Page 57 of Blue Moon

“But?”

“But what?”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“Not really? I just…I just have an issue. It’s totally a ‘me’ problem.”

“What sort of issue?”

“Do we have to discuss this? All I want is one day where I don’t have to think about the horrible stuff.”

“Moon, you’re worrying me.”

I tried to smile, but it didn’t come out right. “I love you, but I think that once you find out how messed up I am, it’s you who won’t want us to have a future.”

“You’re wrong there. Unless you confess to being a serial killer. You’re not a serial killer, are you?”

“I only killed that one person you already know about.” A hysterical giggle burst out of me. “That sounds pretty bad.”

“There’s nothing bad about defending yourself.” Ryder sighed. “And there’s nothing you could do or say that would make me walk away.”

“I can’t have sex,” I blurted.

“We’ll take things as slow as you want, I promise. I’m not expecting you to jump into bed with me. Naked, I mean. We can just carry on as we are for as long as you need, fully clothed.”

“No, you don’t get it. I literally can’t have sex. The man who…he broke something down there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that everything just locks up. My muscles, like, spasm or something.” Heck, this was mortifying. If I jumped off the building, would I die? Because that would be better than talking about my non-sex life with Ryder. Or maybe the heat burning up my cheeks would cause me to spontaneously combust? “Nothing’s going in there. Not a finger, not a tampon, nothing.”

Ryder was staring at me, and I squirmed in my seat.

And kept talking.

“So you see, this could never be a long-term thing. Men expect sex, I understand that, and what if you want children someday? I feel…I feel as if…as if I’m not a real woman anymore.”

Great, now I was crying. Ryder turned off the helicopter’s engine and unbuckled his seat belt, and I thought he was going to leave, but then he unclipped me too and dragged me into his lap.

“Moon, I’m not going anywhere. What kind of man would I be if I left over a medical issue?”

“A medical issue?”

“Well, yeah? I’m no doctor, but that’s what it sounds like to me.”

“Mom said it was all in my head.”

A low growl rumbled in his throat. “She knew about this, and she didn’t take you to a gynaecologist?”

I bit my lip. Of course she knew. Every fourth week, she’d thrown a hissy fit about my inability to wear a bathing suit. When I told her how much it hurt, she’d tossed a bottle of Tylenol at me and told me to be grateful I didn’t have cancer. But in that soothing, saccharine tone that left me questioning whether I was really in the right, the voice that made me suck it up because I was Luna Maara and I had the world at my feet, or so everyone said.

“You want me to find someone for you to talk to?” Ryder asked.

“I…I don’t know.” The idea of a stranger asking me those questions, or worse, poking around down there, it made me want to puke. I had no idea why women even liked sex. But men had to have it, and if it was a choice between facing my fears or losing Ryder, I had to go with the first option. “Okay, find someone. I know men have needs.”

He kissed my hair in that sweet way of his. “I also have a hand, and I know how to use it. Moon, don’t worry about this. We’ll figure something out. Something that works for both of us.” Another kiss. “Are you ready to go now?”

I nodded, and Ryder turned his attention to the controls. A minute later, we began rising slowly into the air, and I realised that Ryder’s surprises were a heck of a lot more fun than mine.

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