Brent’s face came very close to mine, fury crashing across his features. “Fuck. Stop it, darlin’,” he snapped. “I fucking want you, more than I’ve ever wanted anyone—”
“Then why?” I snapped right back. “I don’t want slow or careful. I want—”
“I’m a virgin.”
My words died on my tongue.
Asshole? Yup.
Because I certainly hadn’t seen that plot twist coming.
Nine
Brent
“Fuck me,” I muttered, dropping my arms and striding away from her.
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she said, and I spun back, mouth falling open in surprise. She was going to make a joke about the giant bombshell I just dropped? But then she got a glimpse of my face, and her own mouth fell open. “Oh my God, Brent, you’re serious?”
I nodded stiffly.
And cue silence.
Shit. It wasn’t like I’d planned on being a virgin this long, but things happened and life got away from me, and all of a sudden, I was twenty-eight and had done everything except actual sex.
A real catch, that was me.
“B-but—” Her eyes drifted to mine then away then back to mine, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Eventually she closed her jaw, sucked in a huge breath, released it, then asked, “How?”
And more silence.
“How’d I get to be a twenty-eight-year-old virgin?” I asked into the stunned quiet.
Iris nodded. “Um . . . yes?”
I bolstered myself for her to laugh my ass out of her house then gave her the TL;DR, otherwise known as the very glossed-over breakdown of my past.
“Grew up in a very religious family, so it was never on the table, never something I even thought about. I wasn’t allowed to be alone with a girl, let alone have a girlfriend.” A shrug. “When I enlisted and eventually did get a girlfriend, she was also from my church, and we never made it that far—mainly because we were both still really into the religion thing and then later because of a good friend of ours knocked a chick up and she was a total nightmare.”
I sighed when her face remained shocked.
“So, anyway, we decided to wait. I was deployed, she got tired of waiting, and I nursed my broken heart for a good long while. Got close again, a few times, but the situation wasn’t right. Then was deployed again. Hurt my back badly, my best friend was killed, and I was fucked up for a while—physically and mentally.”
She made a pained sound and my eyes met hers briefly, just long enough to ascertain that the sound wasn’t pity. Sympathy I could handle. Pity, not so much.
“Then I got better, started working at Bobby’s . . . and you strolled into the bar and took my breath away.”
Silence. Long, painful silence.
Then, “Oh.”
Just Oh.
For fuck’s sake, I’d bared my heart, and all I’d gotten in return was Oh?
Christ.
I started to look away, but my gaze was drawn back when she grasped my hand and squeezed lightly. “I’m so sorry about your friend.”
“He was Brooke’s brother.”
She sucked in a breath, eyes glistening with tears. “Oh, no.” She closed the distance between us, cupped my face in both of hers. “Brent. God. I’m so sorry.”
“He wasn’t the only person I lost there,” I said, eyes focused on a spot over her head.
“Brent.”
Just my name. Just that one word filled with so much pity, and I couldn’t hack it.
“I gotta go.”
“Brent, honey.”
“I need to go, darlin’.”
“I—”
Not letting her finish whatever she was going to say, I brushed her hands away then dodged her when she made to reach for me again.
Can’t do this. Can’t. Not right. Not good enough. Not—
The mental spiral continued as I reached the door, as I fumbled with the lock, kept blaring in the background so I barely felt Iris come up behind me, not until I’d finally managed to flip the bolt and grasp the knob, my fingers shaking like I had the world’s worst case of withdrawals, and her hand dropped to my arm.
“Brent.”
“Darlin’,” I warned.
“I’m an asshole.”
“I need to go.” I twisted away from her hold, yanked open the door.
“I shouldn’t have made that joke about—”
“No. It was what any sane woman would say when that much was dropped on her on a first date,” I said, somehow managing to keep the words level, even though the Can’t. Not right. Not good enough. mantra continued to pound in my ears. I took the stairs at a near sprint, felt my back seize in a way it hadn’t in more than a year, but I pushed through the pain and continued hauling ass to my car.
Especially when I heard heels clicking along the concrete behind me.
I yanked at my car door and threw myself inside.
More pain, shooting down my spine, burning through my right leg, just like it had for months after I’d first been injured.
Fucking deserved it, too. Deserved to feel this shitty.
Couldn’t save my men.
Couldn’t save my best friend.
Didn’t even know how to please a woman.
Except, Iris had seemed pretty pleased on the couch, hadn’t she?
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, pushing the button to start my car, deliberately not looking when the knocking came on my window, when the slightly muffled, “Brent. Wait,” penetrated the glass.
I needed to get the fuck out. I’d needed to leave ten minutes before. Fuck, ten days before. If I’d never started down this path, then I could have saved myself this pain.
Another knock.
More of me deliberately keeping my gaze forward.
I reached for the gear shift, put the engine in drive, and got the fuck out of there.
I made the mistake of looking in the rearview just before I turned the corner, and seeing Iris there on the sidewalk, looking so fucking gorgeous in that sexy dress, those heels I wanted her to wear as I plunged into her wet
