Blind Girl: A Dark Billionaire Romance Read Free Page B

exit, I grab my handbag off the chair near the door.
    “Alice, are you a virgin?”
    I stop dead in my tracks. “Excuse me?” I spit.
    Charles licks his lips and stands. He glides over to the drink cart to set the glasses down, then turns on me. “You have nothing to be scared of, Alice,” he says.
    “I’m not scared.”
    “Then why are you running away?”
    “I’m not running away,” I defend. “I’m just… confused.”
    “About what?” he asks. He tilts his head, regarding me with sheer calmness. “I’ll say I’ve made my intentions very clear. Have I not?”
    “Yes — you have, but…” My tongue ties and I run out of things to say. I let my voice dangle in the air before tumbling to the floor.
    “I want to make you a promise,” he says, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Will you let me?”
    I breathe a laugh, shaking my head. “Sure,” I say. How unique , I think. To ask my permission to make a promise.
    He reaches out to me with one hand and holds it still while he waits patiently for me to take it. His fingers are warm, strong, and steady as rocks.
    “Alice,” he growls irresistibly. “I promise you that tonight you will not be harmed. Your friend, Gabby, will not be harmed. Each and every thing that happens here in this room will happen because you want it to and for no other reason. You are in complete control. That is my promise to you.”
    I take a deep breath and feel it bounce its way through my lungs. “Okay,” I say.
    “Do you trust me?”
    “Yes.” The word flows through my lips without hesitation.
    “Good.” He drops my hand. It falls quickly to my side. “Get back on the bed.”
    A tremor rocks my knees. “What?” The sudden forcefulness of his tone startles me.
    “I said, get back on the bed.”
    “But I thought I was in complete control ,” I quote his words back to him.
    “You are,” he shrugs. His fingers reach for his suit jacket. He flicks the first button free. “Alice, if you wanted to leave, you would have left by now. Since you have not, I can safely assume you want to be here. Correct?”
    “I guess so,” I say, following his logic. He plays me with his words, toying with me with ease.
    “And we’ve established that you are, in fact, a virgin. Is this also correct?” Another button slips free.
    I pause. “Yes.”
    He sits on the bed and reaches for his shoe laces. “Alice…” he begins, “I believe in honesty more than anything. Perhaps, even more than I believe in consent. You are not the first virgin I’ve had in my bed, nor will you be the last. Virgins are among my favorite to seduce, do you know why?”
    I place my handbag back down onto the chair. “Why?” I ask.
    “Many men will tell you that it’s the innocence that drives them,” he says as he slides one shoe beneath the bed skirt. “Or that they don’t have to try so hard because — hey, she’s just a virgin , she doesn’t know the difference between good sex and bad sex — but for me , why I enjoy it… I do it to feel the power.”
    “What kind of power?” I ask.
    He slides the second shoe next to its match before continuing. “When you deflower a virgin, you are inside of her forever. You never really leave her womb, no matter how many years have passed. Sure, she’ll remember her second and third and even fourth lover, but the first … that’s the one that changes her. The one that sets the tone for the rest of her sexual life.” He climbs to his feet and stares down at me. “I like to be that man, Alice. And, if you’ll let me, I want to be that man for you.”
    “Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me,” I say.
    He smiles. “You’re free to leave at any time, Alice. I just hope you don’t.”
    My nerves shake. Blood pumps through my body faster than it ever has before. His words intoxicate me, lulling me into a feeling of pure security. I feel safe with him. I feel desired and loved. And incredibly foolish.
    I think of my mother and what she would