I shook my head, but I didn’t know what to say.  What could I say?  In a way I had been using her, not just for her body, but for the way she made me feel.

There was more to it than that.  Sure, but I’d taken everything she’d offered, everything I wanted, with my eyes wide open, fully prepared to give back anything she might want from me.

The big question was, what did she want?  She’d never even come close to showing her hand, and so I’d let logic draw the conclusion for me.

“Let’s just drop it,” I said evenly, trying to calm her, trying to calm myself.  “You need a solid meal and—”

“Quit telling me what I need and forget about telling me what I’m allowed.”  As she spoke, she was striding into my bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

I went down to the kitchen and started making her breakfast.  She needed to eat, and I needed to take a moment to get a handle on my temper.

I thought I’d done a decent job by the time she joined me in the kitchen, wearing a tiny white slip of a dress that must have been stashed in her purse.  She had no underwear on with it that I could tell.  Her hair was still wet, her face clean and lovely and free of any makeup.

She was so beautiful.  Just stunning.  The sight of her made me immediately want to soothe things over, and not just so we could f**k again.

I turned off the burner, dishing out the food as I spoke, “This all has gotten blown way out of proportion—”

“Do you still think I’m too young for you?” she interrupted.  “Do you still think you’re too old to do anything but use me?”

I turned to face her, folding my arms across my chest.

I shouldn’t have answered, but I did.  “You are definitely too young for me.”

“And just what do you imagine my too young self wants from you, Dair?  I want you to spell it out for me.  What do you think this is?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I really didn’t want to answer that question, but her derisive tone was getting to me, and my temper still boiled, just under the surface.

I waved my arm around, indicating the house.  “Since I’m not an idiot, I’ll go ahead and pick the most obvious answer here.  I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have followed me home if I was broke.  You saw a rich guy at the gym who wanted you, and you decided to rock his world.”

“So I just, what, decided you looked wealthy and went after you for no other reason than that?”

“I can only assume.  What else could it have been?”

“And how did I know you were rich?”

“You tell me.  Don’t fortune hunters have ways of knowing?”

She threw me a look like she was throwing a punch, those stunning sea eyes glinting at me.

It felt like a blow to the stomach, all the air leaving me.

“Oh, you think I’m a fortune hunter, do you?  So you think I’m trading my body for your money?  That’s what you think?  I must be pretty great at it, since I’ve gotten all of nothing from you, and you’ve used my body every way you or I could conceive of.”

“Well, you have gotten to stay in this nice big house,” I pointed out, instantly regretting it by the way it made her hand tremble as it pointed at me.

“You’ve never even bought me flowers, Dair, and somehow you think I’ve been f**king you for a payout?  You know what?  Fuck you.  I’m leaving, and I won’t be back to this nice big house of yours.”

I couldn’t take it.

She was one foot out the door when I grabbed her, literally picked her up, and carried her back to the stairs.

She didn’t fight me so much as go limp, not holding on, not pushing away.

It was worse than struggling.

I lost it.

I set her down on the third step and fell on her, wrenching her legs open, forcing my mouth on hers as I pressed my full body against her.

“I’m sorry,” I told her with a groan.  I was.  I wished I could take every harsh word back, though I was still furious, it was mostly directed at myself, for saying those things, and for feeling all of this for a woman I couldn’t begin to read or predict, let alone control.  “I didn’t mean it.  I was worried about you.  I lost my temper.”

She didn’t respond, but her lips seemed to give against mine, going from lifeless to soft and trembling.

“Forgive me?” I asked.

She gave me no reaction at all.

“Forgive me!” I demanded.

She didn’t speak, but her arms went around my neck, giving her assent to my increasingly urgent touch.

“I need you,” I said fervently.  “I don’t know why, but I need you, do you understand?”

She moaned into my mouth, stretching her legs wider apart.

Her tiny white excuse for a dress was no deterrent at all.  It was already up around her hips.  She wasn’t wearing panties.  I had myself out and against her in a flash, hard and shoving into her entrance.

She wasn’t as wet as I was used to, but she wasn’t exactly dry either, and I kept pushing, watching my progress, my jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

Each inch that disappeared inside of her was excruciating in its slowness and so captivating that it was permanently burning itself into my brain even as it happened, infinitely better than the stuff of fantasies.

I was halfway buried when I looked up at her face.  Her eyes were shut tight, as though in a grimace.  She was biting her lip hard.