Chapter 40
Lucas
Even after we descend from the high of the sex, my body is still buzzing with the need to touch her.
I’ve never seen her hair wet from the shower before, and she’s even more stunning as she washes her face, cleaning away her makeup and looking natural, shiny, and beautiful in my ensuite.
My mind swarms with thoughts of all the other things I want us to do together.
Sipping from my glass of water and watching as she brushes her hair in the mirror, I imagine all the other men who might have stood in bathroom doorways, waiting for her to come to bed when she didn’t even know I existed.
My mood sours, a familiar ache beginning in my chest.
“How did you like the plug?” I ask, trying to remind myself that this is an arrangement for sex, nothing more.
She glances at me in the mirror, a coy little smile on her face that does weird things to my insides.
“It was great. How was it for you?”
I roll my eyes. “You have nothing to worry about there. It was fantastic. I just hope you weren’t a member of The Mile High Club before today.”
She looks back at her reflection, her hand pausing in her brushing for a second but she doesn’t say anything, and rabid jealousy rushes through me.
“Were you?” I ask, the harsh note in my voice impossible to disguise.
“What?” She looks over at me, startled.
“Were you a member before?” I ask.
“I already told you I haven’t flown before,” she says, but it isn’t the emphatic ‘no’ I was waiting for, and I walk over to her, gripping her elbow, knowing I’m being a dick, but powerless to prevent it.
“Was this the first time you fucked a man in a plane?” I ask, crushing her against the shelf behind. She gasps, her fingers dropping the brush with a clatter on the surface.
“It had better be,” I say, as I rub my hardening dick against her and see the flash of anger in her eyes as I lean my full weight against her.
“You’re hurting me,” she says tightly, pushing me back, but I still haven’t heard what I want to hear. There’s a monster rising from the depths inside me, and it has to be sated. I have to know that this was a first time for her. I need to know like I need my next breath.
“Who was he?” I demand, my voice quivering with anger.
She shoves me back, her eyes widening as her hands curl into fists. I’ve totally ruined the afterglow, and she’s about to let me have it.
“I hadn’t fucked anyone before I met you, Lucas, so no, I wasn’t a member of that or any ‘club’. Happy?”
She grabs the brush and pushes past me and out of the room as I stand there, dumbfounded, looking at my own reflection, trying to process what she just told me.
There’s a part of me that’s overjoyed at her admission. The idea that no one else has ever touched her fills me with the kind of greedy satisfaction I have no right to feel.
Then I remember the first time we fucked, and another emotion eclipses every other. I haven’t felt it often, but I recognize it nonetheless.
It’s a creeping wave of shame that I can’t dispel.
Amelia doesn’t speak much as we disembark, get our bags, and take a car to the harbor. The little speedboat we travel on to get to the island is small but high-end, and I watch to see her reaction, but she barely blinks as we climb on board.
White sands and turquoise water surround us, but the frown that came over her face on the plane hasn’t left her since we landed.
For my part, I feel like a piece of shit, and I don’t know what to say to make amends. Throughout the car ride and the bobbing back and forth of the boat, I rack my brain for a way to make it up to her, but I come up blank.
The staff are beyond accommodating, welcoming us warmly with garlands of flowers, and we’re escorted to a long wooden boardwalk between luxurious wooden huts on stilts above the ocean.
Amelia is courteous to the guy who shows us the room, but as soon as the door closes behind him, a dark cloud descends.
I walk to the window, staring out at paradise, trying to stop myself from apologizing for every time I’ve touched her.
What must she think of me?
“Are you going to get me fired?”
My head whips round to find Amelia with her arms crossed, standing beside the bed.
“What?”
“Because if Sterling House finds out I was a virgin when I started working for them, they’ll fire me.”
My stomach lurches unpleasantly. Jesus, she really was a virgin.
A woman whom I’d never met, who had never had sex in her life, walked into my office, and I didn’t even think about her; I just wanted to get off. No wonder it looked as if she were experiencing everything for the first time. She was.
I am a piece of shit.
“Of course not, Amelia,” I say softly.
“You’re angry with me.”
The little downturn of her mouth makes my chest hurt, and I walk across the space toward her, my hands held out defensively as she backs away.
“Amelia,” I say as gently as I can. “I’m not angry. Well, if I am, it’s at myself. I should have asked you a thousand questions before your first time. Jesus, I bent you over my desk without saying a word to you. That’s not okay.”
She’s frowning even more now, looking bewildered. “I’m an escort, Lucas. How would you have known?”
“I know that!” I snap, the stark reality of how she came into my life is a hard pill to swallow.
She recoils, her brow furrowing as she turns to her suitcase and begins to unpack. I watch her, stricken, unsure how to make this right.
I want to take her in my arms, hold her, and tell her how sorry I am for everything. But instead, I turn away like a coward and go and sit on the deck, staring out at the beautiful view around me, wishing I could dive into the water, swim away, and come back as someone else.
I sit there for a long while, until the sun begins to set. When I go back into the room, I find Amelia asleep on the bed. Just as I had pictured in my fantasies, her hair is lying across the pillow, and I’m hit with the realization that we’ll be sharing a bed while we’re here.
Sighing, I go and sit down beside her. She opens her eyes, looking up at me as I stroke her hair.
“I’m not angry with you. I was being a dick on the plane. I’m sorry. I was shocked. Really shocked by what you said, but not because I think it’s a bad thing. I just wish I’d known. I would have acted differently.”
She makes a sound at the back of her throat as she pulls herself into a seated position.
“If I’d told you I was a virgin when we met, you’d have sent me straight back.”
I open my mouth to refute that. Would I? Maybe she’s right. In my arrogant way, I wanted someone experienced, a woman I could use without strings.
The shame coils tighter in my chest, and I shake my head.
“I don’t know what I’d have done, but I wouldn’t have bent you over my desk with barely any prep.”
She looks horrified. “Was it bad?”
I scrub a hand over my face as I grab her before she can get off the bed.
“Amelia, look at me. Nothing about what we have done has been bad. Nothing. It’s been exceptional from the first day.
I just mean, I would have treated you in a completely different way.
You didn’t do anything wrong. Quite the opposite.
You made me feel so possessive about you that I went nuts about you fucking some guy on a plane you’d never even been on! ”
Her lower lip juts out endearingly. “I’ve only ever fucked one guy on a plane.”
The word ‘fucked’ from her lips makes my cock ache.
“Yeah,” I growl, pulling her toward me and planting a kiss on her mouth. “That’s the way it’ll stay, understood?”
As I pull back, I realize what I’ve said, and she stares at me wide-eyed with confusion.
Jesus, Lucas, you are really fucking this up.
“Let’s get ready for dinner. We need to go find out which restaurant Barnes is eating in tonight.”