Chapter Twenty-One Lila #2
I laid on the examination table, realizing to my chagrin there were stirrups on either side of it. I pressed my thighs together tightly. I didn’t want to be touched. To be seen. To be prodded like an animal.
It was the absence of Tiernan that made me realize I trusted him more than I cared to admit. Not with my heart, or with my happiness, but with my body. It was more than I could say about any man other than my brothers.
The door opened and Tiernan stepped back inside. I quickly swathed an arm over my breasts and pressed a hand to my groin to hide myself. Despite my mortification, I was relieved to have him back. He closed the door and swiveled my way, his gaze landing on my exposed skin.
The ice in his pupil snuffed, replaced with something else. Heated and urgent. It was the first time he looked…bothered. By something. By someone.
“What’s this?” His lips moved around a tight jaw. His gaze was trained hard on my face, refusing to travel lower.
I tossed him an incredulous glare that said, What does it look like? I’m waiting for my examination.
He pressed his lips together, and I had a horrible, devastating feeling he was suppressing a laugh. The door opened a crack again, and he turned around, slamming it shut.
What was happening?
Panicked, I scooted to the edge of the table, watching as he ate the space between us with one step. His palms were splayed where I could see them, lifted in surrender.
“Not gonna touch you without permission.”
Why would he need to touch me at all?
Oh, God. The gown was the other way around, wasn’t it? My face flamed cherry-red, down to the tips of my ears.
“Help?” he offered.
I nodded. My ears were on fire.
“I’ll have to touch you.”
My heart nearly raced out of my chest. I jerked my chin in a second nod.
He grabbed me by the waist and lowered me to the floor with gentleness that made me question if he touched me at all.
Shame swirled in my stomach. I was humiliated and mortified.
“Close your eyes if it’s too much.”
He reached for the tied strings at my front, tugging them free without touching my skin.
The heat of his body, of the masculinity he radiated in electric pulses, made my nipples pucker.
They stood on end, pink, sharp, and needy.
So needy. It felt like his body spoke to mine in a language only they understood.
I fought the urge to press against him, to lean my body against his.
I worried if he touched me somewhere, anywhere, I’d combust. It felt like I was on the verge of experiencing something big and foreign and exciting.
His expression remained inscrutable as he slid the sleeves off my shoulders.
The soft caress of the air between us made my stomach dip and my nipples harden even more.
They now grazed the expensive fabric of his dress shirt.
Gasping, I covered them with my hands. I stared at my feet to hide my blush.
What was wrong with me? Why was my body doing this?
My husband clasped my chin, tilting my head up so I could see him.
“It’s normal.” His neck strained with veins I hadn’t seen there before. “Your nipples will go down in a sec.”
I stood completely naked before him. The air buzzed and sizzled with an energy that bound us together, vining us in invisible ropes.
I didn’t know what was happening to me, because suddenly, I wanted him to hug me. To kiss me. Show me how to order things from the internet. Take me to see sunsets.
There seemed to be an increasing number of reasons why I should reveal my secret to Tiernan, and none at all why I should keep hiding.
And if he’d want to have sex with me? Maybe it wouldn’t be so awful. If sex really was terrible, wouldn’t mankind be extinct? It seemed to run contradictory to the foundations of civilization.
Tiernan twisted the gown to the other side and covered my chest and stomach. He turned me around and secured the strings tightly around my back. Paused. Took one, deep, enormous breath I could feel in my own lungs, like he was gathering every atom of self-control in his body.
Then I felt him step away.
I scurried back to the examination table, and he opened the door, gesturing for the doctor to enter. It was a woman. She had gray short hair, thick glasses, and a stern face. She asked me if I approved of my husband being present during the examination.
I nodded.
Tiernan sat beside me, readjusting his slacks. He kept folding his legs and changing positions in his seat, like he had ants in his pants. He refused to look at me.
My anxiety notched up another level when the doctor looked over the chart my husband filled out on my behalf. I ping-ponged my gaze from her to him when they spoke.
“I understand Mrs. Callaghan is nonverbal?” she asked.
“Mm.”
Was helping me really putting him in such a sour mood he couldn’t even speak?
“Will you be communicating on her behalf?”
“Uh-huh.”
Well, hardly, seeing as he refused to even speak. My God, was touching me really so appalling to him?
The look on the doctor’s face suggested she was appalled by the idea he had impregnated me, and she made no effort to conceal it.
“You indicated in the form that her last menstrual cycle ended six weeks ago.” She raised her fist to her mouth, probably clearing her throat.
“Eight days before our wedding.”
That wasn’t true. It had been at least thirteen weeks. But my father and Tiernan must’ve figured out a timeline to coincide with our wedding.
The obstetrician placed the clipboard on a counter, removing her reading glasses and cleaning the lenses with the edge of her white robe.
“In that case, I recommend a vaginal ultrasound. It’s unlikely we’ll see anything substantial through an abdominal ultrasound, and I’d like to check for a heartbeat and get your estimated due date. ”
“She’ll get an abdominal check,” he replied, unblinking.
“That’s not advisable at this stage of the pregnancy. Besides, she’ll have to endure those further into the pregnancy, when we check her cervix for dilate—”
“Should I go ask for a doctor who speaks English?” Tiernan threw his thumb toward the door. “I said nobody fucking gives her a vaginal check.”
Feeling my cheeks heating, I put a hand on his arm. His gaze jolted, meeting mine. I offered him a brief nod.
She was right. I was going to have to endure this sooner or later.
His jaw was so tense I was afraid his teeth were about to snap, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was as uncomfortable with the situation as I was.
“Fine,” he bit out, still staring me down. “But you operate under the assumption she’s a virgin.”
The doctor offered him a withering look. “Do you take me for an idiot?”
“Absolutely. Case in point, you’re arguing with me.” He shook my touch off him. “I’m watching you, Doc.”
Tiernan didn’t care about me. I had to constantly remind myself of that. But ever since I stitched him up, I seemed to have gained his respect. There was an unspoken agreement between us, that we’d look after each other, at least physically.
After a few more questions, Dr. Lockerby took out something that looked like a curling iron and put a huge condom on it. She slathered it with a clear gel. Her lips moved, but I was too flustered to follow them. I pressed my knees together harder, scooting up the examination table.
No.
No. No. No. No. No.
“We need five minutes,” my husband announced.
The doctor stood up and shuffled out of the room, looking none too pleased about the delay.
I cast my tear-filled gaze at his face. My heart was pounding so hard it thrummed between my ears.
“You don’t have to do this.”
I shook my head. It needed to be done.
“No one can hurt you anymore, Gealach. Remember that.”
Taking a deep breath, I stretched my open palm in his direction. He hesitated before lacing our fingers together, giving me a firm squeeze. His skin was rough and coarse, hot. Still staring at me, he opened his mouth to call the doctor back.
Dr. Lockerby returned. I allowed her to slip my feet into the stirrups and buried my face in Tiernan’s neck. He smelled so good, I felt heady and drunk. The doctor’s device poked at my entrance, cold and foreign, and I gulped down my hiccups, determined not to cry.
The device slowly slipped inside me, penetrating my sensitive flesh. It was met with resistance. My muscles clamped around it, pushing it back, refusing to surrender.
It burned so badly I stopped breathing altogether.
After a few seconds, Tiernan nudged me from his neck and pinched my chin with his fingers, looking me in the eye. “Hey. The doctor asked that you try to relax.”
Easier said than done, but I nodded, my eyes clinging to his face desperately.
I sucked in a breath, feeling full and stretched and uncomfortable.
Pressing my lips together to suppress a scream, I focused on the hard planes of my husband’s face, trying to picture him doing this to me with his penis.
From the glimpse I’d caught the night he was with Becky, his thing was the size of a Dyson Airwrap.
“Release those muscles for me, Lila.” His thumb stroked my cheek. Soft, soft, soft.
For me.
My muscles uncurled of their own accord, accepting the device. Dr. Lockerby slipped in a few more inches.
He held my stare, and when I remembered he always seemed to read my mind, I blushed from the crown of my head to my little toes, because I imagined him there instead of the device.
And…I wasn’t repulsed by it. Not at all.
Tiernan scrubbed his thumb back and forth along my knuckles, using his other hand to smooth away flyaways from my forehead. “That’s it. Good girl,” he fussed. “I knew you could take it. You’re doing so good. I’m proud of you.”
He gave me more words in a span of two minutes than he did the entire duration of our marriage. And I basked in them like a flower in the sun. Something behind my breastbone fluttered. A combination of desire, warmth, and pride. I swallowed down a small moan of pleasure.
My body squeezed back at the device, but no longer because it didn’t want it there.