odor. A hum of virility, of power, radiates off of him, like a magnet that pulls at something inside of me.
Almost primal.
He slips into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and with a glance over my shoulder after him, I only just notice my stomach is clenched.
Plopping myself onto the chair beside the fire, I crack Pride & Prejudice open to the first page, eyes skating over the words, but not really absorbing them. I lift my gaze to the book on the shelf. The one with the erotic passage. After another quick glance toward the bathroom, I scamper across the room and swap novels, before I return to my seat.
Prior to my first time, I was always curious about the act of sex. How it’d feel. Who’d be my first. With the scarcity of women, our world has become somewhat infatuated with the act, everyone so driven to produce offspring that we’ve failed to recognize the emotions and pleasures that are meant to coincide with it. Pleasures that seemed to be far more celebrated when my mother was a young woman and books like these were prevalent.
The kind of titillation that, although I’ve never felt the things described in this book myself, come alive when I pick up where I left off.
As the image painted in words on the page unfolds inside my mind, I bite my lip, suddenly sensing the rough cotton of the robe against my nipples, the ache between my thighs.
I’ve never read anything like this before, the descriptions so delicious and vivid, I can practically taste them.
It brings to mind my first time with Will, how awkward and uncomfortable the whole experience was. How joyless and painful, only meant to defy those who sought to rob me of choice. I did love my friend dearly, but sex with him held nothing of the passion and ecstasy I’ve read in books.
The guilt of that has me closing the cover, and a horrific thought sweeps through me: that I’ll forever be haunted by that first experience. That every sexual encounter to come will be shadowed by my first, by the untimely death of my best friend. And the child. God, what if there really is a child inside of me? What I’ve always been told is an impossibility, suddenly possible. I hold a hand against my belly, trying to imagine it bloated with life. I try to imagine a life out here, running from Ragers and hiding from Marauders with a wailing baby cradled in my arms. I’d never survive this side of the wall, and therefore, any newborn of mine doesn’t stand a chance, either.
I have to return to Szolen. Back to a safe place, where this baby, if there even is one, isn’t at risk every moment of its life. If nothing else than for my friend, who will never get the opportunity to meet the life he might very well have fathered. I have to survive for the sake of this baby.
I think back to Will’s words, when he told me he didn’t want to live anymore. How those morose thoughts struck me with such grief and disappointment. How could he be so willing to give up?
I wonder if Titus saw relief in his eyes when he took hold of him. I wonder if he saw something I didn’t. Perhaps killing Will was an unspoken favor between them.
At the click of the door, I look up to see Titus emerge from the bathroom in nothing but a towel that’s too small to wrap completely around his lower half, with one whole thigh sticking out from it. Where scruffy unkempt hair once covered his face is now smooth and clean shaven, revealing the sharp angles of his jawline. It’s striking how much younger and unexpectedly handsome he looks. Like a completely different man. The sight of him sends a strange tickle to my chest.
“Can I get your help with something?” He isn’t a man accustomed to asking for assistance, given the way he can’t even look at me right now.
“Sure.”
At the jerk of his head, I set my book aside and follow him into the bathroom. On the sink, he’s laid out shaving items he must’ve scrounged from the cupboards, and a pair of scissors, which he hands to me.
“Have you cut hair before?”
“I have. My brother’s.” Over the years, I’ve grown quite good at it, even trimming my own, when necessary.
“Do what you have to. I prefer down to the skin.” Though, with