Chapter Thirteen
Lila
Adam’s lips found mine, silencing my protests and ending my tears.
I hadn’t been kissed like this since he last kissed me, all those years ago.
I opened beneath him, relishing the connection reignited between us.
No, I hadn’t been wrong about what we’d shared.
I hadn’t been lying to myself about what had taken place been us when we were teenagers.
Our mouths moved together in sync, and whatever reservations I’d had about telling him even a shred of the truth melted away in the fire and passion of his embrace.
This was Adam Greene, for God’s sake, the one person on earth who’d truly seen me.
It didn’t matter that it was when we were kids.
Some things stayed true no matter how much time had passed.
“Lila,” he said against my lips, his voice gravelly, haggard, and stretched to the brink. “I’ve waited so long to see you again, to feel you like this.”
“I’ve wanted it too,” I whispered. “I never stopped wanting it. Not when I was younger, not when you disappeared, not—”
Adam pulled me upright, out of the patio chair and we fell together again, our lips colliding in the darkness as we molded our bodies into complementing shapes.
His fingers laced through my hair and his tongue moved into my mouth as we pulled together, neither of us hiding the need that had bubbled beneath the surface of every word we’d spoken since finding each other again.
“You’re so amazing, Lila,” he said before he moved from my mouth to my jawline, and then my neck, planting kisses along the way.
Adam held me against him as we moved in tandem, and the desire I felt for him almost made me come undone right then and there.
I’d felt so alone, so desperately alone.
To be held, devoured—cherished—his touch reminding me of a healing balm.
“This is…” he murmured as his hands traveled from my hair, caressing my face, down my neck, brushing the sides of my breasts, to my waist. “You’ve owned my heart for so long, but if you don’t want this right now, I promise I’ll stop.”
I wrestled momentarily, lost in a daze of lust. Could I stop? Possibly, but I’d never known this type of passion. I didn’t want to feel alone anymore. No one had ever wanted me for my heart. And maybe now, that’s all that’s left.
He pulled away for a half second and his eyes were misty from something masculine and almost animalistic. “Don’t stop, please. There’s been too much bad in my life lately. I need this. I need you.”
“Fuck.” His voice was still low, on the edge of something I couldn’t place. “Yes. God, you don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”
“Me too. And I don’t want to wait anymore.”
Those words must have been the green light he wanted because he stepped forward and picked me up, swinging my legs over one arm.
I hung on to his neck and he walked us from the lawn to the main house.
He didn’t have to say where he was headed; I knew instinctively we were going to his master bedroom, and I didn’t want to stop him.
I’d always wanted this chance with him. I’d dreamed of it in high school and whispered it in the back of my mind during all those nights of loneliness.
I wanted Adam Greene, and I’d never stopped wanting him.
“God, Lila,” he murmured when we arrived at his bedroom.
He kicked open the door. “You don’t know how much I want you. You can’t imagine.”
I could.
Adam placed me on the bed and covered my body with his. As our mouths reconnected, I gave myself over to the moment, willing him to fill me with everything I’d waited for, everything I’d dreamed about. His lips traveled down my neck and found the neckline of my dress, his lips delicious and needy.
And then I realized I needed to tell him something. Had to.
“Adam,” I said, my voice trembling, the pressure of the moment threatening to undo me. How do I say this? “You’ve…ah…you’ve got to know something before we go any further.”
He raised his head, one hand on my left breast, his thumb caressing my nipple through the fabric of my dress. “What’s that, honey?”
I gripped the back of his neck and made sure my gaze connected with his. I knew what I was about to say would shock him. It didn’t feel real either, but it was, it was the truth despite everything. “I’m a virgin.”
His eyes widened and he held himself above me, as if he didn’t want me to take his full body weight. He didn’t say anything for a few long breaths. “A virgin?”
“Yes.” I marveled at that fact, especially considering the turn my life had recently taken.
I didn’t feel like a virgin, but I was, even by the thinnest of margins.
In fact, that had been one of the selling points of my recent deal with the devil.
He’d liked that I hadn’t slept with anyone.
Said it made me more appealing, and he’d instructed Ingrid to use that part of my life as a selling point for my bookings.
Moreover, he’d been trying to convince me to auction it off to the highest bidder…
But that’s not me. I won’t do that. Not even if…
“I’m a virgin,” I said again, with more conviction that second time. No matter what, he needed to hear this. “A twenty-five-year-old virgin, believe it or not.”
A virgin, maybe, but not innocent. I’d never slept with anyone, but I wasn’t untouched. I stood about as far from that as Mars did from Mercury. And what a wrinkle this added to our complicated mix.
Adam rolled off me, his head slumped. “A virgin.” He sounded incredulous, in disbelief. I wasn’t totally surprised at his response.
“Is that a bad thing?” I knew I’d killed the mood by bringing it up, but I didn’t see any other way around it. He deserved to know. “I mean—”
“No, it’s not a bad thing.” Adam cleared his throat and focused on me again. “I just didn’t expect it, that’s all.”
“You’re not a virgin, are you?” I laughed once. “Do I really have to ask a question like that?”
“No.” He shook his head and looked away from me. “I’m not a virgin, Lila.”
“I don’t expect that from you.” I moved and rolled onto my side, tucking my arm underneath my head. “Who’s a virgin at twenty-seven? No one.”
“Good point. I don’t suppose you want to know when.”
“No, I don’t. But since we’re telling truths tonight this is one more of them. I’ve never had sex with anyone, Mister Greene.”
He laughed without humor, still studying me. “Mind if I ask why?”
I thought about it. “The thing is it just never happened. All these years, I never met someone I wanted to share that with. I went back to Hempstead and refocused on my studies, just like my parents wanted me to. It took all my time, but when I graduated, I had become one of the top students in my class.” I shrugged one shoulder.
“Then I was at Vanderbilt, and I concentrated on my work there. And the guys at school…none of them were…” They weren’t like you.
I sighed. “It never seemed like I’d found the right person to share it with, so I didn’t. ”
He reached over and stroked his fingers through some of the hair near my face. “And yet you were willing to give that to me. Tonight. Like this.”
I nodded. I hadn’t been waiting for Adam per se because I’d felt betrayed by him. I’d kept to myself a lot throughout college and didn’t really date anyone. Yet, it was as if my soul knew Adam. This hadn’t felt like a first date. It was a reconnection. “With you, Adam. I want this with you.”
“I don’t know how I feel about that, Lila. I don’t know if I deserve something as monumental as that from you.”
“Why not?” I smiled at him. “I always felt like we had a deeper connection. Better than the normal. Something special. Why not share this piece of me with you?”
He smiled back, and then kissed me, his lips pressing into mine with a rawness I didn’t expect.
“You’re right. We do share a deeper connection.
We always have, and I’ve always known that.
” He kissed me once more, a long lingering kiss, and when he pulled away, I could still feel him on my lips, a welcome, invisible pressure I never wanted to fade.
“I need you to know I respect you. So much. And you deserve more time for us to get to know each other again.”
I heard his words, but I felt self-conscious. I saw the gorgeous women who attended his party, so part of me believed I was no longer the shiny toy for him.
As if he could sense my thoughts, he bent over the bed again and hovered near my face. “I want you, but I want us to take our time. Could I…could I hold you tonight? Would you stay with me?”
I smiled and reached out to palm his cheek. The man was beautiful, irresistible. “Yes. I’d really like that.” I wouldn’t be alone, and in some respects, I felt whole.
“I’m glad you’re back in my life,” he said. “I feel I need to slow things down for you though. I wish you’d never left.”
I wished I had never left, too.
Adam
I woke up just after sunrise. Daylight streamed through the large picture window on the far side of the master bedroom, illuminating the view of the water. I loved that view, but I loved something else more.
I loved Lila in my bed.
We talked for hours the night before, catching up on things big and small. Somehow, we’d compressed ten years of distance into one long conversation, and when I saw her still lying next to me that morning, I realized how easily I could get used to this. Used to her.
Damn, this woman is under my skin.
I watched her sleep for a few minutes. In the middle of our previous night’s conversation, I’d given her one of my old Army T-shirts to sleep in, and she’d left her clothes on the desk chair across from the bed. A slight smile decorated her face as I watched her chest rise and fall.