Chapter 3
Duncan withdrew from her body with much more gentleness than he had thrust inside and rolled away as she slowly turned to face him. They stared at each other a long moment. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes bright with tears. Tears of pain, he was certain, but he thought also of humiliation. Fear.
“You were a virgin,” he rasped, his voice rougher than perhaps he’d meant.
She flinched and didn’t respond, instead finding an edge of the sheet to worry between her hands.
“Answer me,” he demanded as he relived that moment when he’d plundered tight, hot heaven and felt the way she’d jolted in unmistakable pain. Even now there was a streak of blood on his cock that told him he had taken her maidenhead.
Her chest lifted in labored breaths and she lifted her chin. She reached a hand up to touch the mask that still covered her upper face. “I knew what I was doing when I came here,” she said. “I am not sorry.”
“You did not give me the choice, though, did you?” he snapped. “To decide if I wanted to be part of whatever scheme you are part of.”
“Why would it matter?” she asked, tilting her head. “You wanted to take me. My innocence was mine to trade.” Her eyes lit up with a snap of defiance. “Mine alone.”
“I would not have ruined you,” he growled.
“Thatis why I didn’t tell you,” she said.
“Why did you do it?” he demanded. “Why would an innocent come to a place like this and give herself to a stranger? Tell me. You owe me that.”
She swallowed and then she nodded slowly. “I suppose I might. Or perhaps I just want to say it out loud and the mask makes it less terrifying. My father wants me to marry someone awful. An ogre. If I come to him without my innocence, this is the kind of man who will reject me. I came here tonight to save myself.”
“And used me in the process,” he said, though he was not immune to the explanation. After all, he was about to enter into an arranged marriage with a lady, too. Did she feel as desperate about it as this woman? Women of Society were at the mercy of fathers and brothers and guardians. If anyone understood that, even on a tiny level, it was Duncan. No one wanted their future set by another.
“Perhaps I did,” she whispered. “At first. I came here in desperation. But…but once I saw you…once you touched me…”
He stilled and stared at her, still naked and so close that he could scent her desire. It was her comfort with his touch, her responsiveness to it, that had kept him from realizing her secret until it was too late. Was that natural? Something that came from her core?
A tempting thought, indeed.
“What happened when I touched you?” he whispered.
She worried her lip a moment, and then she shifted to her knees and leaned toward him. She extended a hand and touched his lips with her fingertips, his jawline, his throat, his bare shoulder. He had to fight not to close his eyes and groan with pleasure. He knew what she was now. And yet she was almost impossible to resist.
“The moment you touched me, coming to this room, giving myself to you, it had more to do with what I wanted than what I wanted to avoid. I recognized I might not ever have a chance to feel…whatever this is. And I wanted it. From a stranger. In this bed. From you. And I still do.”
His eyes went wide. “Certainly you couldn’t have liked how I slammed into you like a barbarian staking his claim. I would not have been so rough if I’d known.”
Her breath hitched. “Show me.”
“Show you,” he repeated.
She nodded. “Show me how you would have taken me if you’d known.”
He pursed his lips. There was an angel on one shoulder telling him to get up and leave. There was a devil on the other telling him to do exactly as she asked. Duncan was well trained in ignoring the angel.
“You want me to make love to you,” he whispered.
“No. I want you to do what you said you’d do,” she said. “Making love sounds much more staid than that.”
An innocent who wanted something rough and dirty and inelegant. Duncan smiled. He might never know who she was. It was probably better that way. But he liked her.
He caught her arms and dragged her forward, dropping his mouth to hers. She quaked in his arms, arching her hips toward him in silent but daring request. Requirement.
He shifted her, lowering her back on the pillows and covering her with his body. She opened her legs and he felt the wet heat of her teasing and tempting his hard cock. He continued to kiss her, deeper and slower until she was whimpering and lifting against him.
Then he pressed his hand between them, aligning himself at her entrance. He pulled back, holding her stare as he inched forward so she could feel the pressure of him there. “Ready?”
