Free Duke by Candace Blevins Page A

to accept me for who I am, same as I’ll have to accept you for who you are. I don’t want to change you, and I hope you aren’t expecting to change who I am, either.”
    “ You’re a lot to handle, Keith.” Talk about an understatement.
    He chuckled. “You have no idea, but I’ll give you a little time to get used to me. I’ll handle you with care, try not to…” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, lifted it to his mouth, kissed it. “ Damn , woman. You have to be twenty-eight or twenty-nine, right? I’m driving you to one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the city, and you’ve put yourself there. I know where you came from, and I know there were no trust funds. How’ve you managed to get where you are and stay so innocent?”
    “ I’m twenty-nine. I worked in my mother’s restaurant until my real estate career took off. I bought an apartment complex and moved out of mom’s house when I was twenty-three. Six units, so I could rent five of them out and live in the other. Over the next couple of years I purchased more rental property, but stayed in the little two bedroom apartment. I moved into the house I’m in now at twenty-six.”
    “ Okay, and I want to see your first apartment, want to know where your rental properties are, but the biggest question on my mind right now is when you lost your virginity.”
    “ Keith! That’s... personal .”
    “ Yeah, and you’re still tipsy, and tired. I’m hoping we’re going to get very personal with each other in the coming weeks, and this is one of those things I’m gonna want to know about you.”
    Gen closed her eyes and leaned back, decided that was a bad idea and opened them to watch where they were going. She should be stumbling drunk, but she wasn’t. She was drunk, no doubt about it, but the circumstances must have kicked in her brain enough to think. Talking about it now, in the dark, with her drunk while he drove, might be the easiest way to say it.
    “ While I was still working in mom’s restaurant, before my real estate career was even off the ground, I was engaged. I thought I loved him, thought he loved me. I had a ring on my finger and we were planning for a June wedding. We’d put our deposit down to hold the church, I’d picked out a gown, was researching florists and caterers.”
    “ This must’ve been after I left, and you were nineteen when I left, right?”
    “ Probably. Maybe. I’m not sure exactly when you left. There’s three or four years between us though, so do the math.”
    “ I left at twenty, just before I turned twenty-one.”
    Gen laughed. “And I lost my virginity two weeks before I turned twenty-one.”
    He kissed her hand again. “Was he easy with you? Did he do it right?”
    It’d been a nightmare, but she didn’t tell him that. “He was a virgin, too. Neither of us had a clue what we were doing. We figured it out, but… let’s just say I wasn’t sure what the big deal with sex was. I’d meant to wait until our honeymoon, but then we fought, and made up, and I’d been drinking, and… it happened before I meant for it to. He broke it off the next week, proving my mother right about men not wanting used property for a wife, even if they’re the one who used it.”
    She wasn’t sure what he’d ask next, but was sure she wouldn’t want to answer whatever it was. So, she asked, “What about your first time?”
    He shook his head and grinned at her. “Remember what I told you? Don’t ask questions unless you can handle the answer?”
    “ How about you give me the answer in a way I can handle?”
    “ I was fourteen, she was sixteen. She knew what she was doing, and I’d fooled around enough I had a good idea. It was phenomenal. First time didn’t last but a few minutes, but within five minutes I was good to go again, and we went at it for hours.”
    “ How many people have you been with?” Gen didn’t know why she asked, but if he started at fourteen and had one a year, that’d be around