Page 10 of The Virgin Gift (The Gift 2)
I furrowed my brow, confused. “You don’t feel bad? Then why are you telling me?”
He shook his head. “I wanted to feel bad, but I couldn’t find it in me to.”
I shot him a stare. “Then why are you telling me?” I asked again, more bite in my tone. I stood, heading to the kitchen to clean the counter—anything to get away from the embarrassment of my most private fantasies revealed, right alongside my deepest secret.
His footsteps echoed across the floor, and in seconds he moved behind me. “I’m telling you because of number ten.” His words rumbled across the air.
I knew what number ten was.
Number ten was the linchpin of the whole list.
Number ten would be the hardest item to accomplish.
His body was inches from mine, so close I could inhale his scent, like the winter woods, and a sliver of desire thrummed in my veins, surprising the hell out of me.
The hairs on my neck stood on end. My mind went on high alert, racing through possibilities as quickly as I’d cycled through fantasies about Marco and Evangeline.
Was he about to say what I thought he was?
But Adam wasn’t that kind of guy, I reminded myself.
I waited for him to speak next, to fill the pulsing silence, even though the noises in my head were so damn loud they nearly drowned out any words.
Adam dipped his face closer, brushing his mouth over my ear, and whispered, “Ask me, Nina. I’ll be the man to do all those things to you for the first time.”
He spoke in a command. Like me asking him was an instruction. No, it was an order.
He’d given me a command.
That shiver turned into a full-body shudder.
6
Nina
Adam was never in the cards.
For all the reasons I laid out in my head when Miss Sheridan had inquired. She wasn’t the only one in my life who’d nudged me about Adam. My friend Lily had at her wedding, tugging me aside and asking when I was going to go for it. Your wedding is making you loopy, I’d teased. My friend Kate had simply arched a dubious brow.
Had they seen something in him I hadn’t?
What would I see if I turned around?
Would I see sunshine, as I always saw with this man?
Or would I see midnight? Another side of Adam?
Part of me was terrified; another part was thrilled.
My mind raced through the myriad possibilities—what would happen to us if I asked him to bite me, have me, take me? Discover me on the bed and watch me touch myself? For once in my life, I wanted to be the one who was seen. I wanted to be watched. I craved the chance to say things like watch me strip, watch me tease, watch me taunt. Then I’d add, Tie me up and make me take it hard.
With Adam?
My pulse beat between my legs, the first sign.
But there were so many what-ifs to Adam as number ten.
We were frozen, poised on the edge of a building, staring down at the ground below, so far away. If we jumped, would there be a safe landing?
I licked my lips and pushed out words. It felt as if I were speaking for the first time. “What happens if I ask you?”
It was an open-ended question. He could answer it in many ways.
A low growl was his first reply, a dirty hum that sent a new wave of tingles all over me.
His mouth was dangerously close to my ear as he gave the rest of his answer. “Then I’d say yes. Then we’d work through your list. I’d fulfill all your filthy, fantastic dreams. You’d say no whenever you wanted. You’d set the rules, you’d set the boundaries, and I’d respect them,” he said, and I trembled from the intensity of his words, the depth of his understanding. I shuddered, too, from his touch, because as he spoke, he slid a hand down my side, curling it over my hip. His touch was electric. Sparks thrummed through me.
“And what happens after I set the boundaries?” I asked, breathless and so eager, too, for more of his answers.
With a rasp I’d never heard from him before, he said, “Then I’ll tell you to get on your knees and suck me so deep you feel it in the back of your throat. Or I’ll bend you over the table and tie your wrists above your head so I can have my wicked way with your sweet pussy. So I can tease you and taunt you and deny your orgasms till I say you’re good and ready to come.”
A gust of breath escaped my lips. My knees wobbled. Those were my fantasies. Those were on my list. He’d read it, and he wasn’t running. He was closing in on me, wanting. I could feel his desire. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
