I can hear him breathing—the inhale and exhale of a man forcing his own lungs to slow. He is not asleep.
I lie very still.
My face is hot with shame. The covers are clutched in my fist. He has refused me a second time, and I must accept that my husband does not want what I have to give.
I cannot name what I feel, but it is a painful ache.
“I am sorry,” I whisper.
He does not answer.
I turn my face to the window. The city beyond the glass is a field of small yellow lights. I count them. I get to eighty-three before my eyes blur and the lights smear, and I do not wipe my cheek because wiping is a motion, and a motion would be a noise, and I do not wish to make noise.
The tears slide into my hair. I breathe through my mouth so he will not hear the hitch in my chest.
A long time passes.
Then, under the covers, a hand finds mine.
His palm is warm. His fingers thread through my fingers the way my braid threads through itself, one under, one over, until there is no room left between. He does not turn toward me. He simply holds my hand.
I try so hard, but I cannot keep quiet. My breath hitches.
He squeezes once. A small, firm press, and his hand goes still again around mine.
I lie in the dark in a bed that is not mine, in a city I do not know, and continue to do everything wrong. I do not understand my husband’s strange rules.
I do not know what to do.
Chapter 8
Ronan
She thinks I can’t hear her.
Her breathing hitches every eight seconds—I’ve been counting. Each one is a small, strangled thing she swallows before it becomes a sob. Our hands are still laced together, and her pulse hammers against my fingers frantically. She’s turned her face to the window, away from me.
I stare at the ceiling and catalogue every mistake I’ve made in the last two hours.
I’ve played the gentleman—not just the gentleman, thedecent human. I gave her space. Gave her her own room. Leapt up when she touched me, convinced restraint was the noble move, the move that separates me from the men of her past.
Instead, I contradicted her ingrained beliefs. In her mind, I’ve rejected her—found her lacking and unworthy.
How do we reconcile our belief systems?
I’m able to read rooms, find angles, and generally identify what a person needs to hear and deliver it.
And…I’m a dumbass.
The play here isn’t distance. It was never distance. The play is meeting her inside the framework she already has and bending it toward something new. She understands authority,instruction, a man who leads. Those are the only tools in her kit. So I’ll use them—not to control her, but to carry her across the bridge from where she is to where she deserves to be.
She deserves to feel good on her wedding night, to feel wanted and worthy and deserving. Her first experience of intimacy is mine to construct, and I need to man up and fucking do it.
It’s not pure altruism. I absolutely want her. Every accidental brush of skin sends a current of sheer lust through me that I can’t explain. The way her face transformed when warm water hit her palm. The way she laughed at her own reflection on my phone screen—surprised and delighted—lit me up.
I want her, and pretending otherwise is a lie. A lie that is hurting her, apparently.
I turn onto my side. “Prudence.”
