Page 34 of Keeping The Virgin

For a terrible second, I remember what’s waiting for me back home, and I tense up. Cage must feel it, because he rises to his elbow so he’s propped up, looking down at me. He’s frowning, trying to read me in the dimness of the room.

I pull the sheet up to my shoulders, almost as if that will hide every secret I’ve been keeping.

Cage tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Do you have any idea how you really come off to others, Karini?”

Great. Is he about to tell me in his cutting way that I’m average, but I have a great personality. Or maybe I’m just a good girl who’s a challenge until you break her in.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I tell him. “I know I’m not like those other women you see. The elegant, stunning, exciting ones you run around town with.”

His eyebrows draw together even tighter. “Jesus. You really don’t know.”

“Know what?”

His gaze runs hot again as he brushes it over my face. Then he lazily begins to pull the sheet away from my body.

I tug it back over me, but he wins, yanking the sheet off, leaving me exposed.

He already had his way with me tonight, so there’s no reason I should be shy as his eyes take a long stroll over my body. But I am bashful, and I bring an arm over my breasts and cover my sex with my other hand.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

The desire in his voice changes everything, and I take my hands from myself, curling further onto my side like a kitten, watching him, waiting for what he’ll say next. As he keeps devouring my body with his gaze, a flush eases over me, and just like that, I’m ready for him again.

Ready for anything.

“What I see,” he says as he touches my hair, “is a woman with big gray eyes and a smile that turns me on every time I see it. Don’t you know that? You’re fucking gorgeous, Karini.”

Maybe, during college, I did see some changes both physically and mentally whenever I looked at myself in the mirror, but I never quite believed I would be anything other than what I’d always been.

I think Cage sees someone totally different than I usually do.

I look into his eyes to determine if he’s really putting me on, trying to get me to screw him again without him having to work very hard for it. But all I find in his gaze is truth, and it sends a rush of warmth through me.

Then real life returns, because, once again, if I’d seen myself as Cage sees me before now, I wouldn’t be in such trouble.

There wouldn’t have ever been a Liam who’s way overdue to send another text…

But it’s as if there’s a new connection between Cage and me, something pulling us toward each other as he draws me back to him, holding me tighter than ever as he embraces me, our bodies intertwined.

He doesn’t have to say anything else as he strokes my back. Soon his breathing evens out, and in his arms, feeling more loved and safe than I’ve ever felt, I fall asleep, too.

* * *

The next morningis cold as I wake up in bed alone, the soreness between my thighs the only reminder that he was even there.

He’s gone into work without letting me know. Sure, he’s made arrangements for Daphne, the personal chef and grand dame of his kitchen, to treat me to a delicious breakfast and lunch. He’s also texted me that I should make myself at home until he returns. But I sense that his distance has returned, and I suspect the reason.

He regrets letting me into his room.

He hates that he told me even a little bit about his past.

I know instinctively that Cage Bryant just doesn’t make himself this available to anyone, so I tell myself to be patient as I take a swim in his small, private pool, then summon the on-call massage therapist and manicurist who come over to pamper me with a spa day. I chat on the phone with my family and friends, lying to them about this “end-of-the-summer wingding with some college buddies.”

I wait for the next text from Liam, and thank god there isn’t one.

By the time Cage returns, he’s all business, appearing in the library where I’m kicking back on a stuffed sofa, reading some Jane Austen.

At the sight of him in his pressed suit with his brown hair slicked and tamed, I go full horny for him—so powerful, so intimidating. I’ve been daydreaming about him, walking an emotional tightrope as I wonder what mood he’ll be in this time.

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