PREFACE

Bella had never given much thought about losing her virginity – though she'd had plenty reason enough in the last few months – but even if she had, never in a million years would she have imagined losing her virginity like this!

Staring across the room into the lust-filled eyes of the deranged man who was once her childhood friend, Bella knew that she had every reason to be terrified. However, she couldn't let her terror consume her. Her virginity had been the gift she'd wanted to give to her husband ever since she understood what sex was all about. For the last several months, she had fallen deeper and deeper in love with a man who didn't think himself worthy of her when they first met. Finally, he had asked her to marry him, but they'd had to separate briefly because he feared for her safety. Not to mention, the passion they'd had for one another had driven them both to the edge of insanity, and despite his checkered past, he'd flatly refused to allow her to compromise her faith. She looked down hopelessly at the beautiful platinum diamond ring on left hand. It couldn't end like this.

At that moment she knew she needed to fight. And fight she would, because she absolutely could not allow this animal to take what belonged to only one man. This was a precarious situation because she also needed to live through this altercation. Fighting to save her virtue would require her to fight someone who was stronger and twice her size to either wound or kill. She prayed for survival, for both herself and the man she loved because she knew he would be devastated either way this turned out. Finally she prayed for strength because this rapist was mistaken, if in his demented state of salaciousness, he believed he would leave this room after having taken what he had come for.

This would only happen over her dead body!