Ana was trembling, drifting slowly back to earth, feeling as though all the molecules of her body had been scattered and were only now pulling themselves back together.
She was only vaguely aware that Ward’s warmth had left her. She shoved herself up onto an elbow to watch as he stripped off his pants and boxers.
“Condoms,” she said with a nod toward the bedside table, surprised by how breathless she sounded.
She’d bought them just last week. Her first ever condom purchase. Terrified she’d fumble and embarrass herself, she’d sat in her bathroom for an hour one evening practicing with a banana. Ward never gave her the chance to show off her fledgling skills, but rather extracted one from the package and quickly put it on. A moment later, he was above her again.
He thrust into her. Pain seared through her as her virginity was ripped away. She squeezed her eyes shut, sucking in a deep breath.
It hurt. Worse than she’d expected. Worse than the novels she’d read had led her to believe. She seemed stretched. Too full. But as she breathed out, slowly, the tightness eased.
Only then did she open her eyes. He’d stopped moving completely. His eyes were wide in an expression of surprised confusion that made her cheeks redden with embarrassment.
She squeezed her eyes closed again. So much for him not noticing.
“Ana,” he gasped.
She forced herself to look up at him, taking in the grim set of his lips as he sucked shallow breaths.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“It’s not.”
She felt him pulling away from her. “Oh, no you don’t,” she ground out. The pain was nearly gone now and she brought her legs up to hook behind his buttocks. Twining her hands through his hair, she pulled up to press herself against him. She kissed him, pouring into it all of the things she should have said before, but hadn’t. How much she wanted this. How much she wanted him. She’d been waiting for this her whole life.
Every other woman she’d known had carelessly tossed aside her virginity while still a teenager. But not her. She’d waited. Not just because she was pressured to succeed by her parents. That was the excuse she’d always given herself. But the truth was, deep in her heart, she’d been waiting. Waiting for him. Waiting for the man she loved.
She tried to say all of that with just her kiss. Either he understood her unspoken message or his restraint finally snapped. Because slowly, as if he were fighting it with every fiber of his being, he began moving again. He slipped his hand down between her legs and began stroking her again, slowly edging her closer to another cl**ax. The pressure inside of her built. The burning need to be full of him, finally met.
By the time he thrust into her one last time—his head thrown back, her name a prayer on his lips—she was right there with him as pleasure rocketed through her body.
Ana had heard plenty of her friends complain about their boyfriends and husbands falling asleep immediately after sex. It wasn’t a good sign that she was hoping Ward would follow in the footsteps of his maligned gender and do the same.
He didn’t keep her in suspense for long, but almost immediately rolled off her, to sit on the side of the bed, his elbows propped on his knees and his head in his hands. She pulled the sheet up almost to her chin and then laid there, heart pounding, waiting for him to say something. Anything.
As a girl, she used to fantasize about this moment. About giving herself to the man she loved. It always involved him loving her back. For years now, she’d told herself that she hadn’t been saving her virginity for any particular reason. That it was more inconvenience than anything else. But the flood of emotions she’d felt just now showed that particular disillusion for the lie it was. Though she hadn’t actually had time for her fantasies to catch up with her emotions, she didn’t exactly need Dr. Phil here to tell her this was not going to play out like some schoolgirl dream.
Even if she hadn’t already known the truth about Cara and those damn sunglasses, one didn’t need a lot of experience to know that a man who’d just had sex with a woman he loved wouldn’t sit on the side of the bed, head in hands as if he were miserable. No, these were the actions of a man racked with guilt. A man who—dear God—was ashamed of his actions.
Which meant in his eyes, she’d just gone from a desired woman to a burden.
Crap, crap and double crap.
How was she going to fix this?
Ward had had sex with a lot of women over the years, but not a damn one of them had been a virgin. Until now.
Didn’t it just figure that Ana would be the one to slip past his defenses?
His mind raced, reviewing every moment of their time together, looking for clues. At times, she’d seemed so worldly. So confident and savvy. She’d worked in Hollywood, for goodness’ sake. How did a beautiful, sexy woman like her work in Hollywood—where sex was practically a currency—and stay a virgin?
But of course, she hadn’t stayed in Hollywood, had she? Maybe that should have been his number one clue. But he never suspected that she was a virgin. And she’d never told him. Damn it.
He didn’t know who he was madder at. Himself for not guessing or her for not telling him.
He was still debating that point, when he felt her roll to her side and reach out a hand toward him. “Ward—” she began.
He shot to his feet. “No,” he said instinctively. Though what exactly he was protesting, he couldn’t say. Maybe the whole damn situation. He searched the floor for his boxers and pants and quickly pulled them on.
His shirt lay on the floor a few feet away and he went to retrieve it.
“Ward—” she called again, the distress in her voice more apparent now. “Don’t go!”
He paused in the act of bending down to pick up the shirt. Christ, did she really think he was going to walk out on her without even talking about this? What kind of selfish SOB did she think he was?
He swiped the shirt off the floor and shrugged into it as he strode back to the bed. She’d risen onto her knees and still held the white sheet clutched to her chest. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, a luxuriant tumble of dark waves. She couldn’t have looked more exotically sexual if she’d been posed for a photo shoot. The image was all the more enticing because he knew she was na**d beneath that sheet. Because he now knew every luscious curve of her body, every fragrant hollow, every sensitive valley.
He tried to pull his attention away from her and button his shirt, but he couldn’t pull his gaze from her and the buttons kept slipping out of his fingers. Sitting like that, she looked fit for a pinup poster.
And she was a virgin. Or rather, she had been.
Apparently, his brain could handle only one complex task at a time, and deciphering the motives of one obstinate female was taxing his limited abilities. He gave up on the buttons and thrust his hand through his hair instead.
Finally, he forced out the question that was choking him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
She blinked, either surprised by his query or by the fact that he was still there. “About…” It seemed like the word was on the tip of her tongue, but she pulled it back, finishing with mulish stubbornness. “About what?”
So, she was going to force him to say it. Did she really think there was any chance he’d missed the obvious? Of course, he had missed all the signs of the obvious. Or misread them.
“About. Being. A virgin.” He bit out the words not bothering to keep his frustration from his voice.
Her chin bumped up defiantly and when she spoke her clipped tone echoed his. “Because, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Not a big—” He broke off, ran a hand through his hair. Again. And sucked in a deep breath. Again. And tried to speak more calmly. Again. “You were a virgin. You’d never had sex before. Ever. There’s no way that’s not a big deal.”
He studied her expression as he spoke, taking in every nuance of her expression. He saw the uncertainty that flickered across her face. The moment of doubt. Saw her mustering her defenses. And even saw what might have been a faint sheen of tears before she blinked them away.
“Christ, Ana, I’m—”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” she ordered, whatever vulnerability he’d seen in her gaze was instantly gone. She climbed from the bed, giving the sheet a vicious tug to free it from the bottom of the bed so it came with her.
How the hell was he supposed to respond to that?
She didn’t give him much of a chance to reply, but carefully draped the sheet around her body and stalked off toward the bathroom. He made a step to follow her, only to find the door soundly slammed in his face.
He scanned the room in which he’d been left alone. He hadn’t exactly been in the mood to notice the decor before now. Art deco–style furniture—the kind that could be bought inexpensively at antique stores—had been sanded down and painted a funky bold palette of sunny-yellow, lime-green and bright turquoise. There was a headboard, a dresser and a wardrobe. The linens were a creamy white with colorful throws. The overall effect was somehow a perfect reflection of her personality. Bright, determined, with a depth and complexity that stemmed from its very simplicity.
The one thing he didn’t see was a closet door. Which meant it was probably on the other side of the bathroom. She’d have the chance to get dressed, as well as time to leap to all sorts of conclusions about his emotional state.
He crossed to the door and rapped his knuckles on the door frame. “Come on out, Ana.”
There was no response.
“We need to talk about this.”
Again, there wasn’t the faintest rumble of an answer.
His frustration ratcheted up by several degrees. “You might as well come out, because I’m not leaving. Not until we talk about this, damn it.”
He bit back the string of curses he wanted to hurl at the offending door. He wanted to kick the damn thing. Or better yet, to kick it down. But what he really wanted to do was apologize. Which she’d ordered him not to do.
But of course he was sorry. But at the same time, he’d experienced exquisite pleasure in her arms. So was he sorry he’d made love to her? No. And he didn’t exactly regret the fact that she’d been a virgin. The opposite in fact. The thought of her being with another man filled him with a primitive and very uncivilized rage. So, no, he wasn’t sorry about that, either.