Page 102 of Devotion

Maybe it was a palace thing.

Maybe it was primarily stress relief for him, and now that he’s not constantly under that kind of pressure, he doesn’t need it like he did.

He’s almost forty-one years old. He’s not a young man anymore. Maybe his libido has waned back to more typical levels.

But men in their forties still like to have sex sometimes. At least, some of them do.

We’ve even mentioned having a family, but how are we ever going to do that if we don’t have sex?

And I thought he enjoyed being with me like that just because.

Could that have changed so drastically? So suddenly?

“What’s the matter, baby?” he murmurs, his hand cupping the back of my head. I never did my hair this morning, so it’s hanging loose down my back, spread out over both of us.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You were happy and now you’re not. You started thinking about something that upsets you.”

“How can you possibly know that? You can’t even see my face!”

“I can feel it in your body. Please tell me what you’re thinking about so I can fix it.”

“You can’t fix everything.”

“I know that. But I at least like to try. We’ve had this conversation before. Even if there’s nothing I’m able to do to make it better, I still need to know.”

I take a ragged breath and lift my head to meet his eyes. Then I just say it. “Do you not want to have sex with me anymore?”

He blinks. Then blinks again. Lifts his head with an astonished expression. “What?”

“We haven’t had sex. And I know it’s awkward at night with your parents in the house, but even today you haven’t—” I break off when a little sob lodges in my throat. Contorting my face to control it, I go on. “It’s okay if you don’t for some reason, but can we at least talk about it? Because I… I still really want to have sex with you.”

“Oh my God,” he breathes out in that voice he uses only when he’s emotionally overcome. “Of course I want to have sex with you! I’ve been feeling like I might explode for days, and there’s only so much of a release I can get by myself in the shower.”

I make a weird, choppy series of sounds, half laughing and half crying. “Then I don’t understand why?—”

“Because I’m scared!” he bursts out, interrupting my wobbly question. “Baby, I’m terrified. What we had in the palace feels… feels complicated for me. Worrisome and confusing and complicated. Sometimes I feel guilty. Because for a long time I might have been using?—”

“You were not using me! You were never using me!”

“Maybe not. But I’m not always sure. All I know is that I wanted you desperately. I needed you desperately. And for a long time I took without ever giving back.”

“But I told you?—”

“I know that’s what you wanted, but it still feels… fraught. To me. When I think about it.”

I’m breathing heavily through my nose as I prop myself above him and stare down at him. “So you don’t feel good about us being together?”

“I feel good about us togethernow! And I don’t want anything to change that or get in the way of it.”

“But you didn’t feel good about it back then?” I’m close to tears when it was the last thing I expected this afternoon. “I thought you… I thought you were happy back then too.”

“I was!” He’s taken my face in his hands the way he’s done so many times before. “I was happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Even in the beginning. But I also felt guilty about being so happy. I know you’ve explained it all, and I understood it. Back then it made sense to me. I promise I wasn’t wracked with guilt the whole time we were together. I believed you wanted what we had. But now that we’re so far away, it feels… it feels… different. And I wonder if I was fooling myself because I wanted you so much.”

He’s being nakedly honest. Completely sincere. If I wasn’t in such emotional upheaval by the topic, I’d be overwhelmed with how far he’s come in his relationship with me.

I take a minute to calm my mind and the flurry of feelings spinning inside me so I can respond to what he’s told me. “You weren’t fooling yourself. You were right back then when you grew to understand that I was giving you what I wanted to give. It wasn’t one-sided even at the beginning, and eventually what we had was fully mutual. Exactly like what we have now.”

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