Page 6 of Shelter (The Wanderers 4)

All the nightgowns she owned were like this one, and she was expected to wear them every night just in case her husband wanted to come to her for sexual relations.

As far as the rest of the household knew, he did so about every other night. He made a production of coming to her room, locking the door, and staying about twenty minutes.

Haley loved those twenty minutes every other night. They were the most precious part of her stupid existence. Because she got to spend them alone with Braylon, talking softly, smiling, even laughing. But he never laid a hand on her. Not sexually.

They’d grown closer over the months. He climbed into her bed nowadays and held her or stroked her arm while they talked, but he hadn’t touched her intimately a single time.

Time. That damn word again. A clock was ticking.

“What if your mother expects the man in the basement to have sex with me?” she hissed. “I’ll die.”

At least now she was more educated than she’d been on her wedding night. Braylon had taken the time to explain what had been expected of her and what they were supposedly doing when he visited her room. He never flinched when she asked him questions, and he always told her what she wanted to know.

She could never thank him enough for his patience. He was surely the kindest soul on the planet. Even though she had almost no one to compare him to, she thought she was in love with him.

Braylon shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. She wouldn’t risk you enjoying that man more than me.”

Haley’s face heated. “Then what is going to happen?”

“Most likely, they will force him to ejaculate into a cup and someone will put his sperm inside you.” Braylon’s face grew tight and he shut his eyes as he finished.

Haley sat up even straighter, shaking. “How?” Renewed panic set in.

“Probably a doctor will come, pull the semen into a syringe and…” He paused, taking a deep breath. His hand came to Haley’s shoulder, squeezing, “…push the man’s semen into you.”

Haley shuddered. This wasn’t really a shock, but hearing it out loud still made her want to fall into a hole in the floor and disappear. She covered her face with her hands, trembling.

“You know if I could take you away from here and never come back, I would, right, baby?”

She nodded without looking.

“And I will. I promise I will. But I don’t have the resources to do anything like that yet. All we can do is endure this and hope you don’t get pregnant.”

She dropped her hands. “If we’d just had sex from the beginning, maybe I’d be pregnant now and your mother wouldn’t have paid for some other man to do it.” It was a struggle to keep her voice low.

Braylon held her gaze. “I wasn’t willing to do that to you, Hales. You weren’t ready. And I won’t do it now because I care about you so much my chest hurts. It would have been rape then and it still would be today. I’m not having sex with you under my mother’s direction. Ever. If and when we have sex, it will be on our terms. It will be because we love each other. It will be special.”

Haley’s lip trembled. She feared she would end up pregnant and have a baby before she ever had sex. The idea was seeming rather likely now.

And her panic was growing by the minute.

---