Voyeur Extraordinaire(63)

“You wanted to kiss me. You still do.”

I glared. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I’m not interested in your games. Hell, I can still smell her on you. Less than thirty minutes ago you were fucking that woman and now you want to fuck me. Do you realize how messed up that is? First you apologize as if you’re really sorry that you acted like an asshole and now this? What was the whole ‘Let me make it up to you’ bullshit about anyway? Your ego was probably just bruised because you can’t bear a bad fuck in your collection. I know I can’t make my fucked up first time undone but I won’t let my second time be like that. I deserve better.” My voice actually caught on the last sentence. I couldn’t remember the last time I cursed so much. I grabbed my coat from where Adrian had flung it over the kitchen island when he’d kissed me and stomped toward the hall, dragging Bruno behind me. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come to you. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Adrian captured my hand. I let him stop me. I actually didn’t want to go back into the rain. “Nora, don’t leave. I meant what I said yesterday. Every word of it.”

I rubbed my forehead, exhaustion catching up with me. It was almost one o’clock. “Then why did you try to seduce me again?”

“Because I want you, Nora. I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you with your binoculars. I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want you.”

“You got me,” I said tiredly. “And you’ve already moved on to your next sex toy. It’s easy for you, but I’m not like that.”

“She was a distraction because I was desperate to get you out of my head.”

“You hoped banging another woman would cure you of me?” I almost laughed. Bruno plopped down on his butt with an audible sigh.

He smiled. “Sex is my cure for everything,” he said it playfully but I got the impression that he’d revealed more in that one sentence than he intended to. “But it didn’t work this time. The entire time I banged that woman you were on my mind.”

“That’s messed up.” But deep down it gave me a strange kick that Adrian couldn’t get me out of his head. It was only fair; after all, he’d become a constant presence in my brain too. “Do you even know that woman’s name?”

“Evelyn,” he said with a shrug. I had a feeling he wouldn’t remember her. “But I don’t want to talk about her. She’s a thing of the past.”

“And I’m not?”

“It’s strange,” he said softly, tracing a finger over my cheek, then down my neck. Goosebumps erupted all over my skin. How could a simple touch like that make me yearn for more? “I always hated the thought of being someone’s first. That’s why I reacted so badly, but even when I said those words to you, some primal part of me was turned on and excited by the thought that no man had ever touched you like I did. You were mine alone.”

I sucked in a breath. Was there a handbook for womanizers lying on his night table, or how did he always say the words that made my knees go weak?

“And the thought that there could ever be another man after me…” He shook his head, his eyes practically burning into me. “It drives me crazy. I don’t want anyone to touch you. I want you for myself.”

“But you don’t do relationships, Rachel made that clear when I talked to her,” I said. “So what do you expect me to do? Stay an almost virgin for the rest of my life so you feel better about yourself while you bang every woman that crosses your path. I really can’t see how that would benefit me.”

“Almost virgin,” he murmured with a strange smile. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“It’s close to the truth,” I said defensively. “Before you, I’d kissed exactly three guys, and you were pretty much the first to really touch my breasts because what Chris did that one time can only be called a medical exam and it lasted only for two seconds anyway because his groping actually hurt.” I snapped my mouth shut. He wore the strangest expression. “Say it,” I urged. “I’m pathetic, I know, but I actually wanted to wait for someone I loved. Of course that plan went out the window.” Adrian’s face had closed off when I mentioned love but my next words brought the smile back to his face.

“You crack me up. Now I get why Rachel misses you.” Then he raised one eyebrow. “Chris Cummings, really?”

“I have bad taste in men.”

“Indeed,” he said in a low voice. “You don’t have to remain an almost virgin, Nora.” I loved the way he said my name. “Actually, I don’t want you to remain an almost virgin because I want to fuck you again and again and again.”