Page 166 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

“No, you didn’t,” she replied with that same calm and clear gray gaze. “You made a statement.”

His ears were still buzzing, his body still throbbing even as it began to cool. She… She… “Tell me, then, that you were not a virgin,” he ground out. An order. Because she…couldn’t be.

She met his gaze, chin raised, but she said nothing for a long time. Then, eventually, when he did not look away or let the moment go, she sighed. “Would you like me to lie?” she asked in that gentle way she had that made him feel like a fool.

Why was he naked in bed with a woman who made him feel like afool? An innocent woman…innocent no longer. Because ofhim.

Maybe it was more of that punishment he loved so much, but it was hard to convince himself of that when some primal space deep insiderelished it. No one else had touched her. She was his and his alone.

Except you deserve nothing and no one.

“You know, if you were concerned about it, you could have asked.”

“Asked?” he repeated. “It never occurred…” He had to get away from her. He all but threw himself out of the bed, found his discarded pants and jerked them on. “You will not turn this around on me.”

She made a move to get out of the bed, but he held out his hand. “Wait.”

She stilled immediately, and he knew the satisfaction over that was misplaced, but it was there all the same. He strode over to her little bathroom, grabbed a frilly towel and made sure to wet it with warm water.

He returned, and when she looked at it with a quizzical expression, he scowled. Then did the deed himself, cleaning off her stomach in quick, efficient strokes.

Something soft and completely out of place was in her expression. He hated it.

“It’s all right, you know,” she said very gently. “I may be new to this, but I am on birth control.”

“Fantastic,” he ground out. “That certainly excuses taking your virginity. Your father would be so proud.”

Her gentle expression sharpened, but she didn’t make a move to cover herself or anything that sheshouldbe doing.

“You didn’ttakeit. My virginity is not a cookie in a cookie jar for you tosteal. This may come as a shock to you, but I was a fully cognizant and willing participant. This will be hard on you, I know, but I simply will not allow you to pretendguiltover somethingIchose. Not now. Not later. Not ever.”

He hated how practical she was being when he wanted to rage. He wanted to claw the damn castello down.

And worse, so much worse, he wanted to cover her body with his again, and take and take and take, like he had any right to have something so bright and wonderful.

“Why have you upended everything?” he demanded, because he could not find a way to twist this into punishment.

He’d given himself exactly what he wanted.

She inhaled deeply, then let out a long sigh like she despaired ofhim. Then she rolled off the bed in an elegant move that had all his words scattering. He simply watched her move across the room, naked and glorious, before grabbing something from the back of a chair.

A silky green robe that she now shrugged into, her hair tousled, her cheeks a beautiful pink. He wanted to have his hands on her, and he did not fully understand thewhyof it, because hewasexperienced, and good sex and good chemistry were not unique or new.

But she was. Something about allthiswas. He felt as though there was some claw inside him, connecting him to her. He couldn’t separate the physical from the connections they had, and it made it all so much more complicated and confusing andweighty.

When she finally faced him, that stubborn chin-up stance she was so good at, he expected a fight. Recriminations for blaming her for upending everything, when obviously they were both to blame.

There. He had shared blame because he would not takeallof it.Shehad pushed.

And you are older and experienced and should know better.

So maybe the blamewasall his. It should be.

“I think because it was time for everything to be upended,” she said, with a little nod as if to punctuate how right she was. “You don’t have to agree with me, of course. Blame suits you better, I know.”

He shook his head. This woman had taken him into her bed, let him be her first, and yet she said things likethat. Saw through him so easily.

“You think so highly of me,tesoro.” He thought the sarcasm and bitterness might hide the way it scraped raw across whatever was left of his soul, but he saw that soft expression of hers take over.