Page 25 of Sinning for Santa

I’m sure it will still hurt to an extent given it only happened one time, but I haven’t been able to tell my fiancé. I haven’t been able to tell my sister. I haven’t been able to tell anyone.

“I don’t understand why you need to know this,” I snap, crossing my arms over my chest again. “I’ve confessed. I told you what I went to see Father Peters about.”

“Yes, but that just opens up so many more questions, little mouse.” He points out. “You said so yourself. You’ve been going to that club on the regular. You’re engaged. You don’t engage in premarital sex, yet claim not to be a virgin. So why not push your fiancé for a little bit of intimacy?”

“He doesn’t know,” I admit, almost hating myself for saying it out loud

“He doesn’t know you’re not a virgin?” Devon asks and I don’t need to look at him to know he’s surprised by that. It’s in his tone, so I nod. “How interesting, little mouse.”

“I wouldn’t call it interesting.” I deadpan, feeling the weight of that lie settle in my gut.

When Eddie finds out, will he ask for an annulment? Will he demand our marriage be dissolved?

And will I care?

Sometimes I wonder if perhaps that’s all I’m waiting for. For Eddie to find out the truth. For Eddie to find out that I’m not pure. That I’m not innocent. That I haven’t abstained.

It’s easier for me to accept him walking away from me than having the courage for me to do it myself. Which just makes me a coward, really.

It makes me that weak, little mouse.

“From where I’m sitting, it’s very interesting. You’re getting married to a man who’s very religious. Abstains from premarital sex and who assumes his wife will be a virgin on their wedding night. How exactly do you think you’re going to get out of that, little mouse? Because I can guarantee, he will notice.”

“Will he?” I ask,genuinely curious. “He’s a virgin. How will he notice? How will he know if he has nothing to compare it to?”

I glance over to see Devon nodding. “You have a point, if he is indeed a virgin then he won’t notice. But how do you know that he is one?”

I frown. “We’ve been together since we were kids. Officially since we were fourteen. He hasn’t been with anyone.”

“But he could have.” Devon continues, and I really get the feeling he just likes fucking with people’s emotions. “How would you know? How do you know that while you’re at Cloud 9 he’s not with another woman? Because you have secrets too, you know, little mouse. So why wouldn’t he?”

The thought makes me feel sick. And then I want to slap myself for even feeling that way because I have been lying to Eddie for so long.

Why do I even care if Eddie has been with someone else when I know deep down I don’t even want to marry him? Hell, I don’t even know if I want to kiss him. Not anymore. Not the way I used to want to. But he’s turned me down so many times over the years, and now I just look at him like he’s my brother or something. Which is a whole other issue that I’m going to have to get over before our wedding in a couple of months.

“I guess I don’t know,” I admit, kind of hating to say the words out loud.

“How old is he?” Devon asks.

“He’s the same age as me. Older by a few months. He’ll be twenty-five in the new year.”

“Did you both go to university?”

I nod. “Yes. We attended universities in the city, but we didn’t go to the same one.”

“So in a way, you have your own lives outside of your relationship.”

“Well, yes, doesn’t everyone?”

“To an extent, but what I’m about to say to you, little mouse, isn’t to make you feel like shit. I’m not saying it to be amean motherfucker, even though I am most of the time.” His serious gaze locks with mine for a minute before he returns it to the road. “I’m saying it to be honest.”

I gulp, not sure if I’m ready to hear what he has to say.

“There’s a ninety-five percent chance that your fiancé hasn’t been a virgin for a long time.”

“You can’t know that. You don’t know him. He’s… different.”

“Unless he’s an ugly fucker, I’m gonna tell you right now that he’s already given in to temptation and sunk his dick that he refuses to use on you, into some bitch in the city. Hell even if he’s a little on the dorky side, he probably paid for it.”

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