Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“Wilhelm?”
Oh, how I wanted her to moan my name.
“This is why they do not want you to marry me. I am not at all a true gentleman. I am very comfortable breaking rules. That makes me reckless. No good parent wants a reckless man for their daughter.”
“You agree with them,” she whispered.
“I understand them. And if I were a better man, I’d listen to them. I’d stay away from you, and let you marry some unbelievably boring lord. But I am selfish, and I want you as my wife, too.” I did not think I could be happy married to anyone else but her. “So I am going to take you as mine…just not here, I am not that senseless. I do hope, for the sake of your feelings, that they will come to terms with us eventually.”
“What if they don’t?” she asked as I helped her lower the skirt of her dress.
“If they love you, and I know they do, they will. And I will do my best to win them over.”
She smiled. “If my father sees us like this, if he knew what we had just done, I do not believe it would help your cause.”
“Do you even know what we just did?” I mused.
“We kissed?”
“We went very close to going far beyond a simple kiss,” I replied, lifting her palm to my lips. I already missed the feeling of her body. “And it is your fault for tempting me so, with such great beauty.”
“Is that sarcasm?” She glared at me and I found the expression humorous.
“It’s truth with a hint of teasing.”
“Do not tease me!” she said.
“I fear I will not be able to comply with that order in the slightest. I greatly enjoy teasing you.” I kissed her cheek before reaching down and lifting her forgotten sketchbook.
“Wait, no—”
“I am sure it is no worse than what I drew,” I said, flipping through the pages to see that she had drawn caricatures of all her family. Her little sister Abena she’d drawn as a real squirrel. Then her mother, a giant marching around small people; her sister Aphrodite, sitting big-headed in front of a broken mirror; several other people as well. And when I flipped to the end, there was me with horns, hunched over a woman begging in the woods, the words The Prince of Rakes above us in Latin. I just glanced up at her.
“In my defense,” she snatched the sketchbook back, looking away, “I drew that before I met you again.”
“You wish me not to tease you, yet you mock me?”
“I never said I was not slightly hypocritical.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “This is one of the reasons I desire to marry you. You are a very bad lady as well.”
“I am not bad! You are not allowed to call your future wife bad!”
“What am I to call you when you draw me like this then?”
“I do not know. I will come up with something, though.”
“Very well. Take your time on that while you hurry and change. My aunt is waiting for us.”
“Why?” she asked as she held on to my hand while I helped her up from the ground.
“Why else but to announce our successful engagement…should you still want it?”
“Yes! Give me a moment, I will be right out.” She ran from me back toward the stairs. Part of me wondered…would she have objected to me taking her here of all places? She seemed—unbothered by it. Or maybe I was just insanely desperate for her to want me as much as I wanted her.
There was so much to learn between us, and I was excited for it. Which was why I had to ignore her parents’ feelings on this. But part of me worried they would find a way to force her from me, or worse, she would grow despondent from their lack of care.
Once again, for her sake only, I truly regretted my past. I even regretted striking my father, because had I not done those things, had I been honorable and gentlemanly, they would never have objected to me.
Then again, if I were honorable and gentlemanly, I would never have been here, or met her.
So maybe all of this was fate.
Hathor
My heart was drumming again, and my lips were now buzzing. It was just like before. When his lips were on mine, it burned in a sweet way. Like ice cream that didn’t melt, but tasted delicious on the way down your throat. That didn’t make sense, but I could not describe it otherwise, and truthfully, I was more interested in experiencing it again. The way he held me tightly to him as if all the world could fall away but he’d never release me. I missed his arms. I missed his lips. I—I wanted to do more. I wish we had done more.