He puts one knee on the bed and leans forward, his cock notched against my sex. “Tell me if I go too fast. Or too hard. Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

“Wait,” I say.

His muscles tremble with restraint. “Yeah?”

“I’m not…” God, I should have rehearsed this. That would have been weird, but this is weirder. “I’m not that kind of a virgin.”

He lifts my chin until I meet his gaze. “What kind of virgin are you?”

“I’m not going to… I’m not going to bleed or anything. I don’t have a hymen. It’s not my first time. It’s just the first time that I’m going to be—”

“Willing,” he says, his teeth clenched.

“I was going to say conscious,” I say, with a slightly hysterical little laugh.

“Christ,” he says, pulling back, running a hand through his hair. He stalks away, clearly furious. And completely unselfconscious about the fact that he’s naked and still erect.

“No, no. We don’t have to stop. I don’t want to stop. I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to hold back or think it was strange if I didn’t bleed or something.”

“Let’s get a few things straight, Jane Mendoza.” He stalks close to me again, pulling me up to a sitting position on the bed. My legs hang over the side, not quite long enough for my feet to touch the ground. It’s a tall bed. “One, it can hurt even when you’re not a virgin of any kind. If you haven’t had sex in a while, if you’re not completely ready, if the man goes too hard… all those things can hurt you, and that’s what I was concerned about.”

“Oh. So maybe I didn’t need to say anything.”

“Two, who the fuck did that to you?”

A long sigh escapes me. I look up at the ceiling. It doesn’t have any answers. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it fucking matters.”

“Is there a chance we can go back to doing what we were doing?”

“Oh, we’re doing that. Don’t worry. But first, you’re going to give me a name.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m a hypocritical bastard who demands your secrets even when I won’t give you my own. Now tell me.”

“It was my foster father. And maybe it was my own fault. He wasn’t even home much. One night I was up late and so was he. He offered to let me try some of his beer. It didn’t taste good, but he told me to finish the whole can.”

“It wasn’t your fucking fault. Don’t say that again.”