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His head jerked to hers in shock. He swore again, his eyes roaming her face, disbelief in every feature. “What are you, some kind of nun?”
Despite the enormity of what they’d just done, she smiled distractedly. “Not by choice.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
She shifted her thoughts over the prisms of her life, the facts she liked to keep hidden – her engagement, the accident, her marriage. The divorce. She swallowed, turning away from him, staring at the ceiling. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Damn it,” the explosion was soft. “Don’t you think I have a right to know?”
She shook her head, biting down on her lip. “It’s no big deal.”
“On the contrary, Bella, this is a very big deal. Did it occur to you I might not want to be the man charged with taking your innocence?” He pulled up, standing and staring down at her, unconcerned for his nakedness. “I’m not looking for
a relationship. If you thought ‘making love’ with me might lead to more, then you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Wow,” she said after a moment, once his words had digested. “That’s incredibly arrogant. I’m not interested in a relationship either. That,” she waved her hand over the bed, “This. It’s all I want from you.”
“Why?” He pinpointed her with his laser-like stare. “Why tonight? Why me?”
She closed her eyes, thinking of her mother’s wedding, and the tangle of emotions that accompanied her when it came to her family. She thought of how alone she’d felt all day, how completely isolated. How she was an outsider, all the time. She thought of the way she’d swayed, alone, on the dance floor, as couple after couple had taken their place, moving as if they were one person, their bodies in perfect sync, and emotions were welling inside of her. She thought of her ex-husband and his beautiful new wife, of their family and happiness, their togetherness and love.
She’d needed companionship. She hadn’t wanted to feel alone. But it was too pathetic; she couldn’t admit to being so self-pitying.
“I don’t know.”
“I take it you’re not on the pill,” he queried stonily, reaching for his pants and pulling them up swiftly, buttoning them over himself with a firm movement.
“No,” she swallowed. “But you used a condom. There’s no way I’m pregnant. You don’t need to worry.” The very idea was anathema to Bella. She was already ricocheting from her failed marriage, she didn’t need an unplanned pregnancy into the mix. The reality of what she’d just done slammed into her and she stood up, swaying slightly.
“Cristo, you’re drunk.”
She blinked at him, shaking her head. “I am not.”
“You can hardly stand up straight.” He thrust his hands onto his hips, glaring at her with a belligerent impatience she should have found annoying. She should have found patronizing. She certainly shouldn’t have found it sexy and distracting.
His bare chest warranted her attention, though, and of their own volition, her eyes slid south, tracking across the ridges of his abdomen, perfectly defined, toned pectoral muscles. Running down one side of his chest, under his arm, were words, written in a foreign language. Her eyes traced the swirling ink and her gut seized tight.
“You had no right,” he said again, shaking his head, and the vehemence of his declaration had her looking at him through narrowing eyes.
“What do you care?” She muttered. “You wanted to have sex with me just as badly as I did with you.” Her lips tugged downward for a moment. “And I’m not drunk. I’ve had three glasses of champagne all night. I knew what I was doing.”
“And what was that, cara?”
“I told you, I wanted to have sex.”
“Yes. But why? What made you, a twenty five year old virgin, decide to screw some man she’d never met and will never see again?”
“Don’t you think it’s about time?”
He made a guttural noise and shook his head, watching her, studying her in a way that made her spine tingle.
“I just felt like it,” she added, finally, turning away from him and grabbing for her underpants. “You don’t need to worry. That meant nothing to me.”
“Good,” he said; clipped, short, concise. “I told you, sex is just sex. The fact it was your first time makes no difference.”
“Exactly,” she snapped, ruminating on the way he’d taken something enjoyable and turned it into an argument. She expelled a short breath and turned away from him, reaching for her couture gown and grabbing it up, pulling it over her head roughly.
But then, he was behind her, his hands on her hips, turning her around in his arms. His eyes met hers and there was something in them, a look she couldn’t possibly comprehend.
