AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Jenny...”
“And besides,” she said hurriedly, “sex is not a motivating factor for me the way it is for you.”
“That’s because you’ve never been fucked properly.” Erika laughed at Jenny’s expression. “You know it’s true. Or maybe you don’t, which is sad, butIknow it’s true. Wait a minute.” She narrowed her eyes at her friend. “Are you saying that Conrad’s bad in bed? Or are you saying you haven’t sampled the wares yet?”
“I can’t imagine that you would want me to answer that question either way. Aboutyour brother.”
Erika made a face. “I really don’t. But as your friend, it’s my duty to ask.”
“I haven’t slept with him, no,” Jenny said, her cheeks red in the dark of the bar. It made Erika wonder how her friend would react if she found herself standing in the Walfreiheit Club one fine night. Or what she’d do if faced with a man like Dorian.
But she couldn’t let herself think about Dorian. Not now.
“There’s hardly been time,” Jenny was saying. “It’s all been a whirlwind and my father insisted on throwing this party—”
“You can’t marry a man if you don’t know what he’s like in bed,” Erika said. “Really, you can’t.”
“People have been doing exactly that for centuries.”
“And they’ve been wildly unhappy.”
“Not always.” Jenny shook her head, and her grip on her wineglass tightened. Visibly. “I don’t expect you to understand this decision, Erika. It’s a bit like being on a runaway train, if I’m honest. But what’s the harm in it? He’s not pretending to love me. I’m not pretending to love him. And, you know, there’s lots of research to prove that arranged marriages are happier, on balance, than marriages based on romantic love.”
“I’ll be sure to make that toast at the wedding. Here’s to a sexless union of people who don’t love each other, but whose financial portfolios match well enough to plod along. Three cheers.”
“Just as long as you come to the wedding.” Jenny reached over and grabbed Erika’s wrist in a fully out-of-character move that made Erika both love her more and worry for her at the same time. “We might not be love’s young dream, but we’re going to be all right. And I would very much like your blessing.”
And a few weeks ago, Erika would have lost her shit. She knew it. She would have said terrible things to Jenny that she’d never be able to take back. She would have called up her brother and shouted a whole lot more things, likely uglier by far. And she certainly wouldn’t have been able to sit here and listen to this breakdown of what had to be one of the stupidest reasons to marry another person she’d ever heard in her life. Especially coming from Jenny, who had always been a romantic.
But then, romantic or not, Jenny thought she didn’t like sex. Erika had always thought that wasn’t quite the truth, and that, really, Jenny had a thing about the man she called her best friend and had therefore never touched that way. Dylan Kilburn had been a first year with them at Oxford, had been brooding in Jenny’s direction since day one, and yet Jenny had resolutely refused to see him as anything but a friend. For years now. Erika was chock-full of theories as to why.
A couple of weeks ago, she would have hammered her friend with each and every one of those theories, but she was different now. And Erika wasn’t sure she liked that strange awareness deep inside her. She wasn’t sure she approved of it. But that didn’t matter, because either way, she wasn’t the same.
She had always wished that she could choose not to make a mess rather than always and forever trying to figure out how to clean it up. And tonight she found she could put it into practice. She put her hand on top of Jenny’s and kept her gaze steady. And she set aside her own feelings on the topic, because it didn’t matter what she felt or thought. Jenny hadn’t asked her for her theories, she’d asked for Erika’s blessing.
“You couldn’t keep me away from your wedding,” Erika said very distinctly. And found as she spoke that she meant it. “It doesn’t matter who you’re marrying or why. I will be there, with bells on. You can count on it.”
Later, as she was lying in the hotel room she’d taken for the night—curled up on her side with that ravenous hunger between her legs that still she didn’t take care of because Dorian had told her not to—she remembered Jenny’s face. And how stunned she’d looked that Erika had given her blessing.
And hadn’t made the whole damn thing about herself, more likely.
Erika wrapped herself up in her coverlet and pretended it was Dorian’s arms around her.
What if this was the strength you brought to every part of your life?he had asked her after another one of his wicked, ingenious scenes. He’d turned her inside out, left her gasping and half-mad, and yet convinced on a deep level that she could take anything he dished out.What if you controlled yourself out there, and only let outside forces control you when those forces were me?
And she felt too full there, in another anonymous hotel bed. Alone. Close to bursting and too thick with it for it to be anger. Or anything as straightforward as a sob.
Dorian had held up a mirror to her life and she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t looked into it. And seen. Somehow, in surrendering herself to him, he had given her the control now. Out here, in the world. Because she knew what true surrender was like, so there was no reason to submit herself to every passing whim.
Erika had chosen to give herself completely to Dorian because he was powerful enough to keep her safe while she did it, and having done that, why would she bother with these lesser surrenders that never made her feel anything but alone?
She could have a host of emotions about her friend and her brother, but she didn’t have to succumb to them.
She couldchoose.
She felt as if she’d been struck by lightning, so bright and hot was the jolt of awareness that hit her then.
Dorian had taught her how to choose.
