slowly make their way up to my lips.
My mouth opens and our tongues intertwine. To get past it, I imagine that he is someone else.
I imagine that I'm kissing Henry. But then he pulls away.
"I can't wait until tonight when we can finally be together,” he whispers into my ear, making my skin crawl.
20
Aurora
Despite everything that I have thought about during our engagement, for some reason I haven't given sex much consideration.
It wasn't until we were on the dance floor that I realized that I should take more initiative in order to have more control of this aspect of my life. But then when Franklin whispered those words into my ear, whatever initiative I wanted to take suddenly dissolved.
All I wanna do is run away from here. I don't want to be with him and I don't want him to touch me.
It's not that he isn't attractive, he is, it's just that this whole arrangement makes me sick to my stomach.
Still, I said that I would marry him and there are certain expectations that come with that.
Of course, I can fight him on it, but that would just make him more suspicious of my actions. If I want him to trust me and if I want him to let his guard down, then I have to have a good time with him.
I don't see Henry much after that. He disappears somewhere with Chelsea's hand around his waist and I am only left to wonder what they are doing tonight.
He doesn't know about my arrangement and he believes that I am actually with Franklin because I love him. I know that he doesn't have those strong feelings for Chelsea, not yet, but that's not gonna stop him from going to bed with her.
We are no longer together and yet the only thing I can think of is how long it will take for me to spend the night with Franklin.
I follow Franklin up to the penthouse, fifty floors above the engagement party. He has rented the whole upper floor, and it consists of about seven bedrooms. We have it for the night, or for however long we want to be here.
“Did you have a good time?” Franklin asks.
He pours himself a nightcap of a glass of whiskey and asks if there's anything that I want. I go to the huge walk-in refrigerator and grab an orange. I pour myself a glass of water and peel the citrus very slowly.
Despite all the food and the hors d'oeuvres that have been circling the place, I haven't had much to eat and my mouth salivates.
"Are you hungry?” he asks.
“Yeah, I haven't had much to eat.”
“Well, help yourself to anything in there or, if you want, I can even whip you up something.’
“You?" I ask
“Yes, I actually am quite good at cooking."
I laugh.
"You don't believe me?” he asks.
I shake my head and bite into the first slice.
“I guess I'll have to show you one of these days,” he says. “I don't even have a personal chef at home. I like cooking so much.”
I feel my eyebrows raising to the middle of my forehead. Not having a personal chef is practically unheard of in our circles. I didn't even know how to make an omelet until I went to college.
“I guess there's a lot I don't know about you,” I admit.
“Actually, you don't know the first thing about me. And I don't know the first thing about you. I thought that maybe we could talk a little bit and learn a few things.”
I wrap my orange in a paper towel and bring it over to the oversized mid-century modern couch, overlooking the New York skyline.
I sit down and curl my feet up underneath my butt and invite him to take the seat next to me.
“What else don't I know about you?” I ask.
“There was a girl I loved once," he says without missing a beat. “I was fifteen years old, she was sixteen, and she was my first love. We talked about getting married, if you can believe that. We were stupid little kids and yet she was the only thing that made any sense to me.”
I lean against the back of the couch and wait for him to continue. I've never seen this side of him before. I don't think many people have.
“To cut a long story short, she died,” he says, looking down at his hands and rubbing his thumb against his index finger.
“She died?” I gasp. “How?”
“In a car accident. It was completely