Innocence Defied (New York) Read Online Free PDF Page B

next would haunt him for the rest of his life and it was a wound on his soul.
    “Baby.” He’d swallowed and given her a soft kiss on the tip of her nose before continuing. “If I was vanilla, I’d snatch you up and marry you so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you. Damn the consequences. But I’m not and you are as vanilla as they come.”
    The confusion and skepticism on her face only made things harder because they underlined just how sheltered she was. “What the heck are you talking about ice cream for? I hate vanilla. I like mint chip.”
    His chuckle was bittersweet. “Vanilla is a term used for people who like their sex in a straight simple manner. No kink, no frills.”
    She listened with a frown on her face and he saw that he needed to tell her more. “I am not vanilla. I’m a Dom, Oops. A sexual Dominant. Sex with me would involve pain. And bondage.” When she opened her mouth to interject, he added the killing blow, “And sex with other people. Lots of other people.”
    With a groan, Gage got up to pace as the rest of the argument played in his mind like a song that looped over and over.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Zoe looked as bewildered as she sounded. “You would have sex with other women, even if you were with me?”
    “Not just me, darlin’. I’d share you too. I’d expect you to have sex with other men or even women if we were together. And I’d watch or I’d join in, depending on what I want. Do you understand that? What I want, not you. I expect the women I’m with to follow my commands. Period. And the women I choose love that about me.”
    Those big blue eyes filled with tears again, and the loathing he felt for himself right then was nothing he’d ever felt before. He’d never made apologies about who he was and what he wanted for himself. In this instance, however, he almost wished he was different, if only to spare her from the hurt and betrayal he saw on her face.
    “So, you really don’t love me then. It’s true.” Tears leaked steadily down her cheeks as she looked him in the eye and delivered her own killing blow. “I saved myself for nothing. You’re really going to stand aside and let some other man take my virginity.”
    He couldn’t describe the instant rage the statement caused, and he didn’t want to look too closely at where it was coming from.
    “Oops.” His voice dropped to a menacing growl that had her stepping back and her eyes widening. “Don’t fucking talk to me about that. Ever. You hear?” He swung away from her in frustrated fury. “The thought of you letting some asshole touch you makes me want to kill.”
    “But didn’t you just say—” she started, but he interrupted before she could finish.
    “Yes, I said. I said if . If you were with me—that’s what I want. But you’re too good for that, Zoe. Too good for the life I lead.”
    Here she got angry again. “Wait a minute. Too good for that? Does that mean you think less of the women you are with? These women who let you do all those things to them—you don’t respect them? Are they sluts?”
    “For the love of God, Oops.” He’d wanted to bang his head into a wall right then. “No, I don’t think less of them, and of course they aren’t sluts. They are just different. They have different tastes and desires than you, that’s all.”
    “I wouldn’t have ever pegged you for a hypocrite.”
    He’d looked at her with open-mouthed shock. “Watch it, little one. Don’t think for a second I won’t turn you over my knee and tan your little ass if you deserve it.” His shocked anger melted back to frustration when the threat caused a flush to darken her cheeks and her breath to hitch. Fucking last thing he needed was signs that she might like kink after all.
    “Look,” he said wearily, “we’ve been at this for hours. Let it go. You’re too young. And you’re too innocent. Your first time should be with someone young and innocent too. Not a Dom and