yes,” I replied. “Even you.”

“A stranger?” he asked.

I nodded, more eagerly. “No names. Just… sex.” Slanting into him felt natural. As he reared back to see my face as he talked, I mourned the absence of his warmth.

“This isn’t some kind of a prank or something, is it?”

“No. I just want…” I swallowed hard, closing my eyes more under the tender caress of his palm as he cupped my face. “I just want to live my life. To be wild for once.”

“Say no more,stranger.” A devilish grin covered his face as he leaned in to kiss me slowly. Deeply.

It was my first kiss.

My first foray into the dangerous game of desire.

The electric pressure of his hot mouth over mine was over all too soon. In an instant, I craved him to do it again. I craved all he could give me. Wanting his lips on me again, I gasped at the pure need he’d caused me to struggle with so instantly.

“Let’s get out of here,” he suggested, taking my hand and guiding me to follow him out of the bar.

I opened and closed my mouth, stupefied by the lingering burn of his kiss. Clinging to the hot grip of his strong hand over mine, I tried not to sink under the overwhelming excitement—and slight nervousness—of being led to the one and only time I’d have sex with someone of my choosing.

Just like that, I was about to lose my virginity.

It was a fool’s errand when I’d be subjected to whatever my husband demanded of me soon enough. But right now, under this stranger’s warm hold on my hand, I felt more alive than I ever had before.

For the first time in eleven years, I was acting out.

I was defiant.

I was rebelling against my captors’ wishes.

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