Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 72146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
I fall asleep that way, without having seen him at all but filled with a pleasure I’ve never known.
Chapter 6
Cora
With my head hazy, I wake in the morning from a dream.
I cannot think of anything else that would be so vivid. The warmth still flows through me with a glimmer of the pleasure I felt. Rolling over in the sheets, I think back on the dream and the sinful sensation. It seemed so real that I can still feel his hands on me. I can still feel a pleasant ache between my legs. I can hear the moans I murmured from the back of my throat into the pillow
My eyes jolt open as I come back to reality with an undeniable soreness between my thighs. That was no dream. My breath quickens and I can hardly believe it.
He came to me in the night. The tempting man in the shadows.
I lift the covers so quickly they make a “whoosh” sound, then check the sheets and my nightgown. The man did not leave any bruises or marks on my body—he never touched me harshly enough to do that—but on the inside of my thigh there is a tiny streak of blood. It comes away from my skin when I dab at it with my finger.
The ache between my legs is real, then.
It is not horribly painful. I do not mind it. But it hits me all at once that he was real.
He did climb onto my balcony. He came through the open doors. He blindfolded me, and he took me.
I’m not a virgin anymore.
I fall back onto the pillows and stare at the ceiling, my pulse loud in my ears. Thump, thump, thump. I really did it. It truly happened. Thoughts scream in my head, but I close my eyes with a small smile at my lips.
I’m not a virgin anymore, and it is all my doing.
I felt him watching me, and I went to him, and I ordered him to come to my rooms. I ordered him to come through my balcony doors and take me.
I’d said the words out of frustration and desire and truth. And that man—whoever he is—did not question me.
Did he only do that because I gave him an order?
I close my eyes and let myself remember. The details don’t become hazier the more I think of them, like the details in a dream. They only get clearer.
He was not fucking me out of a sense of duty. He was hard and his body was tensed, and though he didn’t speak a single word, I could hear the effort he was making by his breathing. I felt it in his touch.
Oh, God, I am not a virgin. Fear strikes through me. They’re going to know.
I sit up in a rush and scramble out from underneath the covers, then throw them back as far as I can. Farther than I need to. Almost to the foot of the bed.
There is nothing on the sheets.
There should be blood on the sheets, shouldn’t there?
I climb back onto the bed and run my hands over the spot I’m sure I was…positioned.
There is nothing.
Did he bring a cloth with him? I remember feeling cloth toward the end, but that’s the only part of our encounter that’s foggy for me. I had felt so much pleasure I hardly knew what to do with myself. The only thing that made sense was to lie on the pillow and close my eyes, so I did, and now—
Low voices outside my door send me flying from the bed. I pull the covers up in a rush and get myself to the side of the mattress just as the door to my rooms opens and Alice and Blanche come in.
“Good morning, Princess,” Blanche says. “Did you get out of bed before you were ready?”
I rub my face, pretending to yawn. “Perhaps.”
“Do you need to sleep?” Alice asks. “We’ll prepare the curtains,” she says and gestures toward the balcony.
My heart hammers. Sure enough, that’s proof he’s come to see me last night. As if the ache between my thighs isn’t proof enough. A violent blush rises to my cheeks.
They aren’t ladies-in-waiting, but Alice and Blanche are the closest people to me in the palace. For a moment or two, I consider blurting out the whole story. If they knew about it, then there is no doubt it would be real.
But I can’t do that to them. The lack of blood on the sheets will delay the discovery, but it won’t delay it forever, and I knew that. The palace physician will check to see if I have been taken before the wedding. There is no way around that.
And to keep a secret from the king… I won’t put them in that position.
If he discovers that I am not a virgin—when he discovers it—there will be consequences. Everyone in all the lands will know that I let a man have me before I was wedded, but it’s not only that.