Page 87 of Fallen Hero

I had so many questions, but I settled on “Why?”

“Why am I telling you, or why am I still a virgin?”

“Both.”

I felt her draw in a breath, then felt her exhale.

“I was a virgin when Lili was taken. After, with everything going on, sex was the last thing on my mind. Then we found out she’d been trafficked, and sex became evil. It was the reason she’d been taken from me. The thought of someone touching me made me sick. My sister was kidnapped, sold, and her body used. She had no control over hers, but I had control over mine.

“I wasn’t going to tell you.” Her admission was coupled with another deep breath, this one shaky. “But not telling you first felt wrong. It would make me worse than all those women who screwed you over in the past combined.”

I could understand how Calista would equate sex with being evil. Extreme grief had a way of twisting shit up. But Calli was right, her sister had been taken so that disgusting, vile men could use her for sex. Though the act wasn’t evil, the men who used her were.

Wait.

What?

“First?” I questioned.

Without warning, Calli moved. A long leg slid over my thigh, and she hoisted herself over me to straddle my hips, and thank fuck it was dark in the room and the eyeful of her breasts was shadowed when her robe parted.

Fuck me, not the best position for a newly discovered virgin like Calista to be in. Not when my cock had a mind of its own around her.

“Another reason I never let anyone touch me is because there’s trust involved in allowing someone close, at least for me there is. A vulnerability I was never comfortable giving anyone. Until you.”

Until me.

Jesus, fuck me.

“Calli, baby, I can’t—”

“You can’t or you won’t fuck me, now that you know I’m a pathetic virgin?”

Pathetic?

Hell no.

“There’s nothing pathetic about you. There’s strength in your decision. The gift you have to give should be given to someone special.”

“And you’re not special?”

My throat got tight. Emotion clogged my airway. I didn’t know what to say to that, but if I had, I still wouldn’t’ve been able to speak.

Special?

Me?

“And you’re right,” she went on. “It’s mine to give. My choice. And I want to give it to you. I want you to be my first. I trust your honesty. I can be me with you. I know I’m being selfish, asking you to break a promise you made to yourself. But I’m still asking because, if I don’t, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

The promise I’d made to myself didn’t apply to Calista. She could never be an empty orgasm. But the gravity of what she was asking gave me pause. It wasn’t the gift of her giving me her virginity, it was what receiving it would do to me.

I was already having a hard time reconciling her leaving. Watching her walk away from me, knowing I’d forever carry a piece of her with me, made my stomach roil. We’d be tied together in an unforgettable way.

A few hours ago, if Pete hadn’t interrupted, I was ready to slide inside of her, vows and promises and consequences be damned. But this felt different.

She misread my indecision and mumbled dejectedly, “I get it. It’s too weird.”

I halted her swinging off of me by grabbing two handfuls of her sweet, round ass.