And just like the first time Trevor had kissed her, Haylee responded with a passion that roused his own. He wrapped his arms around her, to draw her closer, but she was already there, the soft curves of her body melting against him. He touched the tip of his tongue to the seam of her lips, and they parted willingly for him to deepen the kiss.
She lifted her arms and twined her hands behind his head, holding on to him as she kissed him back.
For the past several weeks, he’d been beating himself up over the fact that he’d taken her to bed—and taken her virginity—without ever guessing the extent of her inexperience.
No matter how often he told himself that he couldn’t have known what she didn’t tell him, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should have picked up on signs or signals. He had enough experience with women to recognize inexperience, but Haylee’s passionate responses to every kiss and touch had blinded him to all else.
Maybe she’d seemed a little overeager, but he’d chalked that up to the champagne, guessing that she was just a little bit tipsy. But not too tipsy—he would never have accepted the invitation to go back to her hotel if he’d suspected that she was drunk.
And he definitely wouldn’t have accepted her invitation if he’d suspected that she was a virgin.
In retrospect, the pieces all fit together to form a clear picture. But in the moment, when she’d been panting his name, her nails raking down his back, her body arching to meet his, he hadn’t been thinking clearly. He’d barely been able to think at all.
He’d wanted her with a desperation he hadn’t felt since he was a seventeen-year-old virgin eager to change that status. And when she’d lifted her hips off the mattress, he hadn’t hesitated to accept the wordless invitation. He’d buried himself in her, ramming through the barrier of her virginity before his brain had a chance to register the unexpected resistance.
And by then, it was too late.
He’d heard her gasp of shock—or was it pain?—and immediately tried to withdraw. But she’d thwarted his best efforts, wrapping her arms and legs around him, drawing him even deeper inside her. And the glorious feeling of being deep inside her completely wiped from his mind any thought of pulling away.
But afterward, he didn’t know what to say to her.
He’d been in shock. Stunned. Furious. Confused.
And so, when he’d returned to the bedroom after disposing of the condom marked with the evidence of her lost innocence and found her pretending to be asleep, he went along with the pretense, confident that he would get the answers he deserved in the morning.
Three weeks later, he still didn’t have any answers. But he had Haylee in his arms, and right now, nothing else seemed to matter.
“Get a room.” The suggestion was made in a derisive tone and from close proximity. “Or at least get out of my way.”
Haylee had already pulled out of Trevor’s arms, flattening herself against the passenger door of his SUV so the rude stranger could enter the adjacent vehicle.
Trevor resisted the urge to flip the guy off, acknowledging that he should be grateful for the interruption because he wasn’t sure how far he would have gone in the middle of the afternoon in a busy parking lot—especially when Haylee had given no indication of wanting to stop him.
“I’ll apologize for the poor choice of venue but not for the kiss,” Trevor told her. “I’ve been wanting to do that all day.”
Haylee blinked, surprised by the admission. “You have?”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about it since I saw you yesterday,” he confided, and lightly brushed his mouth over hers again. “Your lips are as soft and sweet as I remembered.”
“And your kiss is as bone-melting as I remembered,” she said, her head spinning and her knees weak.
He grinned. “I like that you say exactly what’s on your mind.”
“You do?” she asked dubiously.
“It’s a refreshing change,” he assured her. “A lot of girls like to make a guy guess what they’re thinking—and then punish him for guessing wrong.”
“I don’t play those kinds of games,” Haylee said. “Probably because I don’t know the rules.”
“Maybe not, but you have some serious skills.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, pleased by his assessment.
“I also think it’s lucky for we mortal men that you don’t understand the true extent of your power,” he said, and opened the passenger-side door for her.
As Trevor navigated the heavy flow of traffic leaving the coliseum, Haylee wasn’t nervous about going back to her apartment with him because she knew they wouldn’t be alone. Although Finley had planned all the minute details for a baptism celebration that afternoon, it was a small event and she’d put her assistant Julia in charge of the execution on-site.
She was, however, a little apprehensive about introducing Trevor to Finley, because no man had ever wanted to be with Haylee after meeting her sister. But maybe that was exactly the reality check Haylee needed. Being with Trevor—flirting with him and kissing him—made her want more. And despite her relative inexperience with men, she recognized that he wasn’t the type to give more.
In any event, if he shifted his fickle attention to her sister—as members of the male species were apt to do—she should breathe a sigh of relief. Sure, it had been nice to be the sole focus of a guy’s attention, at least for a while. But she knew that she was in way over her head and that Finley was much better equipped to deal with someone like Trevor Blake than Haylee would ever be.
“Nice place,” he noted, following her down the flagstone path that led to an old-fashioned carriage house behind a two-story stone-and-brick mansion.
“We like it,” she said.
“You live with your sister?”
She nodded as she slid her key into the lock. “And Simon.”
Speaking of, as soon as Trevor stepped into the foyer behind her, the silly animal streaked down the hall and disappeared into an open doorway.
“That was Simon,” she told him.
“Cat?” he guessed.
Haylee nodded. “He’s usually waiting for me at the door when I come home, but he’s wary of strangers and will probably hide under my bed until you’re gone.”
As she headed to the kitchen, she heard the murmur of her sister’s voice behind the closed door of her home office.
“You’ll get to meet my sister when she’s off the phone—if she gets off the phone. She has an event planning business, Gilmore Galas,” she explained, as she examined the carousel of K-Cups. “Do you want regular or decaf?”
“Regular,” he said. “I’ve got a long drive ahead of me.”
“French roast, Colombian dark, breakfast blend or caramel vanilla?”
“Regular,” he said again.
She smiled as she selected the French roast and popped it into the machine.
“Cream or sugar?”
“Yes. Please.”
She opened the fridge to get out the cream and found a bag of sugar in the pantry. She set both on the table and grabbed a teaspoon from the drawer.
Finley walked into the kitchen then, looked at the condiments and gave a slight shake of her head.
“Haylee doesn’t entertain very often,” she said, opening the cupboard above the coffee maker and taking out a small ceramic pitcher and matching covered sugar bowl.
“You must be Finley,” he said. “And really, this is fine. Don’t get out the fancy dishes for me.”
“They’re not fancy,” she denied. “And you are…”
“Trevor Blake.”
She shook his proffered hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he said, smiling his thanks to Haylee when she set a mug of coffee in front of him.
“Cookies are always good with coffee,” Finley hinted to her sister.
“Do you want a cookie?” Haylee asked Trevor.
“I think I ate more than enough at the ball game.”
“So that’s where you were,” Finley noted. “Of course, the T-shirt and cap you stole from my closet should have been the giveaway.”
“Borrowed,” Haylee corrected.
Her sister, clearly undeterred by Trevor’s insistence that he wasn’t hungry, carefully arranged a handful of cookies on a plate.
“Peanut butter cup cookies,” she said, setting the plate on the table with a couple of napkins.
“Homemade,” he noted, sounding impressed.
“Haylee made them,” Finley told him. “She can’t boil water without scorching a pot—”
“That happened once,” she interjected, rolling her eyes.
“—but her baked goods are the best. You’ll think you’ve gone to sugar heaven.”
“Now I have to try one,” Trevor said, reaching for a cookie.
“If you believe the heaven part, you’re going to be disappointed,” Haylee warned.
He bit into the cookie and hummed a low sound of approval. “I’m not disappointed.”
Finley winked. “Told you.”
Her phone chimed with a text message. “Whoops! I forgot the guest book when I packed up at the reception last night. I’m going to run over to the hotel now to pick it up before it gets misplaced.” She grabbed her purse off a hook by the door and tucked her phone in the side pocket. “It was nice meeting you, Trevor.”
“You, too,” he said.
But she was already gone, leaving Haylee and Trevor alone.
“Maybe running out without saying goodbye is a family trait,” he mused.
Haylee paused with her mug halfway to her mouth.
“That is, after all, what you did the morning after we spent the night together.”
“Because I had a plane to catch,” she said. “And you were asleep.”
“Or maybe because you didn’t want to talk about what happened the night before?”
“I don’t have a lot of experience with mornings after,” she said.
“Or any?” he suggested.
“So it just seemed easier to avoid awkward and unnecessary conversation,” she continued, ignoring his question as the answer was obvious.
“I’d argue that it was necessary.”
“Why? Because you’re accustomed to being the one who walks away in the morning?” she guessed.
He frowned at that. “No, because you were a virgin.”
“Please don’t make a big deal about that,” she pleaded.
“Isn’t it a big deal?” he asked.
“No,” she responded.
He studied her for a long moment as he sipped his coffee. “How old are you, Haylee?”
“What does my age have to do with anything?” she wondered, baffled by the unexpected question.
“How old?” he asked again.
She huffed out a breath. “Twenty-nine.”
“So you were a virgin for twenty-nine years, and then suddenly decided to get naked with a guy you’d met only a few hours earlier?”
“Trust me, that status wasn’t deliberate. I wasn’t saving it for someone special. I wasn’t consciously saving it at all,” she confided. “I guess I just…never met anyone that I wanted…to be…intimate with.”
“So I should be flattered that you chose me?” he challenged.
“You don’t have to be flattered. Just don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“I’m trying not to,” he said. “But I can’t understand how you got to be a twenty-nine-year-old virgin.”
“By not having sex for twenty-nine years,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Seriously,” he said. “You can’t expect me to believe that you didn’t have boyfriends.”
“I had a couple,” she acknowledged. “I just didn’t sleep with any of them.”
“Not even the guy you were with last night?”
She frowned. “What are you talking about? Who?”
“The guy who picked you up in front of the house.”
“That wasn’t a date. It was a favor for my sister.”
He lifted a brow.
“I told you she’s an event planner,” she reminded him. “Yesterday the bride was stressing because she found out that her brother’s ex-fiancée was going to be at the wedding as the groom’s cousin’s plus-one, so Finley promised to find a date for the brother so that he wouldn’t be alone.”
His gaze narrowed. “You just made that up.”
“I did not,” she assured him.
“Does your sister often require your help at events?”
“Occasionally. But that was the first time I had to wear a dress and heels. Usually I just run errands. Although I did fill in as a server once, when the caterer was short-staffed.”
“A woman of many talents,” he mused. Then he shifted gears again to ask, “So…are you currently dating anyone?”
“Well, according to your definition, I had a date this afternoon.”
“Nice guy?” he asked, obviously fishing for a compliment.
“Nice enough,” she agreed.
“Good-looking?”
She reached for a cookie, fighting against a smile. “I’m sure most women would think so.”
“What do you think?”
“I think he’s way out of my league, and I’ll probably never see him again after today.”
He appeared to mull over that response as she nibbled on the edge of the cookie. Though they were usually her favorite, her stomach was already protesting the fact that she’d eaten more junk food in one afternoon than she usually consumed in a week.
She set down the cookie and picked up her mug, then put it down again without drinking.
“Excuse me,” she said, abruptly pushing away from the table.
Trevor instinctively followed her down the hall, where the unmistakable sound of retching could be heard through the closed door of what he hoped was the bathroom.
He waited for the retching to stop, then tapped on the wood portal. “Haylee?”
She groaned. “Please. Go. Away.”
He retreated a few steps but hesitated to go any farther until he heard the toilet flush, then the tap run. As he listened to the sound of what he guessed was her toothbrush, he found himself wondering about her sudden bout of nausea.
Maybe it was paranoia. Or maybe it was the fact that he’d been faced with an all-too-similar situation before. But Trevor suddenly found himself wondering…
Was it possible…could she be…pregnant?
He hadn’t realized that he’d spoken aloud or that she’d come out of the bathroom until she responded with an immediate and vehement denial: “No! Of course not.”
But he noted that her face had gone pale, as if she was only now considering the possibility.
“We used protection,” she said, as if that would put the question to rest.
“A condom that you provided.” And recalling that detail, deeply buried memories and ugly suspicions rose to the surface of his mind.
“Because even a girl who’s never had sex knows the dangers of unprotected sex,” she told him. “That’s the only reason I’ve been carrying a condom with me since the night of my high school prom.”
“Please tell me that’s not the condom we used.”
“Of course not,” she denied. “That one’s probably still in the purse I took to prom.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said, following her back to the kitchen.
She seemed puzzled by his response. “Why does it matter where the condom came from?”
“Because a condom left over from high school would have expired a long time ago.”
She swallowed as she sank into the chair she’d recently abandoned. “What do you mean—expired?”
He returned to his seat across from her. “I mean that condoms have a shelf life.”
He wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but her face got even whiter then.
“Why would you tell me something like that now?”
“I didn’t realize it would be news to you.”
“They shouldn’t call it protection if it doesn’t protect,” she grumbled.
“Did we use an expired condom?” he asked her.
“I don’t know…maybe.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Probably.”
He was trying really hard not to overreact, but he also wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t pissed by this revelation. “I’m guessing that you’re not on any other form of birth control?”
“No,” she admitted.
“So it’s not outside the realm of possibility that you could be pregnant,” he noted.
She shook her head. “No,” she said again, though not quite as vehemently this time as color filled her pale cheeks. “I got my period a couple of weeks ago.”
“Was your flow normal?”
“Ohmygod.” She dropped her face into her hands, clearly uncomfortable with the direction of their conversation. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I need to know if there’s any chance that you might be carrying my child.”
“I just told you there’s not.”
“Sometimes the spotting that can occur early in pregnancy is mistaken for a period.”
“How would you know something like that?” she challenged.
“I just do,” he said, unwilling to get into the details of that particular history with her right now.
“It wasn’t spotting,” she said, the pink color in her cheeks deepening. “And I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
He nodded. “Okay. But just so we’re clear—I’m not going to marry you.”
Her eyes went wide and her jaw fell open, but she recovered quickly and replied, “I don’t recall asking you to marry me.”
“You didn’t,” he acknowledged coolly. “But I didn’t want you holding on to false hope, in case your seduction at the wedding was all part of some elaborate plan to trap me.”
“My seduction?” she echoed incredulously. “You’re the one who followed me into the field.”
“And you’re the one who invited me back to your hotel.”
“Obviously that night was a mistake,” she snapped back at him now.
“I have no regrets about that night,” he told her. “But I’m not going to be on the hook for the next eighteen years because of it.”
“I didn’t have any regrets, either,” she said. “Until you started throwing around outrageous accusations.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you wouldn’t be the first woman who thought she could trap me into marriage.”
“How many illegitimate Trevor Blakes are there running around in the world?” she wondered aloud.
“Not even one,” he promised.
“And I can assure you, I have no interest in changing that number.” She pushed away from the table again. “Since your coffee is obviously finished, you should go. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you.”