“You haven’t taken my body.”

“We sleep together every night.”

Mars grew still again, but this wasn’t stony.

He looked stunned.

I had no chance to ask after why he looked that way.

He spoke.

“Do you know what sex is?”

I felt my cheeks flame and answered tersely, “Yes.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes,” I snapped.

“So you’re aware that what I give you with my mouth and fingers, you can give me with your mouth, or fingers, or more importantly, other parts of your anatomy, and I can give the same to you using other parts of mine?”

The sound of my teeth clacking together rattled in my brain, I shut my mouth so fast.

“When I climax, I produce seed—” he went on.

“I know, I know, I know,” I interrupted him, waving a hand his way.

“Do you?” he asked. “Do you know that happens when I orgasm?”

Orgasm?

Oh…

Balls.

This was mortifying.

More, it was horrifying.

My husband had been seeing to me.

But I had not been seeing to my husband.

Good gods.

I knew he grew hard.

And I knew what came of that.

And I had an idea of how babies were made, his parts, my parts, what went where.

I just did not know, until he made it happen, that I could climax.

So I did not know that he could…

Gods.

But of course, he could. He’d even mentioned how difficult he found it, sleeping next to me night after night without “release.”

That was what he meant by “release.”

I just did not put it together.

I did not think.

And now that I was thinking, what I thought was I needed to get out of that room.

I sought to do this immediately.

I ran in the opposite direction of Mars.

I did not even make it to the door.

Both his arms closed around me, I was pulled back and held fitted against his frame.

I also had his mouth at my ear.

I closed my eyes tight.

And again felt the room.

Not aflame this time.

It was in inferno.

“By the fucking gods, those two should have every joint disconnected with how they raised you.”

I opened my eyes and stared, unseeing.

What?

“Your mother did not tell you of this?” he rumbled.

“N-no,” I stammered.

“She was with you, on your journey to Firenze, for weeks, and in my palace, for days, knowing you were to wed me imminently, and she did not sit down with you in all that time and share this?” he demanded.

“No, Mars,” I whispered.

“By the fucking gods,” he growled on a fierce squeeze.

“Mars, you…you’re holding on too tight.”

He relaxed his grasp.

Slightly.

“I do not want that maid,” he kept growling.

“All right.”

“I want my wife.”

“All right,” I continued whispering.