page14 (1/2)

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

The sound of his voice whispered through her, increasing the sensual fire burning through her veins

“It wasn’t anything”

“Were you naked?”

“Once”

“Good” He kissed her, his lips barely there and gone before she could lose herself in the caress she wanted“When?”

“In college”

He just waited

“He told me he loved me” She’d wanted to be loved so badly, she realized later

“You didn’t let him into your body”

“No”

“Why?”

“It didn’t feel right” Old pain twisted through her heart

She turned her head away, stepping back when a few seconds before she would have said she wasn’t capable ofat all, much less away from him

“He hurt you” The growl in De for him, for visual proof of what had been in his tone

The anger in his eyes wasn’t directed at her, but it still made Chanel shiver “He broke up with me”

Her ex had called her a dried-up relic, a throwback woed in a medieval nunnery, not a modern university Chanel had a lot of experience with disappointing her family, so her ex-boyfriend’s words should not have had the power to wound

She should have been inured

But they’d cut her deeply, traumatically so

She’d never shared with another person the experience that had left her convinced her ht, had never admitted her ultimate failure

“I’ive her body to a man destined to eviscerate her heart?

He wasn’t ever going to stay with her He said they were going to make love, but they couldn’t He didn’t love her, no matter what his words had implied He couldn’t

She wasn’t that woman

Chanel wasn’t a bubbly blonde beauty like her sister, Laura She wasn’t a cool sophisticate like her mother Chanel was the aard one who could make perfect marks in chemistry courses but utterly fail at the human kind