Page 38 of Honey Cut
That you will destroy me? Yes.
But, of course, there is one very sadly handsome reason why things are different than they were three years ago.
“You said you’ve been lonely but alive,” I say, as Mark reluctantly pushes a knight into a useless spot. “What about Tristan? I know that he was…something to you. Were you lonely even with him?”
“Are you asking because you’re jealous, Isolde?”
“Of course I’m jealous. He’s beautiful.” I move my next piece, my queen properly in the mix now, going for the kill. I hope I sound objective about Tristan and not like I think about his beauty constantly.
“He is beautiful, isn’t he? A beautiful man.” Mark fends off my first attack, taking my first bishop. “You should see how he fucks, because it’s truly remarkable. He loses himself to his lust, and all of that obsession of his is bent on you, the one person he’s made an idol of.”
It’s shocking how bluntly he says it, how nakedly he admits to having had sex with his bodyguard. And I shouldn’t be shocked—I didn’t expect him to deny it or anything—but for him to be so explicit…and so accurate. Because, yes, Tristan is truly something when he fucks. I felt, for that brief handful of days, what it was to be his idol. I can never forget it.
I move again with my second bishop.
“Of course,” Mark adds, “all of that is over now. It’s just you and me.”
“Just you and me,” I repeat.
A man willing to set aside an entire world just to play with you.
I can barely concentrate. I’m not sure exactly what piece I move next.
“Faithful until the end, my wife. Isn’t that right?” he asks softly. And then: “Checkmate.”
I look down at the board and realize my king is completely fucked. While I was busy clawing my heart back into my chest, he was reclaiming the game.
I may be competitive, but I try to be a gracious loser too. I set my king down on its side.
“What reward would you like?” I ask. There is no hope for my voice right now. It is full of breath and trembling.
Mark leans back in his chair, takes a long drink, draining the last of his glass.
“A kiss.”
A kiss. Won fairly, but stillprivately. This has nothing to do with selling our marriage. Even though I haven’t won the match, I’m winning the larger game, and yet I can’t even feel relieved right now. I still feel flung out to sea by the force of his admission.
“Okay, then,” I say faintly. “You can have your kiss.”
He stands, unfolding into a narrow-waisted, leanly muscled stretch of rumpled tuxedo, and offers me his hand. I allow him to pull me to my feet.
“What were you going to ask for?” he murmurs, his fingers still wrapped around mine. “If you’d won?”
I could have asked for so many things. Answers, mainly. Like if he regrets giving Tristan up for me. Like why no one but his sister knows that he was married before.
But I’d settled on something else instead, something that I had hoped would eventually lead to answers anyway.
“A real wedding night,” I tell him. “The two of us, together.”
I don’t think he was expecting that. “And you really wanted this? Enough to consider it a prize?”
He’s trying to discern if this is ambition or abnegation again, and I don’t want him probing into my motives. And anyway, Idowant it. Surely he must know the effect he has on me? That this shadows-and-glass girl wants all the depravity he has to offer?
“Yes, sir,” I say, and his pupils spread.
“Even after the things I’ve just told you? They do not paint me to be a good man or a good husband.”
“Even after those things. Especially after those things.”
