Chapter 2: Were You A Virgin

Harlow's POV

I lay on the bed, chest heaving, mind completely empty. Kael had just been inside me. Every inch of him. And now his cum was dripping down my thigh and I could not think straight.

He sat back on the mattress beside me. “Fuck.”

I closed my eyes. Let the warmth spread through my body. That was it. It was done. I had lost my virginity. It had not been as painful as my friends said it would be.

Then Kael tensed.

“There is blood.” His voice was different. Confused. He looked down at himself, then at me. “Were you a virgin?”

I pulled the blanket over my naked body and shimmied off the bed. My legs shook. I turned away from him so he could not see my face.

“Harlow.” His hand closed around my wrist. “You cannot just walk away from me.”

“Watch me.”

I yanked my arm free and scrambled for my clothes. Underwear. Bra. Skirt. Shirt. I pulled everything on so fast I almost tripped over my own feet.

“Stop being a brat for once.” He was behind me now, voice low and dangerous. “This is serious. You really have not had sex before?”

“None of your business.”

I grabbed the door handle. His hand slammed against the wood above my head, trapping me.

“Yes it is.”

“What would have changed if you had known?” I spun around to face him, anger bubbling up to cover the embarrassment. “You would have still asked me to come here. Still bent me over your bed. Still fucked me until I could not see straight.”

He growled. “You are my best friend’s daughter.”

“And you still did it.” I shook my head. “So what does it matter?”

“It matters because now you are mine.”

He pinned me against the door, one hand on my chin, forcing me to look up at him. His eyes were dark. Fierce. Nothing like the controlled businessman I had seen at my father’s dinner table.

“You do not get to run off,” he said. “You do not get to go home and see that boy who is always hanging around you.”

“Archer.”

“I do not care what his name is. No other man gets to look at you the way I do. You knew what you were getting into when you walked into my club.”

“No I did not.”

“Yes you fucking did. I warned you not to come unless you were serious about everything that came with this. About me being the possessive jealous asshole that I am.”

I swallowed hard. He had warned me. And I had gotten off on it. On the thought of someone being so obsessed with me that they would not let another man even look my way.

But we could not do this. My father would find out.

Kael dipped his head and murmured into my ear. “You do not know how long I have wanted you. How many women I have been with, imagining they were you. You leave my club without me tonight, and I will come and find you.”

I shoved him hard and wrenched the door open. “Try it.”

Then I ran.

---

Kael

I stood in the hallway, watching her disappear around the corner. My hand was still raised from where I had braced it against the door. My cock was still wet with her blood and my cum.

A virgin.

She had been a virgin.

I ran a hand through my hair and cursed under my breath. What the fuck had I done? Julian was my business partner. My best friend. And I had just taken his daughter’s virginity in a BDSM club like she was just another submissive.

But she was not just another submissive.

I had wanted her for years. Years. Every holiday dinner, every summer barbecue, every time she walked into a room in those little skirts that made my mouth water. I had dreamed about bending her over the nearest surface and fucking the brat right out of her.

And now I had.

And she had run.

“Kael.” Mira’s voice came from down the hall. My sister walked toward me in those ridiculous red bottom shoes, her eyes sharp. “Who was that girl who just sprinted out of your room?”

“No one.”

“Bullshit.”

I turned and walked the other way. I needed to find Harlow before she did something stupid. Like call her father. Like tell Julian that his best friend had just ruined his daughter.

The bar was crowded. Bodies pressed together. Sweat and sex hung in the air. I scanned the room once. Twice. Three times.

No Harlow.

“She left,” Charlie said from the corner, a drink in his hand. “About two minutes ago. Looked like she was crying.”

I was already moving toward the door. Cold air hit my face as I burst onto the sidewalk. The street was empty except for a couple stumbling into a rideshare and a homeless man sleeping against a grate.

“Harlow!”

No answer.

I pulled out my phone and called her. It went straight to voicemail. I called again. Voicemail. I typed out a message.

Where are you?

Three dots appeared. Then nothing. Then a single word.

Home.

I knew where she lived. I had been there once, years ago, when Julian asked me to drop off a gift for her birthday. A small apartment in Oakland shared with her friend Sage.

I was in my car before I could think better of it.

The drive took fifteen minutes. I spent every second of it cursing myself and wanting her at the same time. She had no idea what she had done to me. No idea that I had been half hard every time I saw her for the past five years.

I parked outside her building and walked to the door. Buzzed her apartment. Nothing. Buzzed again.

“Who is it?” Sage’s voice came through the speaker.

“Kael Hawthorne. I need to see Harlow.”

A pause. Then the door clicked open.

The elevator took forever. I used the time to pull myself together. To remind myself that she was Julian’s daughter. That this was a mistake. That I should apologize and leave.

Then I was at her door. I knocked.

Sage opened it, her eyes wide. “She is in her room. She has been crying.”

I walked past her without a word. The apartment was small, cluttered with textbooks and coffee mugs. Harlow’s door was closed. I did not knock.

She was sitting on her bed, knees pulled to her chest, still wearing the clothes she had thrown on at the club. Her face was blotchy. Her eyes were red.

“Go away, Kael.”

“No.”

I closed the door behind me and leaned against it. She glared at me with enough fire to burn the building down.

“You have no right to be here,” she said.

“I have every right. You are mine.”

“I am not yours. I am not anyone’s. I came to you for one thing and I got it. So you can leave now.”

I pushed off the door and walked toward her. She shrank back against the headboard, but her chin stayed up. Stubborn. Bratty. Perfect.

“You can tell yourself that all you want,” I said, stopping at the edge of the bed. “But we both know you are lying.”

“I am not lying.”

“Then why are you still wearing my cum between your legs?”

Her face went crimson. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.

I sat down on the bed beside her. She flinched but did not move away.

“I am not going to hurt you, Harlow.”

“You already did.”

Something in my chest cracked. “I know. And I am sorry. But I am not sorry it happened.”

She looked at me then. Really looked at me. Her lower lip trembled.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

“Everything.”