“Your first?”
Color hits her cheeks, but she doesn’t look away. “Yes.”
“Virgin?”
She winces. “Can you not say it like a medical alert?”
I sit back on my heels.
“No.”
Her mouth parts. “No?”
“No.”
Anger sparks in her eyes. Hurt too. “Wow. Okay. That was fast.”
“You don’t get your first time on a motel floor, hunted, scared, with a man who almost got you killed tonight.”
“You didn’t get me killed. You got me out.”
“Not the point.”
“It is to me.”
“Talia.”
“No.” She sits up, grabbing the blanket to her chest. “Do not use that voice. I’m not a kid. I’m not breakable. And I don’t need you deciding what my first time is allowed to look like.”
My jaw grinds.
“You deserve a bed. A locked door that doesn’t need a chair under the handle. A morning that doesn’t come with men hunting you.”
Her expression shifts.
Softens.
Then firms again.
“Maybe I do,” she says. “But I don’t have that tonight.”
I say nothing.
She holds my stare.
“And I still get to choose.”
Christ.
She’s killing me.
“I’m trying to do right by you.”
“I know.” Her voice lowers. “That’s why I trust you.”
That hits harder than anything else she could’ve said.
Trust.
