Page 174 of His Virgin Romance Series

“The night’s still young,” I told him.

“You’ve earned the right to ask me a question,” Ryder said.

I wondered if I dared, and then I decided that I did. “What happened between you and your father?” I asked. “Why did you fall out with him?”

Ryder clearly wasn’t expecting that question. He froze for a second, and then his expression ironed out into one that I couldn’t read.

“Seriously?” he asked. “That’s your question?”

“Yes,” I said, refusing to take it back. “Are you refusing to answer it?”

“No,” Ryder said, after a moment. “Fair’s fair, and you earned an honest answer.”

He didn’t seem in a hurry to reply to me, however, and I decided to allow him to take his time. This must have been a hard subject for him to broach.

“You know what?” I said, changing my mind. “It’s ok… you don’t have to answer.”

“No,” Ryder said firmly. “A deal’s a deal. You asked a question, and I have to answer honestly.”

I waited patiently. When Ryder finally spoke, his voice was almost monotone and devoid of all emotion. “I was…rebellious as a teenager,” Ryder admitted. “And because of that, Dad and I didn’t get along very well. I got mixed up with the wrong crowd. They were a bunch of other high school kids who were into drugs. Dad told me to stop hanging out with them, and I refused. He told me that if I wouldn’t follow his rules under his roof, then I just had to get out from under it. So I left, and Dad let me go.”

I watched Ryder’s face carefully. He seemed detached from the story, as though he had no real connection to it whatsoever. I wondered for a moment if he was really telling me the truth, but I had no reason not to believe him. It seemed a fairly small issue to have been so badly blown out of proportion, but there were all sorts of families in the world and all sorts of parenting techniques.

“But you came back?”

“Because I realized that Dad was right,” Ryder replied. “I had to earn back his respect but… in the end it was worth it.”

I nodded. “Thank for you telling me the truth,” I said.

He avoided making eye contact with me. “Don’t thank me,” he said, in a barely audible voice.

Silence fell between us for a moment, and then Ryder seemed to shake off the quiet. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go. We’re not done with training yet.”

We started another round, and this time I came at him with more confidence than before. But my mind was preoccupied with what Ryder had just revealed about his past, and he managed to disarm me and throw me to the ground. Before I could recover, he was kneeling on top of me, and I was trapped between his legs.

“You seem to like this position a lot,” he said, back to his old self.

I tried to push him off me. “Give me back my dagger.”

Ryder laughed, but he refused to get out of my way so that I could stand. “You owe me an honest answer,” he said.

“Ok?”

He leaned in close so that his lips were only inches away from mine. I felt my heart rate rise up rapidly, and I felt a strange tingling between my thighs.

“Do you want me to kiss you right now?”

I felt my breath catch, and for a second, I considered lying. But I knew it was useless. I wanted him. I had been dreaming of the kiss we had shared every day since it had happened.

“Yes,” I replied before I could stop myself.

His lips were on mine in the next second, and I could feel his hands on my breasts, clawing at my clothes frantically. I had never experienced a connection quite as overwhelming, and for a second, I was immersed in the beauty of it. Then I felt Ryder’s hand slip down into my pants, and the wall went up. I pulled back and pushed him off me.

He was so surprised by my reaction that he rolled off me easily, and that gave me the time to jump to my feet.

“Abby—”

I didn’t stop to turn back or speak to him. I just jumped from the ring and ran for the door, trying to hold back tears as I went.

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