Page 84 of The Heir
“Nooo….” I burst out laughing. “Why would I do that?”
“When you said it wasn’t consensual, I thought of one time when your mom… ehm, never mind. So, if you didn’t finger him what did you do?”
“I had my legs wrapped around him and I sort of made it happen. You know… I positioned myself right and I used my legs to pull him closer.”
“Ahhh….” My dad sucked in his lips and his nostrils expanded from his heavy intake of air. “I see.”
“I mean, Thor let it happen, but he had expressed that he didn’t want to go all the way and I still went there. In hindsight it wasn’t fair. It’s just that in that moment it felt so right, and he didn’t stop me.”
My dad had his arms crossed and was tapping his index finger on his arm with a thoughtful expression. “Then what?”
“We fell asleep together and then I went to my own room. All day we didn’t have a chance to talk and when we came back to the Northlands, Pearl sent Thor to see Khan. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him or talk about what happened.”
“Huh.” Looking out the window for a long moment my dad seemed to be taking it all in. “You were right to reject his proposal.”
“You think?” It surprised me that he would say that because ever since I was little my dad had talked about the bliss of marriage.
“Yes.” He sighed. “I know something about Thor that Khan told me in confidentiality. I’m not one to share secrets, but you are my daughter and I think you deserve to know.”
My heartbeat increased as I waited for my dad to tell me the secret that was making his expression so sad.
“Thor is gay. That’s why he was hesitant to have sex with you, sweetheart. It’s not you. I’m sure he doesn’t want to hurt you by telling you the truth, but he told his father earlier this year.”
“And Khan believed him?”
My dad’s brow furrowed. “Yes, why wouldn’t he?”
“Thor isn’t gay. He just knows how old-fashioned Khan is and used that against him.”
“Are you sure?”
I smiled with certainty. “A hundred percent.”
Few people could light up a room like my father did. His back straightened and his eyes widened as if my mother had just walked by naked. “But that’s good. When I said you shouldn’t marry Thor it was because I feared he wasn’t honest with you.”
I shrugged. “I’m more afraid that he isn’t honest with himself. His proposal is most likely fueled by hormones and lust rather than love.”
My dad snorted. “You don’t know us Nmen if you think Thor can sleep with you and not want more.”
“It’s not like when you were young. Thor has options. You should have seen the way the women flocked around him in France. And up in the Northland it’s even worse. Freya told me how women are eager to be with Thor. He can pick anyone he wants.”
“You are contradicting yourself, honey. On the one hand you’re saying that Thor can have anyone he wants but that so far, he has rejected everyone. On the other hand you’re saying that he slept with you to satisfy a fickle case of lust and spontaneity. If Thor was the kind of man to let his hormones control him, don’t you think he would have slept with a bunch of the women he can pick from?”
I thought about it.
“Linea, he wanted you or he wouldn’t have proposed and made love to you. Especially when he asked for your first time to be on your wedding night.”
“You don’t know that.”
My father slid down from the kitchen counter and came to hug me. With my ear against his chest, it felt like listening to a subwoofer when he said, “Now that I know Thor isn’t actually gay, I’m not at all surprised that he wants to marry you.”
“I’m not sure that he does, and besides, you’re just biased because you love me.”
He pressed a kiss on the top of my head. “You and your mother are the finest women in the world, dear. For any man to be worthy of you, he must love you as much as I do.”
I smiled and felt grateful to my father for his love and support. Last night I had thought that a single night of sex with Thor Aurelius would be enough for me. Today, I felt my Northlander blood rush through my veins and pump the message into my heart that one night would never be enough.
“What am I going to do?”
