Manhattan’s Most Mysterious Billionaire - Chapter 17
Roisin lay stunned, seeped in afterglow, as if she were floating on a glittering cloud of sensation. But the cloud dispersed as Nate eased out of her tender flesh.
She shifted and slipped out from under him, aware of all the places her untried body ached.
He’d been so careful, so cautious with her, as soon as he’d discovered her virginity. Despite his need. But his care and attention only terrified her more.
She’d been falling in love with him without admitting it to herself for two weeks. But there would be no escaping the truth now.
She grasped a towel from the warm tiles, wrapped it around her trembling body, but as she turned ready to run, he caught her wrist and drew her round to face him.
Thank goodness he’d donned his wet trunks, but even so, the sight of him—so tall, so rugged, so scarred and yet so beautiful—had the mortification firing into her cheeks and the panic clawing at her throat.
“Where are you going?” he asked, his tone as raw as she felt.
“I…I need to shower,” she said. Then I need to run.
Nate was a billionaire. And she was his employee. But far worse than that, Nate was a man who had been scarred by the trauma of his past. Trapped in his penthouse tower, desperate for human contact without even realizing it.
She had insinuated herself into his life, reveled in his attention and the brooding intensity she could see lurking in his eyes. She’d convinced herself she could rescue him, when what she’d really been doing was taking advantage of him.
He nodded but didn’t ease his grip. “Why did you let me take your virginity?”
“It’s grand. It’s not important,” she said, mortified now as well as guilty. How could she have assumed he’d never guess, when she knew how observant he was? Then again, she hadn’t expected her first time to be anywhere near as overwhelming either.
“It matters to me,” he said, the cynical edge making the guilt grow.
She swallowed around the brutal lump of emotion. Then forced herself to tug her hand free. “I need a bit of time to myself.”
He studied her, the brutal combination of cynicism and suspicion in his gaze only crucifying her more—but doing nothing to douse the heat still pulsing at her core.
“I didn’t use a condom,” he said, his voice flat and remote, reminding her of the man she’d met that first morning. “Are you using contraceptives?”
“Yes,” she lied, frantic now to get away—to shore up her defenses—an accidental pregnancy the least of her problems as her heart began to shatter.
She was that girl again—who had been sure her daddy would return, until he didn’t.
She’d rescued wild things because she wanted them to love her too. But they never did, they just needed her for a little while, and then she was forced to let them go. And then she’d missed them—until she found another wild thing to save. And she’d repeated that pattern again and again. Why had she never learned?
You can’t make a wild thing love you—no matter how much you might love it back.
He raked impatient fingers through his hair. And she saw the agitation, the penetrating, probing gaze—the wariness as vivid as it had ever been.
You brought this on yourself, Roisin, for believing in something that was never real.
“Go have your shower in my suite, then we’ll talk,” he said.
She nodded, and left him standing alone on the roof, knowing that talking wouldn’t change the truth.