An Innocent, a Seduction, a Secret

Edie reached for one side of her dress and pulled it over herself. Now she felt self-conscious. ‘There’s something I should tell you...before we go further.’

‘Edie...?’

She forced herself to look at him. ‘I haven’t...done this before.’

He looked confused, and then she could see realisation dawning. ‘You mean you’ve never—’

‘Had sex. Yes.’ She rushed to finish for him before he could say it out loud.

The air between them seemed to cool almost immediately. Sebastio drew back and did up his trousers. Edie pulled her dress together, feeling completely undone.

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

Sebastio’s voice skated like an arctic wind over her skin. She secured the fastening on her dress after a few fumbled attempts. Her bra was still open and her bare nipples were sensitive against the thin silk. She saw her panties on the floor and bent down to pick them up.

Her whole body was screaming for fulfilment. But she was glad she’d stopped Sebastio because if his reaction now was anything to go by it would have been ten times worse if she’d said nothing.

‘I didn’t expect this to happen...here. Like this.’

Edie’s words scored into Sebastio’s skin like barbs. He reeled at this information. Edie was a virgin. Innocent. Still innocent. And he’d been about to take her like some out-of-control teenager with his first woman. He’d never lost it with a woman like that. Ever.

Caustic words spilled out before he could stop them, self-recrimination bubbling over. ‘So you wouldn’t have stopped me if we’d been in a bedroom? Is that what you’re saying?’ He cursed in Spanish. And then, ‘Dammit, Edie... I could have hurt you.’

Actually he knew he would have hurt her. He had been close to losing his reason at the mere touch of her hot, damp sex against his erection.

In the dim light of the room, with her hair dishevelled and her dress crumpled around her, she looked sinfully sexy but also impossibly fragile. He had a flashback to that nightclub in Edinburgh. It was all so clear now. She’d been infinitely more fragile then, but she was the same person. Still innocent.

The fact that he’d met

her before...and she’d known all this time while he hadn’t...made Sebastio feel doubly exposed now.

Maybe it was also because she was linking him back to a time in his life that he didn’t want to think about. The time after the crash, when he’d blocked everything out. Cut himself off from the rugby world and his friends.

Edie was looking at him and her expression was all at once vulnerable and defiant. He might not have known her consciously when they’d met again, but deep down he’d known her.

He denied what his body was screaming for—fulfilment. His wounds were too raw and close to the surface. He shook his head. ‘I don’t do this, Edie. I don’t initiate innocents.’

He saw how she flinched slightly but he welcomed it. She had to know the type of man he was. If he had a tiny modicum of humanity left—one small piece of his soul that wasn’t toxic and guilt-ridden—then this was it. He refused to be the one to take Edie’s innocence. He didn’t deserve it.

CHAPTER FIVE

I DON’T INITIATE INNOCENTS.

Edie just wanted to leave. With as much dignity as she could muster. Whatever had happened before with this man paled into insignificance next to this new and fresh humiliation.

She managed to say as coolly as she could, ‘I think I’ll go to my room now.’

She prayed her legs wouldn’t wobble as she stepped around Sebastio to walk out of the room. The fact that he was barely dishevelled was even more galling. She’d practically been naked while he’d maintained control at all times. Did the man ever lose it?

Edie had a sudden and very uncharacteristic urge to see Sebastio lose control some time. Anything to make her feel less ragged.

She was almost at the door when he said from behind her, ‘Edie...’

Reluctantly she turned around. He’d never looked more tall or forbidding against the timeless backdrop of the room.

He said, ‘I don’t mean to be harsh, but I won’t be the one to take your innocence from you. I won’t have that on my conscience too.’

Edie heard his words. Barely. She was too eager to leave. But what she understood in that moment was that he was effectively saying, It’s not you, it’s me. Which made it even worse.