she thought. Jan. Another woman, a fictional woman. When all she wanted was to be herself.
She sat up, unzipping her black jacket. Her brief camisole, skintight, joined his clothes on the floor. Her bra was also black. She eased out of her skirt and drew her stockings slowly down her legs, her eyes glued to his face; scarcely able to breathe, she murmured, “I want you to take off the rest.”
For a moment his gaze roamed the pale curves of her body. “You’re so beautiful,” he said huskily.
Wondering if she could die of waiting, Jenessa opened her arms to him. He plummeted to the bed, enveloping her in the heat of his body, flicking open the clasp of her bra and tossing it to the floor. Her breasts were firm, delicately pointed. With his tongue he found the soft peak, hardening it within seconds. Jenessa gave a startled gasp of pleasure, her body arching toward him. He circled her waist, lifting her so that they fitted together as though made for each other.
Against her pelvis she felt the hardness that was his essence: proof of his desire. Then he was kissing her, plundering her mouth for all its sweetness, his hands roaming her body. She tangled her fingers in the hair that curled on his chest, wanting to delay an exploration that melted every nerve she possessed, yet driven toward a completion she could only imagine.
Glorying in her nudity, she pressed thigh to thigh, hip to hip. He sank lower, his lips tracing the swell of her breasts, the sweet concavity of her navel and belly. Then he opened her legs, plunging to find all her sensitivities. She cried out his name, writhing beneath him, losing herself in rhythms that were sheer delight.
With a muttered exclamation, Bryce reached for the small envelope by the bed. “Wait for me,” he said roughly, “I want us to come together.”
She had been waiting for him for months, ever since she’d fled the house where she’d grown up, she thought dazedly; waiting for a lover capable of unleashing a passion she hadn’t known was hers. As she opened her thighs, he thrust between them, brushing her breasts with the hard wall of his chest.
Then she felt resistance, a sudden shaft of pain; despite herself, she flinched. With a suddenness that shocked her, Bryce pulled back. He said sharply, “Jan—you’re a virgin.”
“Yes. But I want you so much, I don’t care if—”
He was holding his weight on his palms, his elbows taut; he looked appalled. “You’ve never done this before?”
“No…so what? What difference does it make?”
He said, each word falling like a stone on the bed, “You told me you were experienced.”
“I didn’t!”
“Not in so many words. But that’s the impression you gave me. I don’t have one-night stands with virgins, Jan Struthers. It’s not my style. I want a woman who knows the score.”
There was a sharp pain in Jenessa’s belly; her skin was suddenly so cold that she was shivering like a half-drowned kitten. “You wanted me, you can’t deny that. Experienced or not, you wanted me.”
“I’m glad you put it in the past tense,” he said savagely.
She wrapped her fingers around his arm. “Please, Bryce, don’t stop now…I’ve waited all term to meet someone like you, someone who brings me to life and makes me realize why I’m made the way I am. I want you to be the first to make love to me. Please.”
He picked up her fingers and removed them from his arm, as though her touch disgusted him. Then he rolled off the bed, the hall light falling smoothly over the planes of his back. Picking up his clothes, he said, “Get dressed. I’ll drive you home.”
His muscles flowing like those of a jungle cat, he walked toward the bathroom. The door closed behind him with a decisive snap. Slowly Jenessa sat up.
It was over. He no longer wanted her.
With a whimper of distress she grabbed her scattered garments and pulled them on, her fingers trembling with haste. Her lacy underwear mocked her, as did her tight sweater and minuscule leather skirt. As a lover, she was a failure. As a woman, laughable.
She was fumbling with the zipper on her skirt when Bryce marched back into the bedroom, fully dressed. He said with cold precision, “So what was this really about? Were you planning a little blackmail? Well-known tycoon rapes virgin?”
She paled, her eyes huge. He was like Charles, she thought, misjudging her totally, always assuming the worst. Were all men like that? All except her brother, Travis: who was, of course, Bryce’s best friend.
What was she going to do next? Collapse in tears? Or call upon the pride that had been her salvation for the last many years?
She wasn’t going to cry in front of Bryce Laribee. That much she knew. Standing tall, Jenessa spat, “Don’t judge me by the standards of your other women!”
“Then what did you do this for?”
“If you don’t understand, there’s no point in me trying to explain,” she snapped, thrusting her arms into her jacket. “I’ll get a cab and you’ll never hear from me again. Goodbye, Bryce. It’s been instructive.”
“It certainly has. How old are you?”
She raised her chin, glaring at him. “Seventeen,” she said. “But still old enough to know better.”
“Seventeen?”
“That’s what I said.”
“And I believed every word you told me…you should be studying drama, not art.”
She said flatly, “If you think I’m going to stand here half the night while you insult me, you couldn’t be more wrong. Get out of my way.”
He seized her by the elbow. “I said I’d drive you home.”
“The only way you’ll do that is with me kicking and screaming every inch of the way—is that what you want?”
“You little hellcat,” he said with reluctant admiration, “you would, wouldn’t you? Have you got enough money for a cab?”
She raised her chin another notch. “You’re not the only person in the world with money.”
“You’re certainly behaving like some rich guy’s spoiled brat.”
He couldn’t have said anything more calculated to hurt: spoiled brat had been one of the phrases her father used to fling at her when she was little. She said steadily, knowing she had to get out of here, “Stick to your own league, Bryce—women who don’t challenge you.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he said softly.
Fear trickled like ice water down her spine. Her mind blank, she walked past him out of the bedroom, all her nerves straining to hear if he would follow her. The living room seemed endless, the green carpet as vast as a football field. Then, finally, the penthouse door clicked shut behind her. The elevator arrived, she walked in and was carried down to the lobby. Chin still high, she crossed it and let the doorman hail her a cab. It wasn’t until she got into her own little rented room in a very different area of town,
