Page 26 of Confessions

“Of course it will!” He dropped her hand and plowed ten fingers through his hair. “Are you a virgin?”

She felt as if she’d been slapped. “What’s that got to do with—”

“Are you a damned virgin?” His hands were suddenly on her shoulders and shaking her.

“Yes, but—”

He swore and shoved himself upright. “Get up.”

Suddenly embarrassed, she stood, but couldn’t hold her tongue. “Are you?”

“What?”

“Are you a virgin?”

He rounded on her. His eyes were black as the breathless night. “I don’t see that it matters.”

“You started this.”

His mouth tightened. “No.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to worry about ruining your reputatio

n, do I?” Standing on her tiptoe, she threw her arms around his neck and tilted her head upward. With a groan, he kissed her again, and lightning forked in the sky.

“This is wrong, Nadine.”

“Only if you think it is.”

He was already lowering himself to his knees, kissing her chin and neck, drawing her down and slowly dragging his wet tongue down her breasts as thunder cracked loudly through the hills. As they kneeled in the pooling moonlight, he cupped her breast and placed his mouth around the nipple. Slowly he drew on the dark bud, and Nadine shuddered to her very core.

“Is this what you want?” he asked.

“Mmm.” She couldn’t think or answer.

“Oh, Nadine.” Every muscle in his body went rigid and he drew in a long, ragged breath. His arms surrounded her again and he held her close, resting his chin upon her head. “I think we’d better take this slow...or at least slower. If it’s possible.” He found her T-shirt and tossed it to her. “Take me for a ride...in your boat.”

“My brother’s boat,” she corrected, feeling slightly wounded. Had she done something wrong? True, she didn’t know much about satisfying a man or even turning one on, but she’d thought, from Hayden’s response and her own, that everything was right.

She fumbled with her T-shirt, then waded to Ben’s boat. Hayden helped her guide the craft to the open water, and once in the middle of the lake, he reached over, turned off the ignition switch and let the boat drift. They kissed in the rain, lips touching as lightning sizzled through the air.

Throwing his jacket over her shoulders, he said, “We’ve got to get home. This isn’t safe.”

“I don’t care—”

“You will.” He guided the boat to the landing and cut the engine again. Helping her out of the boat, he slung an arm around her shoulders. As they walked to the county road, he shoved a lock of wet hair from her cheek. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Wynona?”

“Do you want to talk about her?”

“Not particularly.”

Nadine wasn’t sure she wanted to hear about the other girls in his life and yet she was curious, about everything that touched him. Especially the women.

“She’s the one my parents have chosen to be my wife.”

Nadine’s heart did a free-fall and hit rock bottom. “Your wife?” She was suddenly sick inside. He was going to marry someone else? Oh, God, how could she have behaved as she did? How could he have nearly made love to her?

“That’s what the old man wants. That’s what the car was all about. He gave me the Mercedes as an ‘engagement present.’ Trouble is, I’m not engaged.”