Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 32396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Now, she had a guy who hadn’t even finished, and had walked away from her. It didn’t exactly fill her with confidence for the next chance, if there was even going to be a next chance.
Rolling over, she tried to look across the room.
This was Rome’s room. She didn’t quite know where Rome went afterward.
Before leaving the dining room, she’d cleaned up the mess he’d made. She didn’t know what kind of cleaning arrangement he had, but it felt wrong to leave it for someone else.
She was so stupid. On the night of losing her virginity, she gets rejected and yet still tries to make it work. How dumb was she? It made no sense to her.
Trying to sleep wasn’t helping either. She shoved the blankets off. Although it had been kind of fun and scary being naked, she’d thrown on an old ratty shirt for bed. Stepping toward the closet, she opened the door to find her bag filled with a month’s worth of clothes. Not that she had many. There were several that would need to be washed.
A couple of pairs of jeans, a few shirts, some skirts, and a couple of dresses. Her whole wardrobe had been bare by the time she was finished. She had less shoes—a pair of heels, sneakers, and boots—that was it.
Unloading her bag, she started hanging the clothes on the spare hanger.
Rome had more clothes than she did. She didn’t touch any of his stuff.
“What are you doing?”
She spun around to find Rome, looking composed, and nothing like the man she had heard before he left.
“Ugh, I was … putting away my clothes.”
He looked at her and she pressed her lips together. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him how he was doing, but she was the one who had been in pain. Why should she keep asking him? It made no sense to her, even though she really wanted to.
Gritting her teeth, she waited.
“Why?” he asked.
“You told me to.”
“No, I’m not talking about the fucking clothes in the closet. I’m talking about why you didn’t tell me you were a virgin?”
“It didn’t exactly come up,” she said.
He shook his head. “I should have known.”
“You’re blaming me?” she asked.
“Yes, you should have told me what was going on or the fact you’d never been with a man.”
She couldn’t help it, her mouth fell open, she was in so much shock. “Wow, forgive me for not telling a perfect stranger who threatened to hurt my brother. I didn’t think a guy like you would even care.”
“A guy like me?”
“Come on, Rome. You came to my brother and threatened to kill him unless I agreed to belong to you for a month. That kind of guy.” She shook her head and got to her feet. She’d been lining her shoes up, and she thought she kept hers in pretty good condition but opposite Rome’s, they looked a mess. They were worn and scruffy. “So don’t start accusing me. You didn’t ask and I didn’t know if it was in the job description to tell you I was a virgin.”
“How?” he asked.
“Huh, you’re not making any sense to me. You know how women remain virgins, they don’t have sex. I didn’t have any kind of sex with anyone. That is how I’ve remained a virgin.”
“I don’t mean that, for fuck’s sake, I know how one remains a virgin. I want to know how you did,” he said. “You’re fucking beautiful, and you’re kind. Men must have been clamoring to get to you.”
In a moment like this, she shouldn’t have been feeling pretty good at him calling her “beautiful,” or “fucking beautiful.” The compliments were so sweet, and yet, she had to keep her wits about her.
“I don’t have to justify anything to you,” she said. “Not a single thing.” She refused to.
“I could have made it better,” Rome said.
She had been about to brush past him, but he captured her arm and then pressed her up against the wall.
“It didn’t have to be such a painful experience for your first time.”
“Instead, you said, ‘what the fuck,’ and then you left. You ran away.”
“I didn’t run away.”
“Yeah, you kind of did. I wonder what people would think if they knew a girl’s virgin pussy terrified you.”
He reached out and his fingers stroked her neck. “Are you threatening me?”
“No, I’m not, actually. I am hurt, and I’m lashing out at you.” She frowned. There was nothing good for her that came out of the last few hours.
Her virginity wasn’t accepted, and above all, a guy like Rome had run away like she was some kind of vermin. Yeah, there was no way she was going to be telling anyone what happened this evening. Not a soul.
Also, he failed to see that she didn’t have anyone else to tell. There was just her, and she was going to listen to his advice. When it came to her brother, the alarm bells had already been going off inside her head before Rome turned up at the door.