Chapter 22

‘Um…no, I—I just feel a bit embarrassed about being…naked.’ Lea bit her lip and couldn’t hold his gaze.

Dave came over to the bed and sat down beside her. He pushed the fall of her hair back behind her shoulders, his hand going to the small of her back in a warm circular caress. ‘I saw the blood on the condom. You don’t have to be embarrassed about having your period.’

Lea swallowed, her heart beating so loudly she could feel it in her ears. ‘I’m not having my period.’ The words fell into the room like a loaded grenade, fizzing in the sudden silence.

Dave’s hand stilled on her back, his body stiffening as if snap-frozen, his expression etched in shock as realisation slowly dawned. ‘You were a…a virgin?’ His voice was so hoarse it came out like the screech of tyres on gravel. He shot off the bed and shoved a hand through his hair, looking at her in alarm. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

Lea pulled the bedcovers closer. ‘It’s not like it’s a disease.’

He let out a short sharp swearword. ‘I hurt you. You should have told me so I could’ve—’

‘Could’ve what?’ Lea shot back. ‘Stopped? Not made love at all? Go on, admit it—you would never have made love with me if I’d told you I was a virgin.’

He closed his eyes in a slow blink and swore again. He turned away and snatched up his trousers from where they were lying on the floor and stepped into them with such force she was sure they would rip. The sound of his zipper going up was as savage as another bitter curse.

‘You made me believe you were experienced,’ he said, reaching for his shirt and shoving his arms through the sleeves. ‘You lied to me, if not outright then by omission.’

‘Stop making such a big issue out of it. It was just sex.’

‘It was damn well not just sex.’ His tone was gruff, his gaze diamond-hard. ‘You knew I was uneasy about making our marriage a real one because we don’t fit the criteria for a one-night stand.’ He tucked his shirt into his trousers with rough movements. ‘I can’t believe how screwed up this is. I hurt you enough to make you bleed.’ He rubbed a hand down his face, dragging and distorting his features.

‘You didn’t hurt me,’ Lea said. ‘It was the tiniest sting—I hardly even noticed it and everything was fine after that. More than fine—wonderful.’

Dave came over to the bed and sat beside her but he clamped his hands to his thighs as if he was worried they might touch her of their own accord. ‘Why were you still a virgin? Was it a deliberate choice or something else?’ His tone lost its sharp edge, his expression softening from its harsh lines of self-recrimination.

Lea looked down at her hands clasped around her bent knees. ‘I came close once to having sex when I was a teenager but the guy got cold feet when he saw my leg. He made me feel terrible about my body. I’ve avoided any sort of intimacy ever since.’

Dave scrunched up his face as if suffering from an internal pain. He let out a sigh and took one of her hands in his, the gentle press of his fingers against hers making her eyes well with tears. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such an awful experience. That kid was a jerk for making you feel that way. You’re beautiful and desirable and deserve to be treated with nothing but respect. But don’t you see how what happened just now makes me feel like a jerk? I hurt you and that’s the last thing I wanted to do to you or to anyone.’

Lea looked into his frowning gaze and sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I was embarrassed, that’s all. I mean, what girl these days gets to the age of twenty-six without having had sex? It made me feel like a pariah. Completely out of step.’

He gave her hand another squeeze. ‘One day you’ll find what you’re looking for. Someone who can give you the security and longevity that enriches a physical relationship.’ He rose from the bed and moved some distance away, his expression still wrought with lines of tension.

‘What if I’m not looking for that right now?’ Lea asked. ‘What if I only want a fling to get some experience under my belt? What would be wrong with you being the person who helps me with that?’

He turned back to look at her, his fisted hands clenching and unclenching by his sides as if he was fighting the urge to come back and haul her into his arms. ‘I’m trying to do the right thing by you, Lea. I try to do the right thing by everyone I care about and yet I always seem to screw up.’

‘I’m sorry for not telling you…’

He approached her again, his expression wistful, the gentle stroke of his finger down the slope of her cheek making her heart swell to twice its size. ‘None of this is your fault, sweetheart. None of it.’

Lea grasped his wrist and turned his hand over so she could plant a soft kiss to the middle of his palm. ‘I’m glad it was you. I mean, that you were my first lover.’

His eyes smouldered for a long moment, his fingers entwining with hers. ‘It was pretty damn good, wasn’t it?’ His voice had a side note of gravel that made her inner core tingle.

‘Does that mean you’re going to tweak the rules?’

A shadow drifted through his gaze and he let out a sigh and released her hand. ‘Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.’ He softened it with a crooked smile. ‘I couldn’t have asked for a more generous and responsive lover. But there are consequences to factor in if we take this any further.’

‘I know,’ Lea said. ‘But I’m prepared to accept the consequences if you are.’

He traced the line of her lower lip with his finger, his expression sobering once more. ‘Thing is…it’s kind of scary how little I care about the consequences right now, which is why I’m going to sleep in the spare room. We both need some space to think clearly.’

Lea flopped back down on the pillows once he left the room. She didn’t need space. She needed him. God, she wanted him so bad.

Dave gave up on any notion of sleeping for the rest of the night. He paced one of the spare bedrooms with his thoughts as tangled as fishing line. He could not forgive himself for not realising Lea’s lack of experience. How could he have been so blind? In hindsight, all the clues were there. He had never heard any mention of a boyfriend, he had never seen her bring anyone home to the castle, and although he knew little of her life in Edinburgh, she had given him the impression she was experienced with her misleading and ambiguous comments about her past love life. And he’d fallen for it, because he’d wanted an excuse to sleep with her. That was the part of his conscience he was struggling with the most. He had broken his own rules—the rules he had instated to protect her from unnecessary hurt.

And he had gone and done it anyway.

He sucked in a jagged breath and released it in a rush. He had done it because ever since that day in the north tower, he had felt something shift in their relationship. A tectonic shift. He couldn’t be in the same room as her without feeling the subtle change in energy. Sensual energy that tingled and tightened his skin and made him want and want and want with an ache that wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.

And that was another tripwire in his conscience—he’d enjoyed every pulse-racing minute of their lovemaking. It had been off the scale in terms of pleasure. Satisfying in a way sex hadn’t been for him for years. The intuitive connection of their bodies, the rhythm and timing of every movement had felt so natural, so fluid and free and phenomenal it still rang in his flesh like a struck tuning fork.

Dave walked to the windows overlooking the ocean, trying to distract himself with the view, but it was no good.

How could you have not known? What were you thinking? You hurt her.

He wanted to blank them out but a perverse part of him relished in the self-flagellation. It was no more than he deserved. He had once thought he was pretty good at reading people but not now. His disastrous and tragic relationship with his fiancée had taught him otherwise. And now this situation with Lea had only reinforced it.

He was rubbish at relationships. How could he hope to change that abysmal track record? Was there any point even trying?