His mouth dropped to my ear, his hips flexing into mine. “What about them?”
“Take them off.” My hand dipped beneath his waistband, curving into his backside to draw him closer to me. The increased friction made us both shudder.
“I want you to take them off,” he husked, bracing himself above me to make some room. His head aligned directly above mine, droplets of water dripping from the ends of his hair onto my face, his eyes almost feral-looking. “Then put me inside of you.”
A charge of energy shot down my spine.
This was my first time, and I was in a shower with an injured ankle with Prince Edward above me. Nothing about that situation screamed poise, but I felt quite confident that this would be the best first time anyone had ever had.
“I might need you to start out a little slow,” I said, my fingers hooking beneath his waistband, skimming his pants off his hips.
His head acknowledged that automatically, but a moment later, his eyes cleared, a question setting into his brow. “You need me to start out slow why?”
I continued to lower his pants. “It’s nothing. Really,” I added when he didn’t appear convinced.
“What’s nothing?” His hand caught one of mine, stalling my endeavors.
“If I tell you, can I get you to make another promise that it won’t stop you from doing what we’re about to?” I lifted my head from the cradle of his hand, combing my fingers through his wet hair.
His head relaxed into my hand, despite the way his jaw was clenching. He knew I was keeping something from him. “I can promise that if you don’t tell me, I will put an immediate stop to what we’re about to do.” His eyes softened when I gave a pronounced frown. “Tell me.”
My body shifted below him as I debated how to say it.
“You’re nervous?” he guessed.
My head shook. “No.”
Edward sat up a little, drawing me up with him. This time I frowned for real. We were moving in the wrong direction.
His gaze shifted to the shower wall. “Were you wanting me to pay attention to anything in particular? You know, to provide feedback for future encounters?”
It took me a minute to realize what he was getting at. Why I’d asked him in the first place. Theo. Experience. All the reasons that were no longer on my mind.
“No.” I stared at his hand tied in mine. “I’m not really concerned about that anymore.”
He nodded absently. “I’m sure your previous partners have had no complaints.”
There was my window. I was diving through it, second thoughts need not apply.
“No complaints, you’re right about that.” I bit my lip, forcing myself to look at him. “Because there have been zero partners.”
I didn’t know if it was my words or my fingers circled in the shape of a big fat zero that hit him first. His hand unwove from mine.
“I’d be you’re first?” He must have been stating it out loud for himself, because he didn’t wait for my answer. “You’re asking me to take your virginity as a practice screw?”
Edward shot up, his pants back in their former position. His hands drug through his wet hair as he stared at the shower wall behind me with what I could only assume was shock.
“It’s not a big deal.” My voice echoed off the shower walls. “People make such a huge deal over your first time, but I have it on good authority that it’s not particularly pleasant for the woman, so you can help me with that aspect as well.” My words were tumbling out as fast as I could conjure them. Silence gave him too much time to think; time to talk himself out of it. If I kept talking and making even a little bit of sense, I knew I could get him to understand.
“This is insane.” His chest heaved when he exhaled, the muscles in his forearms twitching.
Planting my hands on the floor, I rose to stand then moved toward him. He wouldn’t look at me, but I saw the effect I had on him as I came closer. His willpower was crumbling.
“This might be insane, but you’re still discussing it with me.” My hand settled in the hollow of his chest, his heartbeat racing. “Nothing has changed here.”
“Everything has changed.” His hand fastened around my wrist as though he was going to remove it, but our hands stayed locked in place. “When you asked me . . . I assumed you’d had . . . you said you’ve been on birth control.”
“I am on birth control. Believe it or not, there’s more than one reason women go on birth control.”
“Excuse me for assuming that a woman was taking birth control for the sole purpose of avoiding unwanted pregnancy, thus suggesting she was sexually active.” When Edward felt me tremble, he guided me back into the spray of the shower. His arm wound behind me, adjusting the dial warmer.
“It wasn’t like I was trying to be abstinent.” My shoulders moved. I felt the slightest bit vulnerable that I’d admitted to a man who could have bedded just about any woman he wanted that I had the sexual experience of a cloistered nun. “It was more a circumstance of my environment.”
“Meaning?”
That he was still standing here, talking, gave me hope. If he was adamantly against taking my virginity, he wouldn’t still be here discussing it with me.
“Meaning I was too picky. Or the guys were,” I admitted, wrinkling my nose.
“I’m sure it wasn’t that.”
“What? That I was too picky?”
His head moved. “That the guys around you were. I find it hard to imagine any straight, single man turning down the offer you presented me.”
“I’ve never exactly offered it that way before.”
His hand smoothed through my hair, squeezing out excess water. “Stated or implied. And your first time is a big deal, contrary to the conclusion you’ve arrived at.”
My head shook. I wasn’t sure why society placed so much significance on one’s virginity, but I was fairly confident it had something to do with the patriarchy. “It really isn’t.”
His hands stopped slipping down my hair. “Why do you want me to be your first?”
So many reasons jumped to mind as I considered his question. But one stood out above all the rest.
“Because I trust you,” I said, resting my hand in the center of his chest. His heartbeat had not slowed from earlier.
His face furrowed with contemplation. “I’m not sure that’s the best reason.”
“It might not be.” I drew closer to him. “But it’s not the worst either, and plenty of others have had lamer reasons for giving away their virginity. Like, he has a really great smile. Or he’s captain of the football team. Or he acts like a jerk when he’s around his friends but is really sweet when we’re all alone.” My free hand molded into the rise of his neck. “I trust you, Edward. I want you to be my first.”
He was silent for what felt like forever, nothing but the sound of water raining down on us filling the room. When the corners of his eyes creased, I accepted he was going to say no. Which was what any future king in his right mind should say to someone like me making the request I had.
I’d asked, in so many words, Prince Edward to be the master to my apprenticeship of all things of an intimate physical relationship . . . all for the benefit of some other guy he couldn’t stand.
What the hell had I been thinking?
“A better man would say no.” His hands locked around my back one moment, and the next, he’d lifted me against him. “But I’m not that man,” he whispered against my lips.
My arms and legs tied around him as he cranked off the shower before carrying me out of the bathroom.
I lowered my face in front of his. “You are the very best kind of man.”
Before he could argue, I placed my mouth against his. We were both dripping wet, but Edward didn’t seem to want to take the time to dry off. When he lowered me to his bed, he stood above me for a minute, watching. Admiring.
“You’re certain this is what you want?”
His breath caught when I let my legs fall open, my hand reaching fo
r him. “I don’t feel certain about much of anything in life right now, but I feel thoroughly sure about this.” I fought a smile when my eyes lowered. “But you should probably take off your pants. They’re soaking wet, after all.”
His chest moved when he noticed the puddle that had gathered on the floor at his feet. As he reached for his pants, the sound of a phone ringing interrupted us.
Sitting up, I confirmed that mine, resting on the nightstand, was still switched off.
“It’s mine,” Edward answered, striding toward the windowsill where his phone was resting beside his coffee cup. When he saw the screen, his back tensed.
“Who is it?”
His hand wrapped around the phone, the veins in his forearm straining through the skin. “I’ve got to take this.”
“Okay. I’m not going anywhere.” My shoulders lifted, the water dripping down my back feeling cool now that I wasn’t smashed between Edward and the mattress. “Except maybe the bathroom to grab a towel.”
I popped off the bed as he answered his phone. As I padded toward the bathroom, I tried to ignore his conversation, but it was impossible. The harder I tried to give him privacy, the more my ears seemed tuned to every word, every change in tone.
From the brief greeting, I knew who was on the other end and that the nature of his father’s call wasn’t a regular check-in, as my parents felt compelled to do on a daily basis.
“How did you find out?” Edward’s voice cut through as I toweled off my hair, remaining in the bathroom to give him the illusion of privacy, if nothing else.
“No, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he continued a moment later.
“You know what I’m doing here. I need time.”
Peeking out the cracked open door, I found Edward facing the windows, every muscle in his body tensed. I considered bringing him a towel too, but surely the last thing on his mind right now was the water dripping off of him.
“No, Father, that is your life,” Edward replied, his voice more distant than heated, despite the turmoil I saw expressed in his posture. “I’m allowed to decide what to do with mine.
“Then let’s hope I’m struck with a grand epiphany come spring.”
The towel stopped as I was drying off my legs. What was in the spring? Chiding myself for continuing to listen in on what was obviously a private conversation, I forced myself to back deeper into the bathroom as I finished drying off.
“I know the way it is. What’s expected of me. What comes with this life.”
His voice had lowered some, but I could still make out every word. Wrapping the towel around my hair and balancing it on top of my head, I grabbed a spare towel for him.
“Frederick, James, and Andrew are here too.” Whatever his father said on the other end must not have been complimentary. “We’ve been friends forever. I’m not going to cut ties because you don’t approve of them anymore.”
There was a minute of silence, leading me to assume the call must have ended abruptly.
I was about to slip through the door when Edward cleared his throat. “Just some girl on the staff.” His head shook. “No one of significance to worry about.”
I’d felt the sting of words before, though never quite like that. I found myself rubbing my chest, checking for signs of the wound I could feel as real as anything I’d felt before. There was nothing there, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that I knew this moment would leave a deep scar.
I didn’t hear anything else as I tied the extra towel around my body instead, reminding myself before stepping out of the bathroom that Edward owed me no allegiance. We’d been mere strangers a few weeks ago, and I’d been the one to approach him with the unusual proposal I had.
He owed me nothing.
I only wished my head could explain that to my heart.
When I stepped out of the bathroom, he was still in front of the window, clutching his phone at his side.
“That was your father?”
He shifted. “Yes.”
I stared at the space between us, our body language a sharp contrast to how we’d been only a handful of minutes ago. “What did he want?”
“What he always wants. My entire future.” His phone clattered to the windowsill.
I adjusted my weight off of my injured ankle, the pain in it feeling fresh. “What do you think he’d say if you’d told him you were about to have sex with ‘no one of significance’ before he called?”
Edward slowly turned, his expression a tomb of indifference. “I’m sure he’d have more to say if I told him that person was the some woman who’d petitioned me to be her practice fuck partner so she could take that acquired knowledge and make another man happy.”
My fingers curled into my palms. “That’s not all this was about.”
“No? Then what is this?” His voice filled the room, growing with each word. “What am I to you truly? Because from where I’m standing, you’ve made what you want from me quite clear.”
I glared at him, when in fact, I was angry at myself. “You’re my friend.”
“A friend?” His chest popped from the burst of air that followed. “No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” Were my mind added when I realized our relationship would somehow be severed at the end of this conversation.
“No, I’m a pawn. A means to an end.”
“That’s not true.” My voice trembled.
Edward thundered across the bedroom, braking to a stop several feet in front of me. “Then what is this? Look me in the eye and tell me exactly what you want from me.”
What do I want from him? The question dislodged me. I didn’t know what I wanted from myself; how could I be expected to answer what I wanted from another human being?
Instead of honesty, I offered deflection. Instead of uncertainty, I gave defensiveness.
“I’m only a lowly member of the staff. I don’t have the right to want anything of His Highness.”
Edward’s jaw ground. “I’m sorry you had to hear that. That’s not at all what I think of you.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.” Words tasted bitter in my mouth. “Your Highness.”
His eyes blazed. “Stop that.”
“Whatever you say, Your Highness.”
He gestured at me. “You’re a coward, Charlotte. That’s why you can’t make up your mind about any damn thing lately. You’re so afraid of making the wrong decision, you refuse to make any.”
Those words, more than any of the others, slithered deep. Not because they were a lie, but because they held too much truth.
My glare turned to ice before I stormed past him. “I’m not the only one afraid of making decisions.”
His words found me before I could get away. “I’m not the one running away.”
Chapter 13
He didn’t come looking for me later that day. I didn’t go looking for him either.
I thought we both needed our space to process everything; at least I knew I did. Whatever the reason for Edward’s absence was only to known to him.
After a tormented night of sleep, I gave up trying sometime before six in the morning. After throwing on a few layers of warm clothes, I stepped out into the dark morning and headed for one of those walks Edward was such a fan of. It was slow going, even with the old cane I’d dug out of storage, thanks to my sore ankle, but it didn’t take long for the clouds of confusion to recede. I walked—hobbled—around the grounds and through the gardens until my toes were numb and my lungs felt filled with ice crystals. My mind felt clearer this morning, answers taking the place of questions.
As I passed the manor gate, ready to limp back, I realized how simple life and all its components really were. It was only we humans and our proclivity toward convolution that made a mess of things.
A dark car was winding down the driveway, headlights cutting through the early morning fog. Only one of four people could be behind the steering wheel, but I knew who it was before the tinted driver’s side window whirred down
.
That familiar ache in my chest radiated through me.
I lowered my scarf from my mouth, reminding myself to act normal. “Going for a drive?”
Edward was not behaving the same way though. His focus stayed aimed out the windshield, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. “I’m leaving.”
My arms crossed, my mind replaying what he’d said. “For how long?”
“I don’t know.” He adjusted something inside the car, his attention everywhere besides me. “A while.”
“And you were just going to leave without saying goodbye?” I waved at his fancy car and him inside it, ordering myself not to even think about crying.
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to inform you of my every coming and going.” The muscle running down his jaw quivered. “The other three will still be here, but they’ve promised to stay out of your way.”
“Edward—”
“Whatever I might have agreed to before, I believe it’s best if we leave that in the past.” His eyes narrowed out the windshield. “I wouldn’t want either of us to get the wrong impression or come to an inaccurate conclusion. It was only pretend.”
The wound he’d given me yesterday reopened, the pain so real my vision went white for a moment. My sneakers crunched over the gravel as I backed away from the car. “I agree.”
He nodded stiffly as he punched the car into gear. “Goodbye.”
Gravel sprayed as the car took off, speeding through the gate, taillights swallowed by the fog a moment later.
I only gave myself a minute to stand there, staring at the place he’d been, before forcing myself up the driveway. I’d been foolish to think he could bear any type of feelings for me that extended beyond satisfying a basic need. I’d been foolish for the entirety of Edward’s and my relationship, from our meeting facilitated by the swing of a fry pan, to soliciting him to be my intimacy coach, to just now, when I’d almost cried watching him drive off.
I’d let myself get lost, more lost than I’d arrived as, but I felt the ground solidifying beneath with every step I took, confidence seeping into the hollow cracks I’d walked around with for months.
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