The Virgin. Tiffany Reisz

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СКАЧАТЬ to give Daniel The Ouch, she would have.

      “I have security cameras,” he said. “I saw someone drop you off. It wasn’t King.”

      “No, it wasn’t.”

      “Does King know where you are?”

      She shook her head.

      “Tell me what happened.”

      “You don’t want to know,” she repeated. “Just don’t tell anyone I’m here, okay?”

      “I think I do want to know. Remember, I’ve known Søren for years. Not only do I know him, I like him. We’re friends. If I can know him and still like him, I think I can handle anything you tell me.”

      “Maybe you can handle hearing it. I don’t know if I can handle saying it.”

      Daniel moved from his chair to the bed. She tensed immediately and he seemed to sense it.

      “I’m not going to touch you if you don’t want me to,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.

      “You’re married, you have a kid and I’m—” she paused to find a suitable lie and decided on a half-truth instead “—not feeling well.”

      He reached his hand out but didn’t touch her with it, only waited. Slowly Elle leaned forward the three necessary inches and rested her face against the palm of his hand.

      “You don’t have a fever,” he said.

      “No.”

      “I don’t see any bruises on your arms or your neck.”

      “Søren didn’t beat me up or rape me,” she said, annoyed that he would even think something like that had happened.

      Daniel nodded.

      “But he did hurt you.”

      “You didn’t put a question mark at the end of that sentence.”

      “I told you, I’ve known him for years. It wasn’t a question.”

      “Yes,” she admitted finally, closing her eyes. “He hurt me.”

      “Kingsley?”

      She shook her head. “This isn’t his fault,” she said, rolling over onto her side. “This is my fault.”

      “I refuse to believe that,” Daniel said. “But you have to give me something here. If Anya left me, ran away, I would be so sick with worry I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Søren pisses me off too sometimes, and I consider him a friend, but I have never doubted his love for you. Unless you have a very good reason to scare him like this, you need to go home.”

      “I can’t go home.”

      “Tell me why you left him or I’m calling Kingsley right now.”

      Elle weighed her options. She could tell him the whole truth, which would hurt more than the pain she was currently in. She could lie and come up with a suitable story he would believe to explain why she left. Or she could tell him a half-truth, just enough truth to get him to stop asking questions.

      She went with option three.

      “Do you remember that thing you told me?” she asked.

      “I told you a lot of things.”

      “I told you I was happy, content. You said that I should enjoy my contentment because someday something would happen and it would be gone.”

      He nodded. “I remember.”

      “It happened.”

      “What happened?”

      “Søren ordered me to marry him,” she said.

      Daniel looked at her and looked at her and looked at her, and finally he spoke.

      “Get some sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow. Do you need anything?”

      “You have any other sheets?” she asked, her face warming.

      “Are you cold?”

      “No,” she said, pushing the blankets. A red stain had formed underneath her. “I’m bleeding.”

      It took ten minutes of begging and pleading to convince Daniel not to call an ambulance. This was just part of the process, she told him. Nothing to worry about. She was fine. A little blood never killed any woman...

      Even after calming him down Daniel still seemed dubious and worried. He stayed in the bathroom with her while she took a quick hot bath. He kept his back to her to give her privacy although he’d seen her naked before. Once upon a time she’d been his lover. They’d fucked in this very bathroom. Down the hall was the library where he’d bent her over his desk and taken her from behind. In the living room by the fireplace, he’d fisted her and given her one of the better orgasms of her life. In the bed he now shared with his wife, he’d fucked her more times than she could remember. But now that felt like a lifetime ago. Had it only been two years ago she’d last been with him? So much had happened in those two years. He’d fallen in love with someone who wasn’t her, got remarried, had a son. And her? What had she done since then?

      Elle got out when the water turned pink, and she drained the tub before Daniel could see it.

      He ordered her to eat to some soup and then ordered her into bed. There was nothing at all erotic about any of these orders.

      “You really are a dad now, aren’t you?” she asked.

      “Don’t get any ideas. I don’t do the Daddy-Dom thing,” he said, pulling the covers up to her chest.

      “Could have fooled me,” she said.

      “Don’t flirt. Anya’s the jealous type.” He winked at her so she would know he was kidding. Not that he needed to tell her. She’d known Anya before he did. Knowing Anya, she would worry Elle would catch the flu from Marius, not that she would sleep with her husband. For the first time in Elle’s adult life, sex was the last thing on her mind.

      He kissed her on the forehead once and on the lips twice.

      She smiled up at him.

      “Get some rest, Elle,” he said.

      “It’s not even night yet.”

      “I don’t care. You’re exhausted. Sleep.”

      “Is that an order?”

      He smiled down at her. “If I gave you that kind of order, would you obey me?”

      “No.”

      “Then no, it wasn’t an order.”

      He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. A fatherly touch. She didn’t remember him ever touching her like that. Becoming a parent СКАЧАТЬ