“It had better be,” I say, as I rub my hardening dick against her and see the flash of anger in her eyes as I lean my full weight against her.
“You’re hurting me,” she says tightly, pushing me back, but I still haven’t heard what I want to hear. There’s a monster rising from the depths inside me, and it has to be sated. I have to know that this was a first time for her. Ineedto know like I need my next breath.
“Who was he?” I demand, my voice quivering with anger.
She shoves me back, her eyes widening as her hands curl into fists. I’ve totally ruined the afterglow, and she’s about to let me have it.
“I hadn’t fuckedanyonebefore I met you, Lucas, so no, I wasn’t a member of that or any ‘club’. Happy?”
She grabs the brush and pushes past me and out of the room as I stand there, dumbfounded, looking at my own reflection, trying to process what she just told me.
There’s a part of me that’s overjoyed at her admission. The idea that no one else has ever touched her fills me with the kind of greedy satisfaction I have no right to feel.
Then I remember the first time we fucked, and another emotion eclipses every other. I haven’t felt it often, but I recognize it nonetheless.
It’s a creeping wave of shame that I can’t dispel.
Amelia doesn’t speak much as we disembark, get our bags, and take a car to the harbor. The little speedboat we travel on to get to the island is small but high-end, and I watch to see her reaction, but she barely blinks as we climb on board.
White sands and turquoise water surround us, but the frown that came over her face on the plane hasn’t left her since we landed.
For my part, I feel like a piece of shit, and I don’t know what to say to make amends. Throughout the car ride and the bobbing back and forth of the boat, I rack my brain for a way to make it up to her, but I come up blank.
The staff are beyond accommodating, welcoming us warmly with garlands of flowers, and we’re escorted to a long wooden boardwalk between luxurious wooden huts on stilts above the ocean.
Amelia is courteous to the guy who shows us the room, but as soon as the door closes behind him, a dark cloud descends.
I walk to the window, staring out at paradise, trying to stop myself from apologizing for every time I’ve touched her.
What must she think of me?
“Are you going to get me fired?”
My head whips round to find Amelia with her arms crossed, standing beside the bed.
“What?”
“Because if Sterling House finds out I was a virgin when I started working for them, they’ll fire me.”
My stomach lurches unpleasantly.Jesus, she really was a virgin.
A woman whom I’d never met, who had never had sex in her life, walked into my office, and I didn’t even think about her; I just wanted to get off. No wonder it looked as if she were experiencing everything for the first time. She was.
I am a piece of shit.
“Of course not, Amelia,” I say softly.
“You’re angry with me.”
The little downturn of her mouth makes my chest hurt, and I walk across the space toward her, my hands held out defensively as she backs away.
“Amelia,” I say as gently as I can. “I’m not angry. Well, if I am, it’s at myself. I should have asked you a thousand questions before your first time. Jesus, I bent you over my desk without saying awordto you. That’s not okay.”
She’s frowning even more now, looking bewildered. “I’m anescort, Lucas. How would you have known?”
“I know that!” I snap, the stark reality of how she came into my life is a hard pill to swallow.
She recoils, her brow furrowing as she turns to her suitcase and begins to unpack. I watch her, stricken, unsure how to make this right.
