Page 23 of Masked Darling

One, two, three…

There was the air again.

She wasn’t sure what scared her more, the intensity of what they’d done together or the fact that she couldn’t wait to do it again even with this new information. But that was a lost causebecause she’d just given this man her virginity. Had acted like a proper whore for him, and he was nonchalantly telling her he was leaving the state.

And then had the nerve to ask why she was upset?

Absolutely fucking not.

“You mean to tell me you don’t understand how moving across the country might upset me? Why you—”

Deep breath, Mads. Deep Breath.

“Why are you taking my virginity and making me fall for you right before school ends when you…”

Kade’s brows furrowed as he looked at her spiral before him.

“This was stupid,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes. “We never should have done this.”

Kade’s jaw clenched. The resulting silence was heavy and served only to make her nerves rattle worse. When his eyes connected with hers, the rage in their depths shocked her.

“Is that what you think? What is happening right now?”

Reaching a hand towards the wall beside her, she used it to help stand and avoid answering the question. She didn’t have an answer, or at least not one that didn’t make her sound like a clingy virgin who thought two nights of orgasms meant happily ever after. The tears that pricked her eyes didn’t surprise her, but they did make her mad because she’d be fucking crazy to give this man any more of her.

These tears would be for her and not him.

She pulled her shredded thong off her body to toss it into the trash bin next to the kitchen counter and said, “We’ll focus on finals and get the column done for next week’s paper.”

Kade scoffed as he began to stand, pages sticking to him that he angrily shook off. “So, it starts and ends in that fucking office, huh?”

Madison wasn’t sure how to answer that, so she kept her face pointed toward the floor and gently started untangling herhair from the elastic band that had once held her ponytail that evening.

And no, she realized. She wasn’t answering, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she didn’t want to say the words aloud. They made everything too real. To vocalize her feelings was to risk having them stepped on and shattered. When emotions were said out loud, other people could do whatever they wanted with them.

She pulled her Twister board off the ground, suddenly feeling very exposed under his intense stare, even though she knew it wasn’t wearable anymore.

“Yes, we didn’t think any of this through. We’re both in college and under a lot of stress. We just got caught up in,” she gestured between their naked bodies. “This tension between us. The excitement of graduation. It’s not a big deal.”

The corners of Kade’s mouth kicked up in a cold little smirk as he ran a hand through his dark hair. It was still damp with sweat from them fucking just moments ago, and Madison’s heart clenched painfully at the reminder.

“Right. It’s not a big deal.”

She tilted her chin up to glare at him, irritation stoking a newfound fire in her chest. “It’s not personal, Kade. It’s just the mature decision.”

He strode past her down the hallway to his room, cock at half-mast and jutting proudly from between his hips like it wasn’t anything at all and returned, holding several pieces of clothing. “Not everything has to be personal, McRae. People can have fun together without making it complicated.”

She stood, unsure of when the tables had turned, and she had become the one under interrogation. She felt defensive and didn’t know why, so she did the only thing her mind could comprehend in that moment—she lashed out.

“You’re right. It doesn’t have to be personal. But you should quit pretending it is when it backfires on you.”

Kade closed the distance between them in two long strides, using his greater height to look down on her as he caged her against the wall. She pressed back, feeling vulnerable as his hands came to rest on either side of her body, fingertips pressing into the flesh of her hips.

Where they had been minutes ago. When her heart was still in one piece.

She focused her attention on the barbed wire inked across his heart and swallowed hard, wondering if he was perfectly intact there.

They were still naked, and she was too emotional for this.

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