“Are you afraid to actually feel something if you touch me?” I taunted. “Your walls of icebergs are thawing, Senator.”
“Ten seconds to decide, Nemesis.”
“You already know the answer.”
“Say it. Eight.”
I smiled, though inside, I was crumbling. He was going to take my virginity and by force. He thought I was already compromised, and to prove how wrong he was, I needed to let him hurt me the way it hurt him to see me with another man. I knew what it looked like. Angelo did touch me. He did lean against me. He did trace my hair with his fingers. Moved his thumb across my lips. And then he snuck out of a room after having sex with someone else while I was MIA.
The evidence was there, stacked against me.
“Five.”
“Try not to fall in love with me.” I opened my thighs.
“Francesca. Three.”
“It will be a terrible inconvenience, il mio amore. To love the wife you took in vengeance.”
“One.”
“Stay,” I snapped, loud and clear.
He advanced toward me and pulled me down by my waist so I was lying underneath him. I sucked in a breath as he put his hand on my neck and scooted up, caging me with his knees locking my thighs, still fully dressed.
“Open my zipper.”
I couldn’t breathe, let alone work his zipper. So I just stared at him, hoping he would not misread my shock as defiance. But he did. Of course, he did. With a growl, he unzipped himself and pushed down his pants. I didn’t dare glance down and see what was waiting for me. My heart pounded so fast and hard I thought I was going to puke. I quickly assembled all the information I had on lovemaking and decided that I’d be okay. I was aroused, wet where I needed to be, and in the hands of the most desirable man in Chicago.
With his pants around his knees, he slid one finger into me, his face void of emotion.
I inhaled and tried to look calm even when the tears slammed into the back of my eyeballs again. It hurt. I wasn’t sure what hurt more, the physical discomfort or the way he looked past me as though I was nothing but a body.
The same way he had stared at Kristen.
He popped his finger into his mouth and sucked on it, expressionless, then dipped his finger into me again, retrieved my arousal, and pushed it between my own lips. I was forced to taste myself. Musky and sweet. I flushed red, my nipples puckering, so sensitive I wanted to rub them against his hard chest.
“He used a condom?” He wiped the remainder of my wetness on my cheek. I wanted to cry until there was nothing left of me but held back.
He was about to find out the truth in a few short moments that I was telling the truth the first three times, so I told him what he wanted to hear.
“Yes.”
“At least you had the decency to do that. I will not be using one, but a morning-after pill will be waiting on your nightstand first thing. See, having children with a leg-spreading whore is low on my to-do list. You will take the pill, no questions asked. Am I understood?”
I closed my eyes, shame dripping down my body like sweat. I was agreeing to this. To all of this. Consenting to his words, his actions, and his cruelty. I had, after all, gone down on my knees, begging for this moment to happen.
“Understood.”
“I would play with you a little, but you’ve been prepped by another, and I’m not in a generous mood.” He smirked darkly, and then, with one sudden thrust, he pressed his cock home, slamming into me with such force, my back arched, my chest meeting his, and stars exploded behind my eyelids as pain pierced through me. He tore past the natural barrier of my body and was buried so deep inside me, it felt like he was ripping me apart. The sting was so profound, I had to bite my lower lip to suppress a scream of sheer agony. My whole life, Clara and Mom warned me off tampons, bike riding, and I even had to wear thick breeches for my horse rides, to preserve that which was so sacrosanct, so holy. Only to be met with this.
Motionless, soundless, and tense under his body, the only clue that I was still conscious was the tears that began streaming down my face. I bit my lip hard so as not to make a sound.
I am a rusty barbwire, twisted together, knotted into a ball of fear.
“Tight as a fist,” he groaned, his feral voice meeting my complete silence as he thrust so hard, so fast, and so rough, I thought he was going to slash me apart into miniscule shreds. My tears slid from my cheeks down to my pillow as he pushed deeper and deeper, and I could feel the walls of my virginity coming down and bleeding out of me. But I didn’t tell him to stop, and I didn’t confess my virginity.