She wasn’t certain he fully understood. “I’ve never slept with Damien.”
He smiled and rubbed his thumb against her lips. “Even better.”
“Reed,” she said, growing frustrated. She clutched his shoulders and looked steadily up at him, willing him to understand without making her draw a verbal picture for him. “I’ve never slept with anyone.”
He went very still. After a moment, he said, “I’m assuming you’re using the word sleep as a euphemism.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Are you telling me—you’re a virgin?” The word seemed almost as hard for him to say as it would have been for her.
“Yes,” she repeated, trying to read behind the open astonishment in his expression. “Is that okay?”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—it doesn’t bother you, does it? I know I’m older than most…well, you know…”
“Virgins.”
“Yes.” She didn’t know why she was having so much trouble getting that out tonight. It had never particularly bothered her before. “I’ve waited because I wanted it to be right, and it wasn’t before,” she felt compelled to explain.
Reed still looked a bit dazed. “But it feels right now?”
She took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said on an exhalation, her hand sliding down his chest to savor the feel of him. “It feels right now.”
He didn’t say anything for a very long moment. And then he groaned. “Damn.”
She started to ask what was wrong. Before she could get the words out, she found herself alone on the bed. Reed was halfway across the room. And he didn’t look as though he intended to come back.
Celia raised herself unsteadily onto her elbows. “Reed?”
“I was thinking about having a drink,” he said, opening the discreetly placed liquor cabinet provided by the resort. “Would you like one?”
Celia stared at him. “A drink? Now?”
He opened a miniature bottle and poured amber liquid into a glass tumbler. “Now seems like a real good time to me.”
“But—”
He tossed down the drink, set the empty tumbler on the cabinet top, ran a hand through his hair and finally turned back to face her. “I’ll put on a shirt and walk you back to your suite.”
At first she’d been startled by his behavior, but now she was starting to get angry, an anger spurred by intense disappointment. She spoke slowly, deliberately. “What if I don’t want to go back to my suite?”
Reed sighed. And then he walked to the side of the bed and touched her cheek. “You don’t understand.”
She jerked away from his fingers, finding that her skin was still too sensitized for casual touches. A moment later she was on her feet, facing him defiantly as she rebuttoned her shirt. “You’re right,” she snapped. “I don’t understand. You’re throwing me out because you’ve learned that I’m a virgin?”
It was easier to say that time; maybe because she was too mad to even be embarrassed by the intimacy.
Reed shook his head. “I’m not throwing you out. I just don’t think this is the best time for us to go to bed together.”
“You don’t think?” she repeated, her temper flaring even more in response to his overly patient tone. “And what about what I think?”
He reached out and took her hands. “We were moving too fast, Celia. We’ve only known each other a few days. You need time.”
Her chin went up. He sounded so much like her sister or her brother—and all those others who’d tried to convince her that they knew what was best for her.
She tugged at her hands, but he tightened his grip. “Look,” she said, still tugging futilely, “if you don’t want to go to bed with a virgin—with me—just say so. But don’t give me this song and dance about it being for my own good!”