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She didn’t know how to fix her hair in terribly complicated ways, so she had left it hanging straight and glossy down her back.
She had put on a bit of makeup, which had been part of the trousseau she had demanded.
And beneath the dress... Beneath the dress was underwear as crimson as the dress itself, wispy and see-through.
The idea of him seeing her and not made her pulse race.
She came out of the bedroom, and there he was. Standing in the center of the room, the beautifully lit city of Paris behind him. He looked severe in a dark black suit, his long hair tied back, his beard trimmed a bit more neatly now.
He was... A glorious contrast. Beastly in part, utterly sophisticated on the other hand.
It was those seemingly incompatible things that made her pulse race. That made her feel giddy with excitement.
His face...
She could not find it hideous.
It was compelling. As was he.
It was painful to look at, in the sense that it spoke of the pain that he’d been through.
And yet.
She could not look away from him. Because there was nowhere else she wished to look more. Not even in Paris.
“Shall we go?” he asked.
“Yes. Are you all right?”
He laughed. “You are no more experienced than I and going out into the world, and you ask if I’m okay?”
“I’m less experienced than you. And I think perhaps that makes it easier. I have no preconceived idea about how anyone might treat me. I have no expectations. You lived a whole other life.” She stopped herself. “You lived two other lives.”
“Come,” he said, his voice gruff.
They went down to the street, where the limousine was waiting for them. She wondered... She wondered if he had driven at all since the accident. She chose to wait to ask the question until they got into the car.
“Have you...”
“No.” Like he knew what she was going to ask. “I’ve not had occasion to drive,” he said.
“Does the idea bother you?”
“The idea of drivingyouanywhere does.”
She nodded.
“You don’t know how to drive, do you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. That was definitely not part of my upbringing. Nothing that would give me any sort of independence. It was for my own good, of course. Of course no one in the compound had any idea who I was, so how could it be forme?”
“I am familiar,” he said. “With such things. And also with how you can find pleasure while also remaining unsatisfied.”
The words cut deep. She knew he meant when he’d sold himself. Of course he’d found some pleasures, but it hadn’t been...
Whatever he said, that was not the true intent of sex, she was certain of it. She felt more when he looked at her than he seemed to have felt about whole paid encounters.
It was a perversion of something meant to be more.
