Chapter 16
Jesus, she’s hot. Vera sits down on the edge of my bed, blushing, her breath coming in weak little puffs.
She puts a hand up again, like she did before at the courthouse and says, “Stop.”
I stop so fast it hurts. I’ve got my shirt half over my head and I drag it back down, sucking wind like I ran up a hill.
“I need to tell you something,” she says, with one hand knotted in the quilt. She won’t look at me as she continues. “I really need you to not make what I’m about to tell you an event.”
My don’t-fuck-this-up-radar goes on high alert. “Tell me.”
“I’ve never done this,” she says softly.
I roll the words over inside my head.
Done. This.
“I’m thirty-four years old,” she says to the floor, speaking quickly like she’s ripping tape off.
“I’ve never done this. Not any of it. Not once, not close, not almost. I wanted to tell you now so that you can decide whether you want to?—”
“Say that again.”
Her head comes up, pinning me with her pretty eyes. “Tobias, don’t do that. Don’t make me?—”
“I’m not making you do anything.” I finish crossing the room and get down on one knee in front of her, which puts me eye-to-eye with her for the first time all day.
She watches as I put my hand on her thigh. “I want you to tell me again.”
Her throat works. “I’ve never done this,” she whispers.
I close my eyes.
Christ.
Christ.
There’s a roaring in my ears like a train coming through the room. Everything inside me, the mean bastard, every bad thing I’ve ever been in the dark, all of it stands straight up and starts hollering at once.
I have to hold on to the edge of the mattress to keep still.
Mine.
Nobody has ever touched her.
Mine.
“Well, now you’re not saying anything,” she says, and her voice truly cracks. “If you are about to be nice to me I will get up and leave.”
“I’m not being nice to you.”
“Then what are you doing?” she asks in a whisper.
“Recalculating,” I say.
She blinks, frowning cutely. “I’m sorry?”
“I had us down for an hour.” I take her hand off the quilt and I put it on my belt buckle, and I hold it there. “Now I’m gonna have to clear my week.”
She makes a noise. Confused. Hopeful.
“Is the virgin thing a problem?” she asks, still unsure.
I shake my head, struggling to breathe. “No problem.”
Inside of me there’s a roaring fire. The need to fuck is overriding cells. Control switches are going out one-by-one.
She starts to say, “Men don’t want a woman who’s thirty-four and never?—”
“Vera,” I growl
“Because there’s a reason, obviously, and the reason is me, and you’ve seen why. I’m six feet tall and sitting on your bed in my unsexy underwear?—”
I put my hand over her mouth. My palm across the whole lower half of her face, and her eyes go wide and hot above it.
“Now you’re gonna listen,” I say.
She nods once. Obedient in a way that makes my dick jolt.
“There’s a bunch of blind men in this town and not one of them deserved you.”
As Vera stares at me, I take my hand off her mouth and I put it in her hair instead, fisting hard enough to sting. “Thirty-four years of nobody getting it right. And now I get to be the man who does.”
Her eyes well up with tears thick and bright, and she whispers, “Don’t be lovely, I can’t take it.”
“I’m an outlaw biker. I’m not lovely.” I stand up and tear open my belt. “I’m telling you what’s about to happen to you. I’m about to fuck you like only a real man can.”
Her wide eyes drop to the bulge that’s barely contained by my boxer briefs and she gasps when she realizes how big I am.
My shirt comes off. I’m not sure what she’s going to say now. Vera always surprises me, but this time she’s silent. Her burning gaze slides down me and comes back up. She’s not saying a word, but smiling.
Good. I’m done talking too.