Project Virgin (16 page)

Who makes all these silly rules?
he would have asked in his languid way.
Who says we have to follow them? Sex is only love when we cage it and ration it. Sex is supposed to be fun. Why put all that baggage on it?

Michaela had always agreed completely.
In theory.

And she was letting Terrence down, Michaela knew she was, by allowing the fact she had to share a bed with this man—or maybe just the room itself, if he slept on the floor as she wouldn’t
suggest
he do, though the tiny little part of her that was far more conservative than she liked to admit
hoped
he’d do anyway—affect her like this. Or at all.

The truth was, for all the thousands
of conversations she and Terrence had had over the years about the elasticity of relationships and what love meant and how to stay committed and yet simultaneously free—Michaela had never put it to the test. She was always working too hard, or too tired, or she’d never met anyone worth bothering, or… something.

Jesse Grey she thought, should never be a girl’s training wheels. He was more like
a kamikaze ride on a stripped-down motorcycle, straight off the side of the nearest Rocky Mountain cliff.

Outside, the February storm howled and battered at the windows. The ancient radiator put up a valiant fight against all that commotion, but their little room was a collection of various drafts, questionable smells, and the supposedly king-sized bed that sat in the center, covered in a brown
and orange bedspread that made Michaela think of fast food restaurants.

Or maybe she was just hungry. There was no food to be had, unless it came from the vending machine out in the frigid hallway, and she had already eaten three packets of faintly stale peanut butter sandwiched between bright orange cheese crackers. She thought she’d dream of real meals all night long.

Unless, of course, her
subconscious preferred to explore the bounty that was Jesse Grey, stretched out across the bottom of the king-sized bed as if he lounged about eating Doritos while snowbound all the time. Hell, maybe he did. Maybe that absurd body of his was purely genetic.

It would have taken a far stronger woman than Michaela had ever pretended to be to overlook how this man looked in a tight-fitting, white
Henley and those damned jeans. Even the fact he’d kicked his boots off by the door and was wearing nothing but a pair of socks on his long feet did her head in. She was losing it.

That was only one of the many reasons she was sitting in the uncomfortable pleather armchair near the window. And none of the other reasons made her feel anything but small and teenaged and embarrassing.

“Have you
drifted off into a wedding coma?” Jesse asked, and she realized she hadn’t answered him. Instead, she’d been staring at him for God knew how long, bright orange cracker dust all over her fingers and who only knew what expression on her face. “I hear that happens. Someone says the word
wedding
and you hear organ music in your head, think about a white dress that looks like a giant wedding cake,
and lapse into a dissociative state. Right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She’d morphed from pearl-clutching Victorian to starchy schoolmarm and that, too, was humiliating. She felt a heat like tears prick at the backs of her eyes, and thought she’d actually rather throw herself out into the grip of the storm than
weep
in front of this man. “Terrence and I are getting married at the courthouse, by
ourselves. No white gowns or organs, no fleets of bridesmaids in tacky matching dresses, and certainly no dissociative states. We’re not even having a party, because why have a
party
to celebrate a shift in tax status?”

“How romantic.”

“The point is the marriage, not the wedding,” she snapped. She couldn’t count how many times she’d said that since she and Terrence had announced their plans
to marry. At least nine million times this past weekend alone, while her cousins and her aunts and her mother all stared back at her in varying degrees of dismay. “It’s a practical exercise that doesn’t need to involve anyone else.”

“A wedding doesn’t have to be a spectacle,” said this man who, she was quite sure, likely broke out in hives whenever the W word was mentioned by anyone he might
be dating, or even in his general bachelor vicinity. “It’s about demonstrating commitment in front of people who matter to you. Otherwise you might as well treat it like a visit to the DMV.”

“In your vast experience with weddings.”

He shrugged, and how he could look dangerous while he did that, still sprawled out on the bed, lazy and unselfconscious and with a packet of Doritos in his hands,
Michaela would never know.

“So that’s a no on the saving yourself, then?” he asked, sounding something a little bit edgier than
amused
. “Given that you’re so practical and all.”

No good could possibly come of answering a question like that. And yet her mouth opened and words came right on out, as if she couldn’t control herself at all. “I thought it was your virtue we were concerned about tonight,
not mine.”

“I’m a vestal virgin, obviously,” he rumbled at her in that low voice that was all sex and longing and bad decisions made real. “My purity is of paramount importance to me and I like to advertise it, too. Hence the white shirt.”

He was kidding, of course. He was even smirking a little bit as he said it. And that restless thing inside of her shifted, then. Flipped over and lodged itself
hard against her sternum.

“There’s nothing wrong with that, you know,” she said, frowning at the cracker dust she’d transferred from her fingers to her thighs. “Just because we live in an age where you
can
sleep with whoever you want, whenever you want, with no consequences, that doesn’t mean that people who don’t should be treated like weirdoes.”

She felt his gaze move over her face and told
herself the radiator was finally doing its job and that was why her cheeks were hot.

“Did you just confess to something, Michaela?” he asked, lightly enough. But when she looked over at him, she could see that bright, gleaming thing in his dark gaze. It moved inside of her like need. “Is that the kind of night this is going to be? I thought that sort of thing usually took a few too many shots
of tequila and ended up in the usual ill-advised round of strip poker, but I’m game if you are.”

“Of course not,” she said dismissively, and she refused to let herself think about strip poker with this man, ill-advised or otherwise. Even for a second. “But don’t you think it’s absurd how much weight and power people give to something that really isn’t anything more than a simple bodily function?”

She was lecturing herself, of course. She was directly addressing all that strange tension that still had her belly in knots, the heat and the longing that pulsed in her far lower, the tiny bed he was already taking up too much of, and all the rest. And the way he looked at her, she suspected he knew it.

“Are you talking me into bed or out of it?” he asked mildly. “As seduction techniques go,
this one is fairly robotic and depressing. Just FYI.”

“It shouldn’t matter,” she said, and maybe it was that mild tone of his that got to her and made her voice sharper than it should have been. Which didn’t help anything. “It’s ridiculous how much we tell ourselves it
matters.
”

“I’m not going to have sex with you tonight, Michaela,” Jesse said quietly, deliberately, and she told herself there
was no resonance to it. That it didn’t ricochet inside of her, then seem to swell and take over everything. “But don’t kid yourself. If I did, it would matter.”

She felt the sizzle of that, the deliberate burn, but she only shook her head as she stared at him across the room. She pulled her legs up onto the chair beneath her and wrapped her arms around her knees.

“No one who looks like you has
sex that matters. Not all the time, anyway. It’s statistically impossible.”

“How cynical.” He tossed the empty snack pack of Doritos aside and sat up, in one of those rolling sorts of moves that looked like water and yet made her mouth go dry. “And insulting, I don’t mind telling you.”

“I’m not trying to insult you.” She shrugged, and took a sip of her Coke, and it was silly how needling him
made her feel less off-balance.
Telling him the truth isn’t
needling
him,
she told herself sternly, and hugged her knees to her chest again. “But it’s silly to think that two grown adults can’t share a hotel bedroom without it turning into some sexual scenario straight out of a low-budget movie. We’re not animals.”

“If you say so.”

She counted herself lucky once again that she and Terrence had
a relationship that had evolved past this nonsense.

“I thought maybe we could clear the air, that’s all,” she said loftily, and she shifted in her pleather armchair, even smiling at him. Not quite with pity. “I’m sorry if that offends you. Terrence and I have a fairly liberal view of these things.”

“I bet you do.” He stood then, and stretched, and that was a whole symphony of unfair. That long,
lean body. The wedge of his lower abdomen that showed when he raised his arms, packed tight with muscle and dusted with dark hair on its way beneath the low waistband of his jeans. The amused expression on his face when he caught her looking. “Let me guess. You have an open relationship that you both agreed to because that’s the kind of liberal people you are, but it turns out only he ever takes
advantage of it.”

“There’s nothing stopping either one of us from ‘taking advantage of it,’ though that’s an unnecessarily dim view of things. That’s the point.”

“So that’s a yes?”

She shook her head, and she told herself she really did pity him, this beautiful man she hardly knew and didn’t
want
to know. “Labels aren’t helpful. We don’t try to own each other, that’s all.”

And Jesse laughed.
He threw his head back and let it pour out, and it was like he cast aside the entire winter that easily. Then he looked at her again, still laughing. “Then what’s the point?”

Michaela blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Why bother?” He tugged his Henley up and over his head, sweeping it off and tossing it on the bed, and the world shimmered all around that remarkable chest of his, sculpted to hard
male perfection. “The world is filled with casual people and casual relationships. Fair weather friends and easy betrayals. Why bother marrying the guy who’s just another disposable piece of merchandise, indistinguishable from the rest?”

“Because we’re adults who don’t need to stamp brands on each other like we’re cattle, for one thing.”

“That’s why you’re not wearing an engagement ring?”

Michaela curled her bare left hand into a fist and hated that she did it, as if it told him too much about the darkest, most hidden things in her she refused to admit were there. She’d excised them, damn it. Or she’d tried.

“I don’t need an archaic display of ownership to make other people feel comfortable about my private, personal commitments,” she gritted out. “Also, I’m not a cow.”

“That
doesn’t sound like adulthood,” Jesse told her, though what she saw was that perfect abdomen of his, that magnificent chest, burned deep into her brain. Maybe forever more, like the kind of brand she’d always been so sure she didn’t want. And he wasn’t laughing anymore. “That sounds like bullshit. A whole lot of rationalization to explain away not wanting to actually settle down and make a real promise
with real consequences if it’s broken. Fuck that, Michaela. If you choose to spend the rest of your life with one person, that’s the whole goddamned point. That person. Only them. Forever. Or you might as well not bother.”

And it wasn’t until he’d slammed the bathroom door behind him that she realized he’d stalked off at all. She heard the shower come on, and Michaela sat there in her pleather
armchair for a very long time without moving. Without breathing.

Without admitting to herself she was more concerned about the fact Jesse was naked
right this minute
on the other side of the flimsy door than she was about the fact he’d just delivered what felt like a body blow. He’d echoed things she hadn’t ever wanted to admit she’d felt, down deep in the darkest recesses of her soul, and she
didn’t know how to shove them back where they belonged.

It was the storm, she told herself then, still frozen in place.

It was only the storm and when it passed, the way all storms eventually did, she’d look back on this strange night with a strange man she’d probably never see again and find it
hilarious
that he’d managed to make her so emotional. She and Terrence would laugh and laugh, and
then they’d go right ahead and have the exact life they’d decided they wanted, open and rational and free. Because
that
was the point. What the two of them wanted their life to look like, not what some too pretty and too rich bad boy with a chip on his shoulder thought about it when he didn’t know a damned thing about either one of them.

Michaela told herself she’d never been more certain of
anything in her life.

‡