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Her eyes flicked to the priest, droning on. They were nearly through the whole ceremony now, soon he would ask Martin to kiss his bride.
She had, in fact, never been kissed.
She’d barely been allowed to run as a child, nor walk to town alone as an adult, for fear of how it would affect her. The entire courtship she had gone through feeling as though she was being held at arm’s length. Martin had sent smelling salts along with the letter of his proposal, thinking that the sheer excitement of their engagement would be too much for Diane.
Instead of experiencing kissing, Diane had studied the theory of it. She had moved beyond the art instruction she’d received as a girl, and used those teachings to explore every which way two faces could fit against one another, how lips might intertwine, how hands could card through one’s hair.
With a seemingly infinite amount of time dedicated to sitting indoors doing nothing to excite her heart rate, drawing had quickly become Diane’s foremost occupation, alongside daydreaming new things to draw. New people to draw, in new contortions, new embraces. Somewhat quickly, she had moved beyond kissing, to what other ways people might intertwine.
In fact, in some of them, there weren't just couples, but an orgy of several. There were harem scenes with a group of naked women falling over one man, some fighting for him while others pleasured themselves. Another had a woman with a line of soldiers, cocks out and ready, planning to have the lot of them. Another where a woman held two men's cocks, one poised before her with the other behind her. Some pages of her sketchbook were simply filled with one aroused cock after another.
Diane kept her collection of sketches secret, since she knew if anyone learned of it, the lot of them would be confiscated. Even now, they were all packed away faithfully in her trousseau, wrapped up in an old shawl.
She had decided that it was only right that she create and keep such forbidden things, because she had long suspected her circumstances would never allow her to enjoy the real thing. Alone with her drawings, carefully and skillfully, she’d taught herself to find release by her own hand, occasionally assisted by a polished horn.
Looking at Martin, even imagining the sort of tawdry acts she had invented in her sketchbook, could not stir anything within her. The kiss in the church would be uninspired, and likely their wedding night would be as well.
Her eyes, unbidden, flicked to Liam Graves again.
An image sprung into her mind, uncalled for. His broad shoulders, the well-muscled chest she had once glimpsed and promptly tripped over herself at seeing. She didn't dare to imagine any lower.
The image of that alone was enough to scorch her cheeks and set her heart racing. It was more beautiful than any of the ill-scribbled sketches or their blotchy watercolors.
She could not look away, not when her imagination was spinning further, him before her, nudging her knees apart, lifting her skirts. And then, dipping lower, brushing his mouth along her inner thigh, further and further in, until he was right before her sex.
A whimper near escaped her in the church, though it only came out as a strangled breath. She had never dared think of such a thing of him before, but now it was the only thing she wanted in her life. Was it just her, or was she trembling?
Liam caught her eye, a shadow of concern etching into his face at the flush in her cheeks. He held her gaze and, lord help her, wet his lips.
The cry of surprised guests and her knees giving out were the last things she remembered before she closed her eyes and the world was gone.
Chapter 2: Smelling Salts
The world was fuzzyand lopsided.
This was... the vestibule. Diane’s aunt and her maid of honor were clutching at her arms, dabbing cold, wet handkerchiefs at her temples and a vial of smelling salts open under her nose. One breath in of the ammonia, and she started upright.
