Free Project Virgin by Megan Crane Page B

as if we were dating? That was crazy. This had never been anything but a transaction and I needed to treat it as such.
    I crawled to the edge of the bed and got to my feet. It was only then,when I could feel how shaky I was, that all the rest of the great tumult of emotions I’d been holding at bay swept over me.
    “Oh no,” I muttered to myself as fiercely as possible. “Not here.”
    I scrambled around in the light from outside the windows. I found my panties and yanked them on with fingers that felt thick and useless. I struggled to get my bra back on. My camisole was an instrumentof torture, and I was just tugging it into place when the bathroom door swung open again and the light blinded me.
    Or maybe I only wished it blinded me.
    I blinked until I could see Damon again in all that brightness, but I knew he was standing there, watching me while I did it. And once I could see him—still naked and so beautiful it hurt almost as much as the shock of the light—I couldn’t readthe expression on his face.
    “Thank you,” I said hurriedly. “That was…” His dark brows rose as we both waited for me to fill in that blank. I swallowed. Hard. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
    “I’m an excellent plumber.” His voice was dry. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
    I wanted, desperately, to be cool and casual. Sophisticated, the way I imagined the women he usuallyslept with were. All knowing, heated glances and good humor as they made themselves scarce on cue. But he’d been inside me and he’d made me cry when I came that last time, and I was never going to be the same again.
    I knew better that to say any of that.
    “Come here,” he said, sounding disgruntled.
    But I was rooted to the floor and I was a little worried about the things he could see on my face.Someday I’d develop the same post-coital defense mechanisms everyone else had probably spent years perfecting. Someday. But tonight it was beyond me.
    Tonight there was that massive hollow inside of me and it was eating me whole, and it was darker and deeper and more terrifying than anything I’d ever felt before. It was so big it crowded out the world. It was crushing me and I didn’t even knowwhat to call it.
    “I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I had no idea what I was apologizing for, and my voice was as thick as the back of my eyes were prickly, and I could feel my face start to crumple.
    “Scottie.” Damon’s voice was hard. It was his work voice, and I didn’t realize until I heard it again that he hadn’t used it in hours. “Did I tell you to stand there or did I tell you to come here?”It was beyond me to answer him then through the constriction in my throat, but he must have sensed that because he didn’t wait for me to reply. “I thought we were both clear on the rules.”
    The rules. I’d forgotten all about them.
    Do what I tell you to do .
    So I did. I walked over to him and when I stopped in front of him, feeling messy and misshapen, he simply wrapped his arms around me andpulled me close. I didn’t want to go, but then he was tucking me against his chest. Beneath his chin. As if I’d been crafted to fit perfectly right there.
    When in doubt, do it anyway, he’d said.
    I closed my eyes. I let the heat of his skin seep into me.
    “This is what’s going to happen,” he told me, in that same half-dark, half-impatient voice of his that was famous in the halls of Granger &Knox. “We’re going to go sit in the hot tub for a while. Look at the sky. Enjoy the dark.”
    As if he knew I didn’t want him to see me then. Too wide open. Too vulnerable. I felt turned inside out.
    “Okay,” I said against the base of his neck. “I can do that.”
    “Oh, you’ll do it,” he said. He reached down took my chin in his fingers, tipping my head back so he could look at me. “And then we’llcome back inside and see what you’ve learned.”
    I would have said that I’d slid too far down a slippery