It’ll be a relief, to have it over with. To know what it’s like. To see him naked. To know what it is to have a man…
I take a sharp breath and then I find myself at the threshold of his room. I’ve never been there before. It makes sense, of course, that he would choose to do it here. Not in the space that I’ve grown so accustomed to, but in his domain.
He looks at me, just there in front of the door, reaches out and takes hold of my chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Are you ready for me?”
I’m not sure what to make of the question. I was expecting a claiming. And I certainly wasn’t expecting him to look at me with…tenderness. Yes. That’s the expression on his face. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to speak. It’s like I can’t access my brain at all now. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
“Sweet girl,” he murmurs.
I feel very strongly that I should not react to that. That his words shouldn’t send a shock of pleasure through me. But they do. Then he opens the door to his room and leads me inside slowly.
“Get on the bed,” he says. My world narrows, and I can’t take in the entire scope of his room. So I obey him. I walk to the bed and I sit at the foot of it, my eyes trained on him. “Very good,” he says.
He begins to take his clothes off. The black tie he’s wearing, the white shirt. He sheds it along with his coat, and reveals his heavily muscled body. There are scars all over his torso. Burns, terrible like the ones on his face, cuts, twisting through his well-defined muscles. But he’s incredibly beautiful. Mesmerizing. I know that every mark on his flesh tells the story, and I find myself hungry then to hear it.
Even though I know it speaks of pain. I want to know his pain.
He’s my husband.
My husband. The word echoes within me.
He moved his hands to his belt, and undoes it slowly. He sheds the rest of his clothes with ease. There is no hesitation. No discomfort. He isn’t embarrassed, and he has nothing to be embarrassed of. His body is a study in masculine perfection. I may have nothing to compare it to, but I am aware that I’m in the presence of a magnificent specimen.
It’s like years’ worth of desire has flooded me. Like all the things that I’ve repressed all this time, kept myself from thinking of because I’ve been so laser focused on the future that I can no longer have, crash in.
I can’t have university. I won’t get my degree. I won’t do medical research.
But I will be the Queen of Alabria. I will be King Lucian’s wife. And now he’s going to claim me. He’s going to show me what sex is like. He’s going to give me more pleasure, I’m certain, judging by the look on his face. But he’s also going to…
He is a very large man. Everywhere. I think back to what Allison said to me that first day we met. About how he’s certainly proportional.
She wasn’t wrong.
He’s also extremely aroused. From looking at me.
From anticipating touching me.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt half so powerful in my life as I do right then. Which is so strange, because I’m at a disadvantage. He has taken me upstairs, closed me in his room. He’s the one with knowledge and experience that far outstrip mine. He’s older than me. He’s lived many lifetimes, been married before.
Twicebefore.
I’m the one who until last night had never been touched intimately by another person.
But he wants me.
Even if it’s only the biological reaction a male has to seeing a female, I am powerful as a woman, even if I am not singular.
Even if it’s only because of my gender.
That is power, real all the same.
I shift, not quite sure what to do, moving as if maybe I should take my dress off. He shakes his head. “I will remove your clothes. You will not do anything, do you understand me? My sweet, virgin sparrow, this is about you. I’m going to teach you. Everything you need to know about pleasure. Everything you need to know to want to stay with me.”
I nod, my heart pounding hard, my ears buzzing. He moves toward me, his gaze intent on mine, and then he grips my waist, turning me sharply on the bed so that my back is to him. He leans in and kisses my shoulder, and I shiver. He unzips the back of my dress and lets it fall away. He strips it away from me as if it weighs nothing, as if it isn’t a massive, complicated ball gown. And I feel a hollow ache at the center of my chest.
I’m the third bride that he’s undressed.
For some reason, that makes me feel sad. For some reason, it steals some of my life. Some of my power.
