Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,49
I answered in equal decibel.
For a moment, we were all quiet.
“It’s not like I’m doing anything else with my time,” I continued. “If I don’t do this, if I don’t push myself, I’ll never grow. I’ll never change. I’ll be alone forever. Tommy has offered me a way out, and I’m taking it.”
The teakettle whistled, easing the tension with distraction.
Rin covered my hand with hers. “Put that way, it’s hard to feel anything but proud of you.”
“I agree,” Katherine said as she poured. “I didn’t consider that this could be an advancement for you. Getting married was bold. Maybe a bit of an overcorrection, but I’m proud of you, too.”
Val folded her arms, but she was smiling. “I’m still wondering what you’re going to do about your hymen.”
Laughter barked out of us.
“Are you sure you still have one?” Katherine asked.
“Oh, I’m sure,” I said wryly.
“Listen, getting tutored in sex and dating was the best thing to ever happen to me. That’s basically what you’re doing, right? Are you going to have sex with him? Let him teach you the ways of the world?” Val asked with a waggle of brows.
My cheeks warmed. “Of course not.”
They gave me a dubious look.
“I’ll admit,” I started when no one spoke, “he’s probably the perfect male specimen, but I refuse to sleep with a man I’m not with. I want the first time to be special and with a man I care about.”
Katherine’s face flattened. “Oh, special like your first kiss? You know, the one splashed all over Page Six?”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s different. That was fake.” I kept the kiss that happened after the wedding to myself. “If I sleep with him, won’t I fall in love with him? Isn’t that a thing that happens with virgins? I’ll get my heart-feelings all mixed up with my vagina-feelings and end up getting hurt simply because I don’t know the difference between the two.”
Katherine eyed me. “Who’s to say he won’t fall for you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. We have nothing in common.”
“Untrue,” Katherine said flatly. “You love books, and you’re both writers.”
“I write blog posts, not fiction, and love of books isn’t enough to make people fall in love.”
Val reached for her phone. “Relationships have been built on less. Plus, that chapel kiss looked a hundred percent authentic.” She swiped, typed, and turned her phone in display.
I threw my hands in front of me and closed my eyes. “Ahh! I swore I wouldn’t look!”
Val huffed and batted my hands away, thrusting her screen into my space. “Oh, stop it. Just look at this.”
I cracked one lid, then the other, leaning in with rising wonder and emotion.
There we were, Tommy and me under the ivy arch, hands joined, him in his inky-black suit and me in the floating lace and tulle I’d decided I loved very much. The light was soft and golden, the shadows deep.
But what struck me most—in truth, it emptied my lungs and lit a fire in my heart—was our faces, his turned down, mine turned up. We gazed at each other like lovers. I could see our nerves, see our hopes and fears. I knew the truth of those emotions, the root of them. But to anyone else, we would have looked lovesick and full of bliss, our fear strictly the swiftness of our marriage.
She swiped, showing me the photo of the kiss, and I nearly slid out of my chair and melted into a puddle in the floor.
His hands holding my face, his lips capturing mine, my body against his. I was in his arms, my face soft, everything about me submitting to him. The way he held me was as one might hold something delicate and precious, something to protect and to cherish. I could recall every single sensation, but coupling that with the vision of us was too much to bear.
When I sighed again, it was full of wishes and dreams for a future that didn’t exist. It was perfect, the picture of what I’d dreamed of since I was a little girl. A fairy tale, romantic and utterly fabricated.
“There’s no danger of either of us falling in love,” I said with certainty.
Katherine made a derisive noise.
“Okay, there’s no danger of him falling in love. He’s been in dozens of pretend relationships. He knows exactly how to sell his feelings. They’re not real. He’s had more practice than any of us have had in real relationships.”
“I mean, that’s not saying much,” Val said. “But kissing