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“I didn’t realize you’d never done that before at all, lass. Just not with him. I’m sorry, I should have—”
“You couldn’t have known. I didn’t tell you.” I press my face against the smooth skin of his chest, breathing in the faintly sweaty, masculine scent of him. “I didn’t think I’d cry. I’m sorry, Liam.”
“There’s no need to apologize, lass.” Liam presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I’ll get something to clean us up with, and you’ll sleep here tonight.”
I look up at him, startled. “What? Are you sure—”
“If you want to, then yes.” He tilts my chin up, wiping away a falling tear with his thumb. “Your punishment is done, Ana. I’m not going to send you back to your room to sleep alone. You’re mine, aye? You proved that tonight.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’m yours, Liam. I swear, I only want you. I knew—when Alexandre touched me tonight, I knew. There are parts of me that will always be grateful that he took me away from Alexei, who treated me mostly with kindness and probably spared me something much worse. But I don’t have a future with him. My future is here, with you.”
“And mine is with you. Not Saoirse.” Liam brushes his lips gently over my forehead. “I’m yours as well, lass. I’m sorry for my mistake tonight when I took you to the ballet. I’ll be more careful in the future, to think instead of rushing headlong into what seems like it might make you happy at first, without thinking it through.”
He leans me gently back against the stack of pillows on the bed, gracefully sliding off as he strides towards the bathroom. I have a moment to appreciate the long, lean lines of his body, the muscled swell of his ass before he disappears into the room only to emerge a few minutes later.
Liam joins me on the bed again, gently taking the warm cloth he brought back with him and sliding it over my inner thighs, between them, cleaning me up carefully before turning me on my side. I don’t catch a glimpse at what he’s doing, but then I feel something cool and thick against my skin, and I realize he’s smoothing lotion over the still-stinging flesh of my ass cheeks.
“How’s that, little lass?” Liam asks gently, his hands massaging my flesh, and I let out a sigh.
“It feels good,” I tell him quietly, and when I roll back over onto my back as he moves his hands away, I can see a faint smile on his face.
He takes the cloth and lotion back to the bathroom and then rejoins me, pulling the covers over us both as I sink into his arms, snuggling down into the soft warmth of the bed.
“If you believe me,” I ask softly, “Why did you—choose to fuck me the way you did tonight? Why not—” I bite my lower lip nervously. “Was it just because you were punishing me?”
“That was part of it,” Liam says quietly, his fingers still running through my hair. “And part of it was because I wanted to take something tonight that he’d never had. Just as you needed to be punished to feel absolved, I needed that. I needed to know I had something of you for my own, that he didn’t.”
“What if I’d said he had?” I whisper, my heart suddenly skipping a beat in my chest. “What would have happened?”
“I don’t know,” Liam admits. “I needed something, Ana. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to continue—I don’t know. But that’snotwhat happened, so we don’t need to talk about it. It doesn’t matter.” His arm tightens around me, and he gently brushes another kiss over my forehead. “I want to make love to you, Ana. That’s what I want it to be when I’m in your pussy again. That couldn’t be tonight. But it will be soon. I’m going to deal with breaking my engagement to Saoirse in the next few days, and then—”
“Then?” I look up at him, wanting to see the expression on his face. He looks tired, but more peaceful than before.
“Then there will be nothing between us and our happiness, Ana. Not Alexandre, not Saoirse—nothing to stop you from being mine entirely, and me yours. We’ll begin our lives together, with nothing standing in our way.” His fingers brush lightly over my cheekbone. “I love you, Ana.”
I want to say it back so badly, but I know instinctively that it’s not time yet—not tonight, with what happened still so fresh. Instead, I snuggle into his chest, one arm over his muscled abdomen, breathing in the scent of him as I feel his heartbeat beneath my cheek.
We both fall asleep like that, curled in each other’s arms for the first time, and it feels like a step forward. It feels like progress, like a new step in our relationship, and as I drift off, I realize that I feel something else I hadn’t expected to feel tonight.
I feelhappy.
I don’t know what time it is when I wake up again, my stomach churning with such an intense nausea that I throw the blankets back, scramble out of bed, and rush towards the bathroom. I fall to my knees on the cool tile, grasping the sides of the toilet as I heave up everything I ate and drank tonight, convulsing with tears running down my cheeks.
I don’t hear Liam come to the doorway, but when I finally look up, wiping my mouth with a tissue, he’s standing there with his eyes bleary and hair tousled, looking so endearing in his sleepy state that I wish I felt well enough to appreciate it.
“Are you okay?” Liam’s forehead is creased with concern. “Did something you ate tonight not settle well?”
“Maybe?” I frown. “I felt sick this morning too. Maybe I just picked up some kind of stomach bug—”
Liam’s eyes narrow suddenly. “Ana—when was your last period?”
“I—why?”
“I haven’t seen tampons in your bathroom or any kind of feminine product. You’ve been here for over a month—you should have bought some or asked me to pick them up for you because you needed them. Ana—”
My stomach drops in an entirely new way, fresh nausea bubbling up. I bend over the toilet again, my eyes squeezing tightly shut.No, no, no—
“There are all kinds of reasons why I might not have gotten my period,” I say weakly. “I’ve lost it before from low body fat when I was dancing. I was malnourished for a while before now. I’ve only just started putting on weight—stress can make it stop too. There are all kinds of reasons.” I trail off, seeing the doubtful look on Liam’s face.
