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He lets me go into the room first, flicking on the light as he steps in behind me. The huge bedroom is suddenly flooded with light from an iron and crystal chandelier overhead, a strange mixture of roughness and delicacy that I find oddly appealing. The rest of the room follows a similar theme—the floor is heavy dark wood, but there are thick rugs scattered over it—a fur one in front of the fireplace and by the bed, and another textured, woven one near a huge window with an oversized chair almost big enough for two people sitting by it. I can picture myself curled up in that chair, and I flinch, realizing how quickly I was able to place myself in this room, in this house. How quickly my mind made itself at home.
A coping mechanism, nothing more.
“It’s chilly.” Theo gives me a tight, almost nervous smile, walking to the fireplace and beginning to go about what he needs to do in order to light it. “The house has central heating, of course, but it’s so large that I swear it can’t keep up.”
I stare at him, feeling a little as if I’m watching him outside of myself. I’m standing here in my wedding dress, on our wedding night, and it feels like Theo is intentionally putting off the moment when he takes me to bed. Like he’s delaying it out of—
I can’t even imagine what would make a man like Theo nervous about fucking a woman. He could have already had me twice in the time I’ve been in this house. I can’t for the life of me understand why he’s dragging it out.
Slowly, I walk to the edge of the bed and sink down on it, watching him build the fire. I kick off my shoes, digging my toes into the thick fur rug, and I don’t know how I feel about all of this. A part of me appreciates that he’s taking his time. That he didn’t just push me down on the bed and fuck me. That maybe he’s even trying to decide how to go about it in a way that doesn’t make me feel—
Feel what, exactly? Violated? Used? Forced?None of those things have to apply, necessarily, but they’re all true in a way—this marriage is arranged, against my will. I might have walked into the church under my own power, said my vows, and agreed to everything, but I didn’twantit. And Theo—
I remember his admission in the restaurant. How he’d said that in his own way, he’d been pushed into this too. I’d shrugged it off at the time, annoyed that he would compare his men urging him to marry with the future that I’d faced all my life—being told who I would marry and when, who would have the pleasure of my body without expecting any of my own.
What if he has reservations of his own tonight?
I have to force myself not to think about what other reservations there could be—what other reasons he might have for looking at me and struggling with the idea of our wedding night. But then he stands up, slowly, as the fire starts to crackle to life—as he turns to face me, I see such raw desire in his face that it makes my breath catch in my throat.
I sit there, my hands knotted together in my lap, waiting for him to cross the room to me. I think that maybe I should get up and go to him, that maybe that’s what he expects—but I can’t move. My heart is suddenly hammering in my chest, and it feels hard to breathe.
“Marika.” He walks towards me, one slow step at a time, until he’s standing right in front of me. I force myself to keep looking up at him, at that naked need in those green eyes, and I can feel my pulse beating in my throat. He reaches out, his fingers gently brushing along my jawline. “Marika, I—”
“What?” I whisper softly. I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it—not his hesitation or his need or what’s going on inside of his head.
“I want you so badly,” he says, his voice low and husky. “I want to be gentle with you. And I’m worried—”
It hits me then, in a wave of realization that just as quickly turns into guilt. He wants me—has even been fantasizing about this, probably, and now he’s worried he’ll be too rough with me. He thinks I’m a virgin, and he’s afraid he’ll hurt me.
The danger of the game I’m playing feels very immediate, and very real. And I feel horrible, because I know I need to play into this game.
I need to play into his fears, not reassure him of them. Because if they’retoowell-salved, then he might suspect the truth.
I nod slowly, biting my lip. “We could go slowly?” I suggest, standing up, smoothing my hands over the lace of my skirt. “Just—you could kiss me, first.”
Theo takes a slow breath, and I try to steel myself against the touch of his lips. I know what they feel like, howgoodthey feel. Before, we were supposed to stop—but now it’s the exact opposite. We’re meant to end up in bed, at the ultimate culmination of the kiss he’s about to give me, and I should be reeling away from it, dreading it.
But he steps closer, close enough to put his hand on the small of my back, the way he did when we were dancing. He draws me closer, so that we’re just barely touching, and he reaches up, pushing a trailing lock of my blonde hair out of my face.
“I want to make it good for you,” he says, his voice low and husky. “I know it isn’t always—the first time. I’ve never had a virgin before. I don’t know—”
God, the guilt cuts deeper than I ever thought it could.You never will,I think wildly, and I have to sink my teeth hard into my lower lip to stop from collapsing into a kind of hysterical laughter that could destroy everything in an instant. I wasn’t cut out for this. I’m not a cold-hearted person, and I’m not the kind of woman who can stand in front of a man looking at her with so much desire, who is trying to be kind and careful when he could have been anything but and suffered no repercussions, a man who is worried that he’ll hurt his bride in ways that are impossible, and lie to his face.
But Ihaveto be, or I’m as good as dead. Myfamilyis as good as dead.
No matter how gentle Theo is being now, I don’t think he would take the deception well.
“It’s alright.” I reach up slowly, touching him of my own volition for the first time. I touch his face the way he’s touching mine, and it’s too sweet, too romantic for what’s really happening here. I feel like I’m in some twisted fairytale, some horrible dream that I’ll wake up from.
I feel him lean into my touch a little, my fingers skimming over the slight stubble on his jaw, and I feel my own pulse leap in response. I hadn’t expected it to be this slow—I’ve never experienced it like this before, slow and gentle, and it’s throwing me off in ways that I hadn’t prepared for.
He draws me in, his hand on the small of my back, the hand on my cheek slipping down to my chin, tipping my mouth up to his. When his lips touch mine, it’s a slow, soft kiss.
It’s as if he’s determined to do things differently with me, his wife, than he has with any other woman, and it makes my head spin.
Not just the way he’s touching me, the soft pressure of his mouth that deepens a little as he leans into the kiss, but theideaof it all. Theo McNeil is a brutal man, a man steeped in blood and violence, like my father and my brother and all the men I’ve ever known. But this—what’s happening tonight, isn’t any of that.
He kisses me like a man who wants to make love to his wife, and it doesn’t make any sense at all to me. It feels like a shock, that gentle touch, learning that everything I thought I knew so well could be so different from what I experienced before. It makes me wonder what else Theo could show me, that I didn’t know.
