Page 13 of Taking The Virgin

Chapter5

His strong back tenses,warily arching underneath my hands. It’s as if I’ve done something that’s already pushed him away, and I don’t know what itis.

As he backs off of me, he lowers his head so I can’t see his expression, then turns away fromme.

I touch my fingertips to his arm but he only gets to his feet. I pull my hand back as if stung.

He digs his fingers through his disheveled hair, clearly agitated, but then I realize he’s actually trying to put some order to the chaos that my hands made of his thick strands. His breathing is labored.

“Shit,” he says. “I can’t believe we didn’t use a goddamn condom.”

Is thatall?

My voice is light. “It’s okay. I’m on the pill, remember? And I gave you my paperwork from my doctor…”

But his tone is firm, almost a reprimand. “I always use one. Always.”

He’s still not looking at me. He picks up his clothing from the floor then surveys the room around him—my clothing and towel cluttering the carpet, the silk robe I tossed into a chair. Then he wipes his hand down his belly where I spread my cream all overhim.

All I see is beautiful disarray, but he’s got a dark look on his face that tells me his point of view clashes withmine.

Suddenly, I feel like the mess. I’m someone who has come into his pristine home and left unwelcome debris. I’m someone he used, someone he’ll be throwing out in just a matter of time, and from the way he’s acting, that time is about to expire.

Still clearly disturbed, he puts on his trousers. It’s as if a different man walked into this room earlier to give me such a tumultuous, raw experience, and another guy altogether is leaving mecold.

“Don’t worry,” I say softly, not knowing how else to handle this. “I’ll clean everythingup.”

If I think that this is going to get him to stay and give me more of what he gave me, I’m wrong.

“Please see that you do,” he says in a frigidtone.

Then, without even another word or look, he leaves me on the bed, naked and vulnerable and in absolute disbelief under the pale glow of the TV screen.

After he closes the door behind him, I still can’t believe he’s gone. Numb, I sit up, slightly wincing at the tenderness between my thighs. I start to grab my discarded chemise to put it on and at least cover myself from all the embarrassment I’m feeling, but I really do feel dirty—sticky, sweaty, and burning with the friction of my skin against his. It should be a good kind of dirty, but after I thought that such intimacy passed between us during sex, I’m humiliated to admit I was wrong.

There was no connection. There was nothing but the transaction he wanted.

But there was the way he just cut me off and left, and that’s what seems to matter the most rightnow.

I slide off the bed while clutching the chemise. I slowly pick my clothing and towel up off the floor and fetch the robe from the chair. I think I need a shower, a comfortingbalm.

After I take one and then dress into a nightie that’s not nearly as sexy as the chemise, I can’t bring myself to sleep in that big, white bed. It seems too glacial…and messy. Instead, I huddle on a chaise lounge by the window with the bedspread and a pillow, but I never do get to sleep.

I’m too busy tossing and turning and wondering what the heck went wrong.

* * *

The first noiseI hear after the sun begins to peek through the curtains is a soft chiming sound that comes from the intercom on the nightstand. It looks like a tiny modern piece of silver art that blends in with everything else, and when Nat’s voice speaks through it, it’s almost as if she’s hiding somewhere in the bedroom.

“Miss Hope?” she says in that gentle tone ofhers.

I pull the bedspread around me and sit up on the chaise lounge. “Yes? I’m already awake.”

And I’m still aching from last night, and it’s not just mybody.

“Good morning,” Nat says. “Dr. Gregory would like you to know that you may take your time with breakfast. All I need to know is what you’d prefer to eat and when, but there’s no rush in the slightest.”

I pause, then ask, “He went to work already?”

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