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Panic was beginning to swell in her breast, and she could feel herself going beyond sanity. “I hardly need princess lessons, Cairo. What I could use are lessons on how exactly I’m supposed to cope with that. How exactly I’m supposed to cope with the idea that I’m going to go from having only been kissed just once to...”
Everything around them went still. His expression was flat, his eyes dark. There was a fire in them that nearly terrified her. It wasn’t like anything else she had ever seen.
This stillness. She realized what it reminded her of then. A predator. Lying in wait in the grass. Waiting for its prey to make the wrong move. Or perhaps the right move.
“You what?”
“Don’t make me repeat it. I’m not ashamed of it. Nor am I embarrassed. But the reality is you are teaching me... Pomp and circumstance. All of these things are for show, the ceremony. And I am expected to... To have another person inside of me. Someone that I don’t even know. I don’t... I have never...”
He reached out, his hand grabbing hold of her chin, his touch was scalding. “Are you telling me that you are a virgin?”
“It’s not like I go around thinking of myself that way,” she said. “But it is becoming more and more difficult to avoid the word. Given that I am suddenly, very suddenly faced with the reality of what is before me.”
“You have only kissed a man once?”
“Last night,” she said, her whole body hot.
“Do you not like men?”
“No, that isn’t it. It’s just that it hasn’t... I have not had the desire. Or...found the person who...”
“Forgive me. But I do not understand. You see, opportunity for me has always been quite present, and desire never short.”
“Well, that’s you. That isn’t how it works for me. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve never...”
She couldn’t tell him. She could not tell him that there was a bright and warm day that lived in her mind where he had handed her a piece of fruit, and it had felt like the world had gone still. Where he had stared at her, and she had understood for the first time what it meant to be attracted to another person.
And that nothing that had ever occurred since then had matched it. How could she tell him that? Especially when it wasn’t true for him. He’d slept with everything. Everything that moved. That was what the tabloids said, that was the impression that he had given.
The moment had not meant to him what it did to her, so why indulge herself by thinking of it? And why admit to him that it mattered at all?
“This could be a problem,” he said.
“Why? I would’ve thought that you would crow about it. I mean, doesn’t it complete the whole barbarian trophy, being brought back to your king? A virgin at that.”
“You know how to please yourself?”
“I...” Her mouth dropped open, and then snapped back shut. Suddenly, a pulse began to beat hard between her legs.
“Do you know how to please yourself?” His voice became dark, slick. Coated in honey. It made her tremble. Made her entire body feel weak. They should not be talking about this. Except... Who was here to make such rules? He was in charge.
He was in charge.
“I have not... I have not given enough thought to it to explore that particular...”
“You have not brought yourself to orgasm?”
“No.”
And for the first time she was forced to confront how deeply she had shut down that part of herself. Perhaps it was because of the arranged marriage. Perhaps it was because of her father’s betrayal of the person she was supposed to marry. Perhaps it was thinking Cairo was dead.
She didn’t know, because she had not pondered it overly much, because it was... Distressing. Tangled around this trauma in her past that she had wanted to pretend wasn’t trauma at all. She had wanted to pretend that she had gone on to be successful and that was all that mattered. That she was fine. That all was well.
And yet she could see that it wasn’t. That it never had been.
“This could very well be a problem.”
“Why?”
