Unbetrothed (A 19th Century story)

Temptation

Malik seemed happy enough with that, and moved on to join Alexanders conversation.

I took a long drag of wine to which my mother's eyes flashed at how improper I was acting. I was just ready to get to bed and call it a night. The idea of them knowing I'd resigned to my room to escape them bothered me less now, and I was almost tempted to feign that headache after-all.

Dessert came and went, along with wine after wine. My glass never seemed to reach empty.

"So, Miss Daphne, any potential suitors?" I was pulled from my daydream-like state by Mr. Morton, a balding man with the same pale skin as Dante.

The question made me nauseous but I didn't let it show. I couldn't help but notice how silent the table had become, and how piercing Dante's gaze was in my peripheral.

"I honestly haven't been looking—"

"What Daphne means to say is that there are far too many to choose just one!" My mother interrupted, and I allowed her to bullshit on my behalf.

Of course I had many potential suitors, but I cared for them not. I had no interest in marrying, especially when the choice was not so much mine. In fact, there was only one way in which men tormented me—and I don't mean the way Dante, Isaiah and Malik did—through my own curiosity. For I was as human as the next girl, with urges, and desire as strong as I assumed a males are. I'd only seen few sights that captured my interest, but I couldn't help but watch the way some lesser-off folk worked in the fields. The sun illuminating the sweat that clung to their defined backs. The way their muscles contracted, and demanded my gaze.

I'd even walked into the wrong building one night, finding myself in the entrance to a brothel, and the way those men moved, the way they appeared and disappeared; strong, long and thick, clung with me.

I'd touched myself that night, wondering endlessly how something like that would feel to experience. Of course I was to be celibate until my husband, but I found myself tempted at times, to disguise myself and reenter that strangely transfixing building.

The revisited memory of the hard slapping of skin on skin, the hunger from the man's eyes, and moans of pleasure from the woman's set my heartbeat off, and I shifted in my seat, eerily aware of how my chest squeezed against my corset, and how my cheeks felt too warm to be unnoticeable.

Dante was watching me with curious eyes, and they drifted from my face to my chest—my erratic breathing obvious—to my face again.

"Oh look, you're flustered again. What was it this time? Were you imagining me?"

My anger and embarrassment at his assumption, and near-prediction only caused the rosiness to double.

"No!"

"Well, you were certainly imagining someone."

"Of no value."

Dante's eyes widened slightly as if in realisation and I wasn't comfortable with the way his lips turned into a smirk.

"Or...something."

"You're wrong." He was not. "But keep being inappropriate and see where it gets you."

"Oh you're delicious when you become provoked."

"Be quiet, Dante."

Isaiah rolled up his sleeves and placed his bulky, veined arms on the table. My eyes stayed a moment too long and Dante chuckled under his breath.

"Oh this is delightful," he commented.

"What is?"

Dante leaned forward and lowered his voice so that only I would hear.