Heat floods my cheeks. Not because I’m ashamed of it, but because I didn’t realize that it wasthatobvious. I nod, tearing my gaze from his and glancing down at a spot on his shirt.
“Don’t do that,” he mutters as he tips my chin once again. I feel the weight of his gaze so heavily that I might buckle beneath the intensity of it. “We’re going to talk about the fact that I’m the only man you’ve ever fucked.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
His thumb brushes along my jaw, a steady, torturous motion that makes me squirm in his lap. He slides his hand to my nape, where he curls his palm, holding me still.
“Am I the only man who’s ever touched you, Maisie?”
A beat passes.
And another.
Finally, I nod.
“Fucking hell,” he rasps, and his grip tightens, fingers gathering the silky strands of my hair and twisting where theyrest along my nape. “So that night? It was the only night you’ve… done anything, at all?”
Another nod.
“It was a first for anything, outside of a kiss.”
A tortured sound sounds somewhere deep in his throat, his eyes snapping shut as he takes a long, deep breath.
When he peels his eyes back open, they’re bottomless.
Deep, murky pools of brown.
“I’m an even bigger piece of shit than I thought.”
I stiffen, every muscle in my body pulling taut. “No.” I shake my head, and this time, my fingers slip beneath his chin, the hair of his beard coarse as I grip it tightly in my hands and force his attention to me. “You don’t get to regret that night. You don’t get to make me feel like it’s something that I should regret either, Wilder. I wanted everything that happened, exactly the way it happened, and I’m not ever going to look back on it and wish it was any different.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, his gaze pinning me where I sit. “I shouldn’t have been so rough. I should?—”
I cut him off with my other hand, slamming it over his mouth and silencing him.
“Stop. Don’t you dare treat me like some fragile, incapable… naive little girl.”
His lips move beneath my hand, but I press harder, my gaze narrowing. “No. God, you just do not understand. I am so tired of being treated as if I’m perfect. Like I’m just the good girl who can never do anything improper because my father’s a preacher.”
Wilder’s eyes widen, and suddenly, his fingers are circling my wrist, tugging it away from his mouth.
“You’re apreacher’sdaughter, Maisie?”
My eyes roll.
“I’m going straight to hell.”
“See!” I groan. “This is exactly what I mean. Pretend that I didn’t even tell you that.”
His arm slips around my waist, and he hauls me closer, a hint of a rare grin tugging at his lips, one that makes my heart flip in my chest.
“Even more scandalous now.”
“Shut up,” I mutter, so close to his full lips that I can nearly taste them. “We’re never going to talk about it again. The point is…” I flatten my palms against his chest and push back slightly so I can speak—no, think—without him invading every one of my senses. “I don’t want you to hold back. I don’t want to be treated like the girl who was just a virgin, or like I’m not capable of handling whatever you have to give.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking for?” His voice has gone low and hoarse, the syllables washing over me like I’m being doused in accelerant and causing the fire inside to turn into a blaze.
“I’m telling you that I want you to fuck me, use me the same way I want to use you. Make me come like crazy. I want it all, Wilder. And I don’t want to be handled like I’m too inexperienced or… I don’t know, innocent. That’s patronizing. “
