‘Isn’t that obvious? I’ve simply never had sex before.’
Sex wasn’t supposed to be special and intimate. It wasn’t supposed to be memorable. It was a transaction, brief and satisfying but of the moment. And now, more importantly, he didn’t want to remember that for the first time in his life he’d betrayed a man he thought of more as family than a friend.
Heat exploded at the crown of his head as he came face to face with the reality of what he’d done. But she looked at him with those enormous green eyes and he felt a thousand other things too, emotions that were at odds with his way of living, emotions he shut down before they could take hold.
‘This was a very regrettable mistake, Sienna. I wish it had never happened.’
Sienna wasn’t an idiot. She knew it would have been poor form to spring her virginity on some unsuspecting partner, but he’d called her innocent and he’d been so gentle with her, as if preparing her for the first time a man’s body possessed hers. She’d simply got caught up in the moment, without feeling a need to spell out the true reasons she had never let things go this far with a man. But what they’d shared would never be categorised as a mistake for her.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way. And don’t worry, I’m not hoping for a proposal or anything. You might not have known I was a virgin—and I’m sorry for that, I truly believed you had somehow intuited the truth—but I knew. I knew, and I chose to do this. You didn’t take advantage of me.’ She scanned his face. ‘And you were very clear about what we were going to share, so my expectations from twenty minutes ago to now haven’t changed.’
‘I used you for sex, Sienna. Are you really okay with that?’
The directness of his words delighted her. Sienna much preferred that to being called ‘beautiful’.
‘And I used you right back! I’ve got no problems with what we just did. In fact, my only problem is that it’s over, because I really enjoyed it.’
He stared at her, completely gobsmacked. ‘You’re being deliberately facetious.’
‘No, I’m just pointing out the ridiculous hypocrisy of your perspective. I was a virgin, fine, but I’m still a woman in my twenties with more than two brain cells to rub together. I knew what you were offering, and I absolutely knew what I was doing when we walked in here together.’ She tilted her chin at him, brave, fierce eyes daring him to disagree.
Intrigue flooded his features. ‘And that was having sex for the first time in your life, with a man you just met?
‘You should have been honest with me,’ he continued.
‘Would you have slept with me if you’d known?’
‘Absolutely not.’
The speed of his response floored her. She stared at him, gasping for air, shocked and confused.
‘Virgin or not, it was a mistake, but your innocence complicates it.’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘Don’t apologise.’ Now it was Alejandro who grimaced. ‘And I am not entirely sure it is you who owes one.’ The cryptic response didn’t make sense, but before she could question him he continued. ‘It shouldn’t have happened, but we cannot change the fact it did.’
‘No,’ she murmured, grateful then that a lifetime of being torn down by her mother had given her a kick-ass ability in hiding her feelings. ‘But we can do the next best thing and just pretend it never happened.’