Getting Even. Avril Tremayne

her beneath him, his legs going between hers, not to push hers open but to let her know, give her time, wait through it while he paused at the entrance to her body. He’d said he was sorry, so sorry, for the pain he would cause, and then he’d slowly entered her, his mouth covering hers to catch her gasp, to drink it in.

      He’d thought it was a gasp of pain that had escaped her and he’d wanted to absorb that pain for her. But he’d been wrong. It was awe, wonder, reverence even—not pain. She’d felt so lucky, because she’d heard a million horror stories from other women about first sexual encounters—fumbling, impatience, discomfort, brutality, disgust—whereas Rafael had made it slow and beautiful for her. Empowering, too, so that she hadn’t been shy about telling him she wanted him again that night, and the next morning. And each time he’d given her something more than she’d known it was possible to want.

      They’d spent Christmas texting and calling each other. When she’d arrived back in DC, he’d been waiting on her doorstep to tell her he loved her.

      He’d moved in that night. An hour after that they’d had their first fight when he’d found out (a) her parents owned the place and (b) she wasn’t going to charge him rent.

      The only way she’d been able to think of to get him to stay was to talk Romy and Matt into sharing the house, as well, so the rent could be split four ways to enable Rafael to afford what he deemed an equitable share of the market rate.

      He hadn’t alluded to it again, even though she knew it burned him up that Romy had only moved in for her sake and Matt for his—which was crazy, because those two had become inseparable. (And, hello, look at them today!)

      But if that crisis had been averted, the pattern of their first argument was to repeat itself over and over again. Disagreements about money and lifestyle squalling out of nowhere, passionate reconciliations, a cessation in hostilities, the war inevitably restarting. All the way through to the last night they’d spent together, the night before graduation, when they’d had a fight over nothing—a bottle of champagne and a teeny, tiny jar of caviar she’d wanted just the two of them to share before the full-on mania of graduation day when her parents and his mother would be in town.

      “Why not hang a gigolo sign around my neck?” he’d demanded. “It’s what your parents think.”

      The fight had spiraled, because she was tired of him misjudging her parents so willfully. She’d told him what her parents really thought was that unless he found a way to come to terms with her money, they were going to end up fighting their whole lives! In turn, he’d refused to accept her parents’ invitation for him to bring his mother to a celebratory dinner with them and Scarlett at Catch of the Day, because it was the most expensive restaurant in town. He couldn’t afford it, and he was damned if he was going to be paid for.