Page 145 of The Morally Grey Billionaires Boxset

Cade

"Why should I have told you I was a virgin?" She tips up her chin.

I tap my fingertips together. "If you think it’s because I’d have gone easy on you, you’re mistaken."

She gapes at me. "You’re an asshole."

"As we’ve established many times over. Still doesn’t answer my question."

She sits up in bed, making sure to tuck the bedsheets under her armpits. "Answer mine first."

"Getting frisky, are we?" I smirk.

She scowls. "One day, your ego’s going to be so battered, you’re going to regret every time you were mean to me."

I already am. And I don’t understand why. It’s not like I owe her anything, so why the fuck am I so upset about how I took her virginity?

I lean back, then prop my ankle over the knee of my other leg. "Not here to negotiate, Abby. Answer. The question.”

She pales, then looks away before turning her gaze back on me.

“Why is it such a big deal? It’s nothing but a bit of skin.

And honestly, I’d have thought my damn hymen would’ve rupture when I went horseback riding or took part in sports.

Besides, virginity is an outdated concept.

And many women don’t have a hymen so—" She raises a shoulder. “It didn’t seem relevant to me. It really isn’t important. "

"It’s important to me."

"Why is that?"

"You haven’t let anyone else fuck you before me," I say through gritted teeth. "I’m your first. Do you know how that makes me feel?"

"H-how does it make you feel?"

"It makes me want to lock this door and fuck you until you’re not able to walk without feeling the imprint of my cock in your cunt every time you move.

It makes me want to take every hole in your body all over again, until you’re spoiled for having sex with anyone else again.

It makes me want to give you so much pleasure and so much pain that the endorphin level in your body keeps you always on a temporary high. Only, I’m not going to do that."

"Y-you’re not?"

I shake my head. "Because I believe someone like you probably had a plan behind what you did. Bet you held out for me with the explicit agenda of making me feel guilty for what I did—"

"Only you don’t," she grumbles.

"I don’t."

She firms her lips. "For a second there, I thought I saw a glimmer of the man behind all that hatred you’ve built up over the years."

"Keep dreaming. If you’ve been holding out hope you’re going to soften me, you’re wrong." You’ve already gotten through to me, and it’s fucking frustrating. This is not how it was meant to be. I wasn’t supposed to enjoy fucking her. I wasn’t supposed to relish getting close to her.

I rise to my feet. "Get some sleep."

I turn on her and stalk toward where I threw off my shirt earlier, when I hear, "Cade, oh, my god, what happened to your back?"

I freeze, then reach for my shirt and scoop it up. I draw it down over my torso. "Not your concern."

"Who did this to you?"

Her voice is soft and full of concern, and damn, if I don’t feel another layer around my heart peel away.

I sit down on the bed and reach for my socks when the mattress shifts behind me.

"Tell me, Cade, please." She touches my shoulder, and I wince. She doesn’t remove her hand.

Instead, she slides off the bed and comes around to stand in front of me.

Not able to stop myself, I take in her upturned tits, the hard buttons of her nipples, the nipped-in waist, her thick, flared-out hips, and those rounded thighs between which is the triangle of flesh I adore.

Adore? What the fuck? Where did that come from?

I shake my head to dislodge the thought.

She’s not wearing any clothes, and of course, I knew that because I put her to bed without any.

Then I tortured myself watching her sleep, knowing she was naked under the covers.

Her scent crept under my skin and insinuated itself in every cell of my body.

The taste of her coats my tongue and my fingers, and the feel of her hot slickness still clings to my cock.

I took her virginity, and it shouldn’t mean anything to me, but it does.

It’s affected me in a way I never anticipated.

How am I supposed to continue with my plan of taking revenge when…

The reasons for my vendetta are quickly being bulldozed by the new memories we’ve made in the last few weeks?

"Cade?" She sinks down to her knees between my legs, then balances herself on my thighs. "Talk to me, please. Those scars. They were…"

"Made by whipping."

She pales. "Whipping?"

"It’s what happens when you sleep rough and fall in with a bad crowd. A street gang, to be precise.”

“A-a gang?” she stutters.

I narrow my gaze. “After I was expelled, Knight encouraged me enroll in a state school. That’s where I fell in with a local gang.

My parents tried their best to make me see reason—not that it made a difference.

I was too angry, too consumed by the need for revenge.

I graduated, left home, then joined the gang full-time.

Turns out, being a natural athlete meant I was really good at breaking into shops and fleeing before I got caught. "

"You robbed people?" She begins to pull away, but I drop my socks and grab her wrists.

"Oh, no, you don’t. You started it. Now, you get to listen to what happened after you got me expelled from school."

"I didn’t mean to. I had no idea that would be the consequence of agreeing to call you and ask you to come to the bell tower that night. If I’d known how it would end, I never would have told you that I needed you," she pleads.

“You shattered my ability to trust in people. You broke my heart, Abby.”

“I... I broke you heart? Does that mean—”

“Any fledgling feelings I had for you are now buried under the weight of your deception.”

She pales. “Don’t...don’t say that, Cade.”

“Why? Does that surprise you? You didn’t think I carried a torch for you all these years, did you?”

She glances away.

“I owe you, though. It’s thanks to you that I understood the only person I can trust is myself. When I was expelled, I realized, the more money you have, the more power you have to swing things in your direction. All that mattered afterward was making money fast.”

She peers at me from under her eyelashes. "I helped Knight look for you,” she says softly.

“You did?”

“We had to do it without telling our parents. Luckily, Knight was old enough to have started working, so he had access to the resources necessary to find you. It took him a year before he tracked you down to the hospital. He told me you were okay but refused to give me any more information after that. He knew I’d reach out to you, and he didn’t think that would help either of us.

” She looks between my eyes. "The reason you were in the hospital—” She swallows. “Was that the—"

"The whipping? Yes."

"How did it happen? Tell me."

"Wrong place, wrong time. I got caught up in a gang war. Was taken prisoner by a rival gang and made an example of. They whipped me so hard I almost died."

"Oh, god," she gasps.

"It was the best thing that could have happened."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"When they realized I was barely breathing, they panicked and ran. The cops found me, admitted me to the hospital—"

"Which is where Knight found you."

"I made him promise he wouldn’t tell anyone what I’d been up to." I release her hands, only to place my palms on her shoulders.

"He came through for you." She swallows.

"In more ways than one." I firm my shoulders. "He managed to get the charges against me dropped, then pulled more strings to secure me a chance to try out for the local club cricket team. Which gave me a chance to try out for the national team later.”

"And look where you are now."

"With my hands all over your delectable body." I smirk.

She scowls. "Don’t do that; don’t cheapen things between us."

"Just because I told you what I went through doesn’t change anything between us."

The skin between her eyebrows furrows. "Why do you fight what you feel for me?"

I scoff, "Because I feel nothing for you. Except lust, maybe. That’s all you’re good for. A good shag. Is that what you want from me? Is that why you’re pretending to empathize with what happened to me?"