Falling for the Beast (A Modern Fairy Tale Duet 2)

“Oh.” She was a little disappointed, but she searched for something else to ask him. It was too delicious being here where he’d once been both horny and innocent. They’d had sex a hundred times, a hundred ways—each time more inventive than the last. Was he always this way? Was it something he’d become? And then she knew what she’d ask next. “Who was your first?”

Silence.

She was sure he wouldn’t answer. She’d crossed the line, gotten too personal.

And irrationally, she felt hurt. Weren’t they going to share their lives together? God, she’d shared everything with him. Was she supposed to hold back?

He never let her hold back.

And the smile that crossed his face made her heart speed up. It was no longer vague or even shy, this smile. It promised that he wouldn’t hold back either. When he reached back to lock the door, to lock them inside, she tensed. Because he wasn’t just going to answer her with words.

And maybe that was what she’d wanted.

Then again, maybe it was more personal than she was ready for.

He leaned back against the door. “You want to know about my first time?”

She clenched the bedspread in her hand, rumpling the clean fabric, breaking the smooth lines. “I won’t be jealous.”

One eyebrow rose. “I didn’t think you would be. No, I think you’ll enjoy this story very much.”

A shiver ran through her, her voice almost a whisper. “And why’s that?”

He crossed the room, his long strides covering the room, and then he was in front of her, standing over her, dominating her with just a look. She loved the way he could affect her—body and mind. She craved it. And here, where it was probably inappropriate, where his parents were in the same house, where his mother didn’t want them sleeping in the same bed much less fucking in the afternoon, she wanted it even more.

He lifted her chin. “We’ll put on a show, beautiful. One for just you and me.”

A show. She swallowed hard. Where he would play himself and she would play…this woman? This girl? This long-ago memory who had once spread her legs for a cocky, selfish teenage boy upstairs in his room?

It was wrong to find this so hot, but her body clenched and tightened, ready to start, hungry for him.

When he bent his head to kiss her, she tilted up, meeting him halfway. Did the girl long ago do this? Was she as eager and as breathless as Erin felt now? And suddenly she had to know. She couldn’t guess anymore.

“What did you do to her?” she asked.

“Shh,” he said. “Lie back.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was going to answer or not, but she did as he asked anyway, reclining on top of the bedspread, kicking off her ballet flats as she went. She still had her clothes on—the same jeans and T-shirt she’d worn on the drive over. She’d only had a chance to use the restroom and splash water on her face when she’d arrived. She was far from fresh. Far from sexy. But the way he looked at her left no doubt as to his desire. The way his gaze scanned her body, with thoughtfulness, as if wondering the best ways to position her, left no part of her untouched.

“Her name was Clarissa,” he said almost casually as he took his shirt off. In seconds the thin fabric was tossed to the floor, his broad chest bared to her. The lean slope of his abs took her breath away. Her gaze followed that line down, down—wanting to see more.

He didn’t disappoint. He made quick work of his jeans, shucking them off, kicking them aside. He was all efficiency now. This wasn’t a striptease, something slow and sensual. He was a man with a mission, and that made it even sexier to watch.

“She was a year older than me. A sophomore when I was a freshman. We went to the same prep school.” He put one knee on the bed, making the old springs groan and dip. “She’d done it with one other guy before me.”

She only had time to register that it was young to lose his virginity. Wasn’t it? But then she didn’t have a frame of reference. She’d helped her mother clean houses after class when she started high school. By the time she’d lost her virginity with Doug she’d been in college.

And then she was distracted by his hand on her knee. Just that. Almost innocent, that hand. He had put his fingers in her pussy and his tongue against her asshole. He had touched every part of her, but that hand on her knee just now, with them in his childhood bedroom, felt more illicit, more dangerous than anything that had come before.

He leaned down, his face just inches from hers. His eyes were large and dark—fathomless. She stared into them, losing herself.

Already lost.

“But you didn’t want to hear about her,” he whispered. “Not really.”

“Then what did I want?” she whispered back.

He skimmed his palm up her thigh and caught her T-shirt as he went, lifting the fabric, baring her stomach to the cool air. Her skin pebbled, her nipples tightened. He noticed, his gaze hot as he watched the fabric of her bra peak.