Chapter 30
Iwaited for Mr. Evergreen near the foot of my bed. The door opened, he stepped in, and he locked it as soon as it shut. I exhaled. Then inhaled directly after. I held my hands.
“You are a vision. A man’s religion in that gown,” he said.
I bit my lip. “You look dashing as well.”
He came forward and then, tentatively, as if he were nervous himself, he brought his hands down my ribs until they met my hips. “I’ve dreamed of this night since I was first a man. My heart is racing.”
He tried and then failed to lift me. My heels left and met the hardwood. He wheezed sharply. I shook my head.
“Stop hurting yourself,” I begged. “Please. Let me.”
“Let you what? Lift me?” There was humor in his voice.
“No. Let me take care of you for once,” I said. I disrobed his jacket, then began to work the buttons of his vest.
He breathed. “Svana. It just caught me off guard. I can–”
“Shh,” I said. “I am your Queen and you are my Knight. Yes?”
“No.” He undid the ribbon of my mask, pulling it free and tossing it somewhere else.
“No?” I asked.
He nodded, more confident. “No. You are my Svana and I am your Willem. There are no titles here. We left the game, remember? Here, in this room tonight, it’s us. Just us, and all the world must wait outside that door while we find each other..”
I touched his lips. “Everything you say is so romantic. I can’t even begin to imagine the ways you’ve charmed women like this. But I don’t even care. I am so happy to be in your light.”
“My words are only for you,” he replied. “Yes. I have a past but I’m rarely poetic with anyone else. I don’t have to be. Don’t want to be.”
“I don’t believe it,” I told him. “It comes too naturally.”
He smirked.
“Take off your mask,” I said.
He removed it without hesitation, eyes dusted with sheets of gold from the candlelight.
“I like your theory. Here, you are my Willem, and I am your Svana,” I said. “Your Swan.”
Mr. Evergreen kissed me.
“I want you to undress,” I said. “Take off your shirt.”
“My shirt?”
“Yes.”
“As you command it,” he said. He pulled the vest away, then discarded the shirt beneath, until only the innermost layer of cloth remained. When he pulled the last of the silk over his head, I watched his muscles flex with the motion.
“What next, my love?” he asked. “Shall I spin for you?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “No. Your trousers next,” I said.
His tongue passed over his lip. “My trousers? Not your gown?”
“Willem… I… I never get to see you. I never get to touch you,” I said. “I want to see and touch you.”
His expression softened. “I’m not… used to that.
” He stepped closer, sweeping my hair from my shoulder and softly reintroduced it to his mouth.
We wove together, into a singular stride, and stumbled to the bed, falling onto the mattress.
Evergreen climbed over me, tracing the edge of my jaw with his thumb and I looked up at him like it would quell my body from its deepest fears forever.
“I don’t purposely withhold you from touching me, Swan. I just live to pleasure you, is all.”
“I want us to be equal in our pleasure,” I said.
“Yes, but…I’m not used to women…. to allowing women that.” His hand moved to my chest, but he went lower to kiss my stomach over the dress.
“Equal in everything,” I added. “I’m yours, my Willem. I have always been yours. I want you to have me.” When his lips found my inner thigh, I begged. “Please.”
He rose, taking my hand and helping me stand. His legs hung off the bed on either side of my shape. He spun me, fingers finding a toying with the dress’ binding.
“Svana,” he said, then nothing.
“I want you.” I paused. “I want you to have me. Not Sameer. And no one else.”
“Not Sameer,” he said. His voice was barely audible. He pulled the lace through the first loop. Then he pulled the second, then the third.
I went on. “I want it to matter. I want it to mean something. I want it to be with a man for whom I… I bear deep affection. It's not to hurt your friend. It’s not to be malicious. It’s… it’s to be selfish, really. I selfishly want you to deflower me.”
The lace went through the next loop and the next, and then the corset broke apart. His hand crept the distance from where he’d started, to my spine’s lowest point, and then his lips pressed into my skin in the other direction, until his voice was hot at my ear.
“You are so beautiful, Svana,” he said. “How could I ever deserve such beauty? Such a gift?”
“Do you not want it?” I asked nervously.
He lost a breathy laugh, tugging at my gown and peeling it down. He cupped my breasts and pulled me to his body.
“I want it. I want you,” he promised. “I’ve never wanted another person so much before. I’ve memorized every inch of your body. I’ve longed for it. I am simply determining if I can restrain myself from corrupting you or not, or if this is the end of the line for me.”
“Don’t. Restraint is the very opposite of what I want from you,” I said. I moaned quietly as he caressed my chest. “Willem…”
“We can’t take it back once we cross this line,” he said. He sucked at the nape of my shoulder then drew me to the bed again, this time to face me on our sides.
“I want to cross that line–every line with you,” I told him.
“I always have. I, Willem, I…” I covered my heart.
“I have spent my entire upbringing saving myself for a marriage I didn’t want and didn’t choose.
In Oreia, a man must first declare himself to a lady, and only if she agrees, is he permitted to offer her more.
I may be royalty, but I am an Oreian woman.
I should allow myself the same freedom that we impart to our people.
I want and I need this choice to be mine and mine alone. ”
He nodded. “I understand,” he said. He brushed my hair from my face. “I can give you that.”
“Everyone tells me that virginity is a gift–that is why it’s so coveted, but, well, if it is such a prize, then it is my prize to give, and I should be the decider of who it is bestowed upon.
I don’t want to give myself to someone who does not see that.
Who maintains his own affair for years despite knowing he was to marry me.
I don’t want to give myself to someone who I don’t want.
No, not when I have waited my whole life for you. ”
“I want you,” he said, whispering. “I want this. I just want you to be sure.”
“I am.” I smiled hopefully. “I am so very sure, Willem. As evil as she was, Hellveig was right in every way; had you remained in King’s Land I would have let you have me. I would have begged you to marry me. I would have…I would have accepted your declaration…had it come. She was right to worry.”
He closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, quicker. “That’s too much to say. I–”
“No,” he said. He met my eyes. “No, it’s not too much to say. It’s everything I want to hear. It’s just… You’ve never done this before and I want this to be special for us both. And I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“Why would you hurt me?” I asked. “I’m instigating it. I think I know what I’m doing.”
He paused. “Physically, love,” he said.
“Physically? ...Isn’t sex supposed to feel amazing? People live and die for it,” I said. “They literally start wars. They risk their careers for affairs.”
“Ha!” He ran his hand along my hair. “Yes, they do, don’t they? But you’ve never laid with a man before. It’s different than enjoying his hand or a bedpost. The first time, I’ve heard, is not always pleasant so quickly. Sometimes it might hurt. It might take time before it’s better.”
I rolled my eyes but the peak of my breast vanished between his lips. Desperately, I raked my hand into his mane.
“That feels good,” I whispered. I knotted my fingers as he tugged it with his teeth. “You’re always so good to me. I have no concerns of pain.”
He took the other next.
“And that, I-uh-”
I extinguished whatever sound I had meant to give to him but Cyrus was proud of it. He continued, softly and intentionally down until my navel. Then he went lower, still.
“You always touch me,” I whined. “I want to touch you.” I gasped as my legs went over his back.
“Soon,” he muttered. “Right now, I’m kissing you, and I enjoy your taste far too deeply to hurry.”
His words should not have struck me as they did, but I was unmistakably their casualty. ‘If he is a gentleman, he will kiss you,’ belonged to someone I did not wish to think about while a man licked me so intimately and spoke of tastes.
“Willem?” I asked, sensations building.
I wanted him to know how I felt. I wanted to conjure the three little words I had associated with him my whole life. I wanted to feel the relief that evicting them from their prison inside my mind would bring, but I was scared. I could not force them out. I worried he would not say them back.
His hand was coarse and hot against my skin.
It slid around my rear, shepherding me deeper into his mouth and soon thinking became a troubling task.
The feeling that replaced it was all consuming.
He took me closer and closer to the edge with every second and as I was about to sputter whatever bleak attempt of words I could manage, I broke like the ocean into a siege of waving senses.
When it was over, I sank into the sheets.
Willem navigated through my trembling knees to touch my face.
“I can’t breathe,” I said. “And you are still too dressed.”
“Patience is a virtue, Princess,” he said playfully.
“I am patient!” I groaned.
He bit the crook of my neck, lightly, then sent me back into the pillows. His hand returned to my sex and I remembered the altar and the way he’d made me see stars. He sat up, leaning onto his knees and bringing my hand to the waist of his pants.
“Are you absolutely certain you want to do this?” he asked, guiding me to his arousal.