“Water.”

Did someone put sand in my mouth? I moved my tongue around, trying to produce some sort of moisture. I felt awful. So awful that the deady-bones—as we in the funeral industry respectfully called our deceased clients—probably had a better pallor to their skin. What the hell happened to me last night?

“Steady.” I didn’t recognise the deep voice at first. It spoke quietly somewhere to the side of me, and felt kind of good in contrast to the screaming in my brain. When I forced my eyes to open, memories came flooding back to me.

“Oh. That’s right.” I closed my eyes again. “I’m married.”

Sam chuckled. “Why don’t you drink this? I don’t have any painkillers, I’m sorry.”

“There should be some in my handbag,” I rasped, my throat scraping with each word. I took the offered glass and sipped at the water. At first my stomach refused, but I persisted and got a few mouthfuls down. At least my mouth felt better.

“Here.” Sam returned from my bag and handed me two Panadol.

“Thank you.” I took them and swallowed some more water before he took the glass from my hand. “What happened last night?” I croaked, lying back on the soft pillows and pressing my hands against my throbbing temple. The movement caused the sheets to rub against my body. My naked body.

“What?” I grabbed the sheet and peeked beneath it. I was starkers. Naked as the day I was born. “Did… did we, um…?” I didn’t feel any different down there, but still… no clothes. I met Sam’s eyes and cleared my throat. “Why am I naked?” I clutched the sheet beneath my chin to preserve what little modesty I had left.

“We didn’t consummate our vows, if that’s what you’re asking. You drank way more than you could take, then threw up on your dress and passed out while I was cleaning you up. It was easier to put you to bed naked than to try and dress an adult-sized rag doll.”

Oh dear. I dragged the sheet over my face, my whole body burning in humiliation. Just once I’d love not to feel so stupid. Insipid. Ashamed.

“I ruined our wedding night,” I groaned. “You should just leave me here to die alone. It’s what I deserve. Marry your pretty blonde girlfriend instead. She’ll make you happy and probably manage to keep the towels even in the bathroom.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Sam pried the sheet from my grip so he could see my face, laughter in his voice as he spoke. “There’s no pretty blonde girlfriend, Alesha. And I don’t know what even towels are. Does that mean they’re folded the same?”

“It’s when the designs match when they’re hanging on the rack.”

“Why would anyone care about that?”

“Because everything is supposed to be perfect.”

Laughing through his nose, he placed his hand on the top of my hair, his thumb brushing the skin on my forehead as he shook his head. “You’re a little bit crazy, aren’t you?”

I pressed my lips together in a withering smile. “Sorry you married me yet?”

Still smiling, he shook his head. “Shockingly, no. Not yet. I’m kind of partial to blushing brunettes with no filter and gorgeous brown eyes.”

“You actually like that stuff about me?” My eyes about bugged out of my head. “Wait. You are talking about me, right?”

He laughed again. “Yes. I like you, peaches. I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I didn’t.”

Pressing up on my elbows, I sat up, keeping the sheet tight around my chest as a deep furrow etched between my brows. “But you haven’t even kissed me. Well, besides the wedding… and a few times on my forehead.”

Sitting back, he met my eyes with a serious expression. “You’re shy. I don’t want you to feel pressured.”

“Pressured?” I laughed. “I was given the choice to marry into your family or face the consequences. There isn’t much more pressure than that.”

“Precisely. That’s why I’m not going to force myself on you. As it is, you’re flipping between blurting whatever’s on your mind and cowering like someone hit you. Let’s spend time together and when the time is right, things between us will happen naturally.”

Things will happen naturally. My experience with the opposite sex was limited to a single awkward moment in the back of a car that happened over a decade ago while we were both so drunk we could barely string a sentence together. I didn’t have any experience within a relationship. I had no clue what to think when guys made comments like that. It sort of sounded like a stalling tactic or a brush-off to me. I mean, I was no expert, but what kind of a man didn’t want to have sex with a woman he was supposedly attracted to? He was either some sort of saint, which we both knew he wasn’t, or he was lying. I might’ve been naïve when it came to the inner workings of the male mind, but that didn’t mean I was stupid and would fall for any sort of line he fed me.

“I’m kind of partial to blushing brunettes with no filter and gorgeous brown eyes.” Right.

He couldn’t say he liked me in one breath then tell me he wanted to wait in the next. It felt like a paradox to me. If he didn’t want me, he’d just have to come out and be honest about it. That way I could put any hopes I had in a box inside my mind, lock it up tight and work with what was right in front of me. Honesty was the only real language I spoke and understood.

I took a deep breath, summoning all my courage so I could say what was on my mind. “I wouldn’t feel pressured,” I whispered, dropping my gaze so I didn’t have to see the reaction in his eyes. I had a horrible feeling he was going to laugh at me. He was so beautiful, and I was so basic.

There was a pause before he spoke, one that stretched far longer than I was comfortable with. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I looked back up and found him studying me intently.

“Have you ever been with a man before, peaches?”

My already crimson cheeks heated to a scarlet red. “I…I, um, sort of. Yes.”

“Sort of?”

“I’ve, um, I’ve fooled around. A little.”

“So, you’ve been kissed?”

“Yes.”

“Touched?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Um….”

“Your breasts?”

Swallowing, I nodded.

“Any lower?”

Our eyes locked as my heart stuttered in my chest. “I don’t want to have this conversation anymore,” I said in a rush, gathering the sheet around my body as I scrambled to get off the bed. The moment my feet hit the ground, I rushed for the bathroom, only to be jolted to a stop when the damn sheet wouldn’t disconnect from the bed. “Why won’t this work?” I growled, tugging harder and leaning back to put the weight of my body into it.

“Alesha. Stop.”

I continued growling and tugging.

“Alesha. It’s OK.”

“No.” Tug. “It’s.” Tug. “Not.” Rip. The sudden release of the sheet sent my body in a spin, my toes teetering like an uncoordinated ballerina before I lost my balance and landed on the hardwood floor with a thud.

“Ow.” I coughed, the air having been knocked from my lungs when I suddenly became horizontal. On the plus side, the ceiling was quite pretty.

“Can you breathe?” Sam’s beautiful head came into view as he stood over me, surveying the extent of my injuries.

“Yes,” I responded, digging my elbow into the floor so I could sit up.

“Whoa, whoa.” He quickly crouched beside me, his hands at my arm and my back to assist me. “Is your neck OK? Your back?”

I pulled away. “I’m fine. I’m just….” I groped for the sheet around my chest but only touched skin. “Sitting here with my tit out. Oh God, look away!” I placed one hand on the side of his face to push him away while the other hand adjusted the sheet.

“Peaches, there isn’t a single part of your body I didn’t get an eyeful of last night. And I’ve got to tell you, if I weren’t such a gentleman, I would’ve done a hell of a lot more than just look.”

“Maybe you should have. It’s what husbands do with their wives, isn’t it?”

He looked at me like I’d just spoken Klingon. “What? No. How were you raised? Husbands don’t fuck their unconscious wives, especially not when that wife is a virgin. There has to be consent, Alesha. Sex is something to be enjoyed by two people, not taken by one.” His entire face seemed upset with me. “No, Alesha. Just… no.”

Seeing his features scrunched up, directing his disgust towards me, caused my stomach to twist and lurch. Once again, my mouth had preceded my brain and I’d put my foot in it, but even worse, Sam just called me the V-word. How did he know?

“I need the bathroom,” I gasped, scrambling to my feet and rushing through the door. I had just enough time to slam it closed and lock it before I launched myself at the toilet and wretched into it. Everything was coming apart. He wasn’t supposed to know, wasn’t supposed to find out. It was embarrassing enough to be thirty-two and yet to be deflowered without having the one guy who was supposed to be obligated to do that deflowering find out and put the brakes on the physical side of our relationship. Does that mean he’s freaked out? Or that he thinks I’m a freak? I hated this, hated that I was so pathetic and so inexperienced and clueless and everything else that was wrong with me. I hated being me.

Just as I flushed, a light tap sounded on the door before Sam spoke through it. “I’m sorry, peaches. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

I stood in front of the mirror and splashed cold water on my pale face. I didn’t trust my mouth not to offend him again. It would be better if I just stayed silent.

“Are you OK in there?”

Silence.

“Alesha?”

“I’m fine.”

“Will you let me in?” When I didn’t respond, he let out a sigh. “Fine, we’ll do this through a locked door, then. What you said back there, about me… doing things to you while you were passed out drunk. I need you to understand that I would never touch you without your OK or do anything to you that you weren’t comfortable with. That’s not what I’m about. And I really hope you’ve never been treated that way yourself.”

“No,” I replied.

“No, what?”

“I’ve never been treated that way.” I’d never been treated any way. Drunken kisses and groping at my breasts were as far as it got before my date puked and passed out. That was the entirety of my sexual experience.

He breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good.”

Is it? As far as I was concerned, it was humiliating.

“How did you know?” I said over my shoulder.

“About what? You being a virgin?”

“Yes.”

“I had a fair idea, but you confirmed it last night.”

“I told you?” I had never told anyone. Not even Holland knew. It was my most closely guarded secret. I wasn’t even planning on telling Sam, figuring I’d just fake it until I didn’t have to anymore. What possessed me to blurt that information out?

“Yeah.” A slight chuckle bounced along with the word. “You kept slapping my hands away when I was undressing you.”

“Oh God. I want to crawl into a tiny hole and never come out again.”

He laughed more openly at that. “It wasn’t that bad. It was kinda adorable, actually.”

Adorable? Adorable? Kittens and puppies were adorable. Vomiting women, not so much.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK. I didn’t mind taking care of you.”

That wasn’t what I meant. “I’m sorry that I’m not the kind of woman you’re probably used to.”

“Alesha.” I could hear the pity in his voice by the way he drew my name out.

“I need to shower. I’ll meet you in the dining room for breakfast.”

He started to speak, but when I flipped the shower on, the pounding water drowned out his words, along with his pity for his thirty-two-year-old virgin bride.

I’m never going to be enough.