LITMIR.BIZ

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the overcritical Perry, and definitely not like someone even more ruthless than her stepfather. There was too much kindness in Demyan, even if he was wholly unaware of it, as Chanel suspected he was.

      “What did you mean earlier?” he asked, pulling her back to the original question.

      Oh, yes…right.

      “It’s just…you must realize I’m a sure thing. Even if I’m not sure I want to be.”

      “Why aren’t you sure?” he asked, deflecting himself this time.

      Or maybe he just really wanted to know. Being the center of someone else’s undivided attention when she wasn’t discussing her work wasn’t something Chanel was used to.

      When she was with Demyan, he focused solely on her, though, as if nothing was more important to him. He wanted to know things others reacted to with impatience, not interest. It was a heady feeling.

      Even so, peeling away the layers to reveal her full self to him wasn’t easy. “You’ll laugh.”

      “Is it funny?”

      “Not to me.” Not even a little.

      “Then I will not laugh.”

      “How can you be so perfect?”

      “So long as I am perfect for you, that is all that matters.”

      “Do you mean that?”

      “Yes.” There could be no doubting the conviction in his tone or handsome features.

      “Why?”

      “Are you saying you feel differently?” he asked in a tone that implied he knew the answer.

      “Love at first sight doesn’t happen.”

      “Maybe for some people it does.”

      All the breath seemed to leave the room at his words. “Are you saying…” She had to clear her throat, suck in air and try again. “Are you saying you feel the same?”

      “I want to be your perfect man.”

      “You mean that.” And maybe it was past time she stopped doubting his sincerity.

      How much of her feeling he was saying what she wanted to hear stemmed from her own insecurities? Why was it so hard for her to accept that this man didn’t need her to be something or someone different to want to be with her?

      The answer was the years spent in a family she simply didn’t fit, the daughter of a mother and stepfather who found constant fault with a child too much like her own father for their comfort.

      “I do.”

      She nodded, accepting. Believing. “I’ve never had sex.”

      Once again she’d managed to shock him. And this time she didn’t have to look for subtle signs.

      His whisker-shadowed jaw dropped and dark eyes widened comically. “You are twenty-nine.”

      “I’m not staring retirement in the face, or something.” She had eleven more years of relatively safe childbearing, even.

      Not that she thought she was going to marry and have children. She’d given up on that idea when she realized that even in the academic world, Chanel was a social misfit.

      “No, I didn’t mean that.” But his voice was still laced with surprise and his superior brain was clearly not firing on all cylinders. “You’re educated. American.”

      “So?” What in the world did her PhD in chemistry have to do with her virginity?

      “Are you completely innocent?”

      Man, did he even realize how that sounded?

      And people thought she was old-fashioned. “Even if I’d had sex, I would still be innocent. Sex isn’t a crime.”

      “You know that is not what I was referring to.”

      “No, I know, but innocent? Come on.”

      The look he was giving her was way too familiar.

      “I’m awkward,” she excused with a barely stifled sigh. “I told you.” Had he forgotten?

      “You are refreshingly direct.” That wasn’t disappointment in his tone and the look she thought she recognized.

      Well, it wasn’t. He almost looked admiring. If she believed it, and hadn’t she diced to do just that? “Mother calls it ridiculously blunt.”

      “Your mother does not see you as I do.”

      “I should hope not.”

      They both smiled at her small joke that did nothing to dissipate the emotional tension between them.

      He put his big hands on her shoulders, his thumbs brushing along her collarbone, the hold possessive like before. And just like earlier, she found a new unexpected part of her that liked that. A lot.

      “Demyan.” His name just sighed out of her.

      She didn’t know what she meant by it. What she wanted from him.

      He didn’t appear similarly lost, his gaze direct and commanding. “You say you’ve never had sex. I want to know what that means.”

      It took two tries to get words past her suddenly constricted throat. “Why does it matter?”

      “You can ask that?”

      “Um, yes.” Hadn’t she just done?

      “You are mine.”

      “Three dates,” she reminded him.

      “Love at first sight,” he countered.

      “You…I…”

      “We are going to make love. What I want to know is what you have done to this point.” His thumbs continued the sensual caress along her collarbone. “You are going to tell me.”

      “Bossy much?”

      “Only in bed.”

      She wasn’t sure she believed him, was even less sure if it mattered. She wasn’t worried about standing up for herself. She’d never conformed when it counted, no matter how much easier it would have made her life—especially with her family.

      Right now she found she wanted to answer his question, needed to. Still, she kept it general. “Heavy petting, I guess you’d say.”

      “Be more specific.”

      “No.” Heat crawled up her neck.

      He shouldn’t care, should he? Virginity wasn’t an issue for modern men. Or modern women, her inner voice mocked her, and yet you are a virgin.

      He bent so close their lips almost touched. “Oh, yes.”

      Thoughts came and went, no words making it past her lips until she made a sound she’d never heard from her own vocal cords before. It was something like surrender, but more.

      It was sexual.

      The air between them grew heavy with the most primal kind of desire, pushing against her, demanding her acquiescence.

      In a last-ditch desperate bid for space, she shut her eyes, but it did no good. She could feel his stare. Could feel his determination to get an answer.

      She was super sensitive to his nearness, too, her body aching to press against his, her lips going soft in preparation for his kiss.

      The kiss didn’t come.

      “Tell me,” puffed across her lips.

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