My heart hurts, sliced with embarrassment. My stomach falls out of me. “Okay.” I back up. “I am sorry.”
He whirls, his face full of…I know not what. Fury? Confusion? I cannot begin to read him, like this. “Sorry? Jesus, woman. You don’t fuckin’ get it.”
“No!” I snap. “I do notget it!” I stomp closer. “Ilikedit. Every moment of that, I enjoyed. And then youstopped. And you told me I cannot be near you. So no, I am sorry, but I donotget it, and you are not sharing what it is I am not getting.”
“It’s too fast, Anjalee.” His voice is soft, and he approaches, but gingerly, like he would approach a stray kitten afraid of its own shadow. He is very tightly controlling his body, his emotions. “Too much, too fast. I gotta take this slow with you. You don’t know anything, and I gotta show you.”
“So show me.”
“I gotta know you want me to, Anjalee.”
“Have I not said I do?”
His head shakes. “No…I need to know you understand all the way.” His eyes are that molten silver again, the many shades melted into one.
“So help me understand, Kane. I want to.” I reach out to touch him, but he pulls away. “Why do you not let me touch you?”
“Because I’m only just barely controlling myself. And if you touch me, I’ll snap.”
“And what would happen if you did?”
He groans, turning away and raking his hand through his hair. “JesusChrist. So fuckin’ innocent.” He whirls back to me. “What would happen?” He is close, huge, hard, all brawny power and primal fury.
“Yes,” I whisper, not shrinking away from him, but lifting up, daring closer. “What would happen?”
His voice drops to a rough whisper. “I’d tear your fuckin’ clothes off, Anjalee, that’s what would happen.” I shiver at this, a full body shudder with a shaky inhale. “Yeah. That what you wanna know, honey? That if you fuckin’ touch me, I’ll have your sweet, sexy, perfect body naked faster than you can fuckin’ blink?”
I cannot breathe. The thought of being totally naked, him looking at me, much less touching me? My lips tremble, my thighs tremble. All of me shakes. With fear, yes. But that thrilled fear.
I think all he sees is the fear, though, and not the thrill.
“And when I’ve got you naked, know what I’d do?” He prowls closer, until I feel his heat, the radiating potency of his presence. “I’d show you what that flutter in your pussy is all about. I’d make youcome, Anjalee. So hard, so many fuckin’ times you’d forget your own goddamn name.”
Sodirty.Forbidden.
“Kane…” I breathe, but I have nothing to say, all thoughts, all words burned away.
“That’s what I thought, darlin’.” His hands lift, slide past the tops of my shoulders, not quite touching my face. Not daring. “You ever have an orgasm, Anjalee? You even know what that is?”
I can only shake my head. “No. I do not know what this is, to come. I have heard of orgasm, but…no.”
“Jesus. Locked in fucking tower, don’t know the first goddamn thing.” He sounds shaken, almost. “You ever touch yourself?” he asks. His hand descends, turns fingers facing the floor, skating over my belly, down between my thighs—cupping my center, my intimate place, without touching. “Here?”
I only shake my head. “No. Except for…you know. The restroom. But...no.”
His shoulders drop, his hand falling away, and he turns away again, tight and frustrated. “Jesusfuck, Anjalee.”
“What, Kane?What? What do you want from me?” I follow him, reach for him, snag the back of his shirt and then grab his waist, pull him around. “I know nothing. And I want to know. I do, Kane. Iwanttoknow. I wantyouto teach me these things.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking, honey,” he growls.
“No, I do not know that either.”
“You’re a virgin.”
I nod. “We have established this, yes.”
“It’s a gift, honey.” His voice is quiet, a whisper of wind. Very gentle. “It’s precious. I know, I know—you didn’t choose it. But it’s still a gift. You can’t just go giving it away to the first fuckin’ dude you meet outside of your family. Especially me.”
