Fucking speak

“You don’t own a phone,” Cillian said at dinner. After he basically told me we would be having sex before the wedding ever took place, he left me alone in my—our room and disappeared.

I tried to read the book he had given me, but I didn’t understand most of the words in it. Cathal never took me to school. If it wasn’t for Orla taking pity on me and teaching me how to read and write English, I wouldn’t have learned.

But even so, my knowledge of how to read and write went as far as Orla’s did, and she didn’t even make it to high school. The only reason I could speak fluent English was that Daniela loved to speak that language more than she did Irish.

After a long time of trying to comprehend the book, Catherine, a maid, came and told me Cillian was waiting for me at the dinner table for dinner. The dining table could fit twenty people, and it had more food than Cillian and I could eat.

I had tried to sit as far from him as possible, but he wasn’t having it. He demanded I sit next to him. He didn’t even seem to like me. Why did he want to be close to me?

“I asked you a question, Ginger,” he said. He couldn’t even call me by name, only by the color of my hair. I didn’t mind it, though.

 I was used to being degraded and mocked. Besides, I didn’t want to be called Uma. It felt like a mockery to the only person who had been nice to me at the Kavanagh household.

I shook my head to answer his earlier question.

“Can you fucking speak? I haven’t heard you say anything once.” He said, his voice rising a little. I suddenly got scared. I didn’t want to be whipped or hit because I didn’t want to speak.

In the Kavanagh household, I was repeatedly beaten for speaking until I learned to keep my mouth shut. It was better that way.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him as I stared at my food. I didn’t want to risk looking at him to give him the wrong look.

“Why the fuck are you apologizing?” Cillian asked. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was frustrated with me. I didn’t like that.

“I…I made you…mad.”

He laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I just realized this is the first time I’ve heard you speak. You don’t talk much, do you?” He asked.

I shook my head and blushed because he was looking at me too intensely. It made me very uncomfortable. It almost felt like he would see past my act and realize I was a fraud. Then he would kill me before Cathal had the chance.

And my mother would die immediately.

“I expect words from you whenever I talk to you. I’m going to ask you the question again, and I expect words as answers.” He stated, “You don’t talk much, do you?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you have a phone, Uma?”

I shrugged because I didn’t know what to say. In one swift move, he grabbed my neck, pulled me off my chair, and put me on his lap.

My back was to his chest, and his hand was still around my neck. His masculine scent wafted through my nose. He smelled like nature and something minty and refreshing. I almost closed my eyes to savor it.

My white dress hiked up to my midthigh giving Cillian room to touch my bare skin. He trailed his hand up my thigh, his touch so featherlight that I almost felt like I was imagining the whole thing.

For the first time, a man’s touch didn’t make bile rise to my throat. His touch made my stomach flutter and my body hot. I had never felt like that before. A man’s touch repulsed me.

But it was different when it came to Cillian. I almost wanted him to keep touching me.

“I think I should punish you for not doing what I say. I told you to speak, Ginger.”

His hand was getting dangerously close to my centre. I couldn’t help the whimper that left my mouth.

“I…”

“Why don’t you have one?” He asked.

“I’m not allowed to have a phone,” I answered without thinking.

“Why?”

“My father won’t let me. He says it will corrupt my mind and make me defiant.”

Maybe it was his touch that made me so honest with him. The feelings he was evoking scrambled my brain and made me speak without thinking.

“Corrupt your mind with what?” He asked, his hand still rising under my dress while the other was still around my neck. At this point, the back of his hand was slightly brushing against my centre through my panties. I wondered why I didn’t fight back.

I didn’t want to fight back. I had a feeling I would allow Cillian to have his way with me if he wanted to. There was something to the way he was touching me that made me feel different.

“I don’t know…” I answered truthfully.

Suddenly, Cillian let me go and pushed me back to my seat.

“Do you know how to use a phone?” He asked.

Out of habit, I shook my head until I looked at him and realized he wasn’t going to accept my gestures as answers.

“No, I never had one.”

“I’ll get you one and teach you how to use it,” he said. “We have guests coming later tonight. I will introduce you to my circle. If you’re going to be my wife, you should at least be acquainted with my associates.”

He was talking about his associates, but all I could think of was the stickiness between my legs. Cillian made my body do things it had never done before, and then he acted as if nothing had happened.

I had a feeling that by the time Cillian and I were parting ways, I would leave more broken than I currently was.