The Last Ember

I let him touch me for the first time on a Tuesday.

The sun was bleeding through the tall windows of the conservatory, turning the dust motes into floating gold. I was supposed to be studying my physiology texts, memorizing the names of bones and muscles I'd be tested on at the end of the week. Instead I was watching him. Dr. Julian Croft. My husband.

He stood at the far end of the room with his back to me, one hand braced against the marble windowsill. The other held a glass of whiskey. It was eleven in the morning.

"You're staring," he said without turning around.

I didn't bother denying it. "You're very stare-able."

A pause. He took a slow drink. "Your father would be thrilled to hear you've found something to occupy your attention other than your studies."

"My father would be thrilled if I found a way to photosynthesize and stopped costing him money."

Julian finally turned. The light caught the sharp lines of his face, the silver threading through his dark hair at the temples. He was forty-two. I was twenty-two. Our marriage had been arranged when I was nineteen, finalized on my twentieth birthday, and consummated exactly never.

He looked at me the way he looked at everything. Like it was mildly disappointing.

"Your father wants you to attend the gala tonight."

"I know."

"He wants you to smile. To be charming. To pretend we're a happy couple."

I closed my textbook. "And what do you want?"

Julian set down his whiskey. He crossed the room slowly, his footsteps deliberate on the old oak floor. He stopped in front of my chair and looked down at me. From this angle, with the light behind him, he looked like a statue. Cold. Beautiful. Untouchable.

"I want you to stop calling me Dr. Croft when we're alone."

I felt my pulse jump in my throat. "What should I call you?"

"Julian." He said it like it cost him something. "You've been my wife for two years. I think we can dispense with the formalities."

"Your wife in name only."

Something flickered in his eyes. Dark. Quick. Gone before I could name it.

"That's your choice," he said.

"Is it?"

The air between us went tight and hot. I could smell him. Whiskey and cedar and something sharp underneath. Citronella. He'd been working in his garden before dawn. I knew because I'd watched him from my bedroom window, barefoot in the dew-wet grass, pruning roses with a surgeon's precision.

He didn't know I watched. I watched a lot.

"You could touch me," I said.

The words fell into the silence like stones into still water. Julian's jaw tightened.

"Elena."

"I'm your wife. That's what wives are for, isn't it? To be touched."

"Don't."

"Don't what? Say what we're both thinking?" I stood up. I'm not tall, but I didn't need to be. I stepped into his space, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body. "I've read the contract. I know what I signed. You get a wife who looks good on your arm and doesn't embarrass you. I get my tuition paid, a roof over my head, and a medical degree in four years. That's the deal."

"It is."

"But there's nothing in the contract that says we can't touch."

Julian's hand came up. For a second I thought he was going to grab me. Instead he cupped my chin, his thumb brushing across my lower lip. The touch was featherlight. It burned.

"You're my student," he said. His voice was rough. "I'm your professor. That's already complicated enough."

"I'm not your student anymore. I passed your class last semester. Remember? I got an A."

"Because you earned it."

"Because you're a good teacher." I tilted my head, pressing my lips against the pad of his thumb. "And I'm a good student."

He pulled his hand back like I'd bitten him.

"Elena, I am trying very hard to do the right thing."

"The right thing for who?"

"For you."

I laughed. It came out bitter and sharp. "You think protecting me from yourself is the right thing? You think keeping me at arm's length is noble?"

"I think if I start, I won't stop."

The confession hung between us. Raw. Honest. The first real thing he'd said to me in two years.

I wanted to ask him what that meant. I wanted to ask him what he'd do if I pressed my body against his, if I kissed him, if I let my hands wander where they'd been aching to go since the first day I walked into his lecture hall and saw him standing at the podium with a piece of chalk and that look on his face like the world was a puzzle he'd already solved.

But I didn't ask.

Instead I stepped back. I smoothed my skirt. I picked up my textbook and tucked it under my arm.

"Fine," I said. "I'll go to the gala. I'll smile. I'll be charming. I'll pretend we're happy."

"Elena."

"But I want something in return."

His eyes narrowed. "What?"

I walked to the door. I paused with my hand on the frame and looked back at him. He was still standing in that same spot, his hands at his sides, his whole body rigid with tension.

"I want you to teach me."

"Teach you what?"

"Everything." I let my gaze drop to his mouth, then back up to his eyes. "The things they don't put in textbooks. The things you learn from experience. I want you to show me what a man can do to a woman when he's not afraid to touch her."

Julian's breath caught. I saw it. A hitch in his chest, a flare in his pupils.

"You don't know what you're asking."

"I'm a very good student, Dr. Croft." I smiled. "I learn fast."

I left him standing there in the golden light, surrounded by dust motes and the ghost of a touch he wouldn't give me.

The gala was at the Ashford Estate, a sprawling Victorian monstrosity perched on a hill overlooking the river. My father had been coming here for thirty years. He'd brought my mother before she died, then his mistresses after she was gone, and now he brought me. His dutiful daughter. His bargaining chip.

I wore red. A dress that clung to every curve, that showed off the legs I'd spent hours toning, the shoulders I'd bared for no one. I wore my hair down, dark and loose, and I painted my mouth the color of crushed berries.

Julian met me at the bottom of the staircase.

He was in black tie. The tuxedo fit him like it had been sewn onto his body. His hair was swept back, his jaw clean-shaven, his eyes unreadable.

He looked at me and something broke behind his composure. A crack. A fissure.

"You're trying to kill me," he said.

"I'm trying to get your attention."

"You have my attention. You've always had my attention."

I took his arm. His muscles were iron under my fingers. "Then stop pretending I don't."

The gala was a blur of champagne flutes and hollow laughter. My father made speeches. Julian made small talk. I smiled until my cheeks ached and nodded at the right moments and pretended not to notice the way the other women looked at my husband.

Hungry. They looked at him hungry.

And he looked at them like they were furniture.

But when we danced, when his hand settled on the small of my back and pulled me close, he looked at me like I was the only thing in the room worth seeing.

"You're playing a dangerous game," he murmured against my ear.

"I'm not playing."

"You're a student. I'm a professor. If anyone found out."

"Found out what?" I pressed closer. "That you touch your wife? That you fulfill your marital duties? That would be a scandal."

His hand tightened on my waist. "You know what I mean."

"I know what you're afraid of."

"I'm not afraid."

"Yes you are." I looked up at him. "You're terrified. Not of getting caught. Of wanting something. Of wanting me."

Julian's jaw worked. He spun me, pulled me back, and for a moment we were just two bodies moving to music. Then he leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.

"After the gala," he said. "My study. Midnight."

And then he let me go.

I spent the next three hours in a state of electric anticipation. I laughed at jokes I didn't hear. I ate food I didn't taste. I watched the clock and counted the minutes until I could slip away.

At eleven forty-five, I excused myself to the restroom.

At eleven fifty, I was standing outside Julian's study.

At midnight, I opened the door.

He was waiting.