“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper.
“Are you a virgin, sweet sparrow?”
My throat tightens, and I find myself fighting tears. “Virginity isn’t even a real thing,” I say. “The idea that a man’s member has the power to change a woman is incredibly regressive.”
“It’s not so simple,” he whispers against my hair. “It is not about a man having the power to change a woman. What I want to know is if you’ve ever been this close to anyone else. If you’ve ever felt pleasure like that. If anyone has ever touched you there, tasted you there.”
“Why?” I ask. I feel small, and I feel like weeping.
“The fact that you won’t tell me gives me all the information I need.”
We’re silent for a long moment. Then he stands, and deposits me firmly on the ground. “Come. Let us return to the party. People will be wondering where we are.”
“I can’t… I can’t see anyone… They’ll know.”
He bends down and picks something up off the grass. I realize it’s my underwear. He puts them in his pocket, his eyes never leaving mine, and I know a terrible lashing of shame. I didn’t resist him at all. Not even for a moment. I didn’t try to pull away. I didn’t try to do anything but receive pleasure from him.
I just didn’t think this was who I was. I didn’t think I was subject to these same needs and desires as my mom, as my sister. I love them both but they’ve thrown themselves into love affairs at the expense of themselves. They’ve let men determine how happy they’ll be and I think it’s because of the power sex has to cloud your mind.
I just didn’t think I was like that.
I thought I was a scientist, not a sensualist.
Nonfiction, not fiction.
Not a romantic.
And yet now I feel like I’ve been lit on fire with the possibility of this. Of him.
I feel like I want to know things I didn’t before. I feel like he’s changed me, and that feels shameful.
Yet, I can’t stop it.
“I don’t care if everyone knows,” he says.
“Why not?”
“You’re going to be my wife. Better that I desire you, isn’t that correct?”
I want to ask him questions about that. If he really wants me or if I was convenient. If he was simply manipulating me with pleasure because it was a convenient thing for him to do. I think he knows that I’m a virgin. It would be so easy for him to find the information out empirically.
I’ve never been on a date. Never even been close.
He could have easily found that out if he’d asked the right people. Therefore, he must have known how easy it would be to completely blindside me with desire like that.
But he is leading me back into the ballroom, so I can ask him that. I can say any of the things that I want to say. Tomorrow, I’m marrying this man. And I’ve just been given a taste of what need feels like with him.
My own lack of control terrifies me. More than he ever has. The one thing that surprises me above all else is that I’m no longer most afraid of Lucian.
I’m afraid of myself.
Chapter Eight
It’s the dayof the wedding, and I didn’t sleep well. After the ball, Lucian disappeared. It was like nothing ever happened between us out in the garden. He didn’t pursue anything else; he didn’t ask me any more questions. I went back to my room, and I went to sleep. I kept waking up, expecting for him to be there in the corner. But he wasn’t.
And then, worst of all, when I finally did go to sleep I kept waking up aching and sweating, thinking about the way that he took my body and made it his.
I don’t even have time to think about it; I don’t have time to worry about it. Because then early in the morning I’m dragged out of bed by Allison and her team, and I am wrapped in the beautiful, custom-made wedding gown that has been worked on morning and night for me.
