My Alpha Shamed Me at His Victory Feast, So I Took His Coast novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Mirror

I shut my parents' bedroom door and turned the key, and Armand stood in front of my mother's vanity with his father's coat still on.

The vanity had three leaves of mirror in a pine frame and a bench with a worn blue cushion.

My mother had sat on it every morning for thirty years to braid her hair.

Her hairbrush still lay on the glass top, with a few gray hairs caught in it.

I took my braid down and let it fall.

"You never looked at me," I said. "In the Grange."

"I couldn't."

"Why not?"

"If I'd looked at you," he said, "I wouldn't have got through it."

I crossed the floor and pushed the coat off his shoulders.

"I thought you did this for pity."

"I know," he said.

"I thought you were the man who carried them home and wanted to be forgiven for it."

"I did want that."

"And that's not why you stood up," I said.

"No," he said.

"It wasn't the Book you hurt, Armand."

"I know it wasn't," he said.

"I don't care about the Book," I said. "I forgive you. You."

He shut his eyes.

His throat moved once, and he did not say a word.

I took his face in my hands and kissed him, slow and deep.

Then I led him around by the hand to stand behind the bench, where the mirror could see us both.

"Take my clothes off," I said.

He turned me to face the glass.

His hands came around me and lifted my sweater slowly over my head, and I watched his face over my shoulder in the mirror.

He undid my bra and let it fall.

He unbuttoned my jeans and eased them down my legs, kneeling to do it, and drew them off one foot and then the other.

My underwear came last.

He stayed there on his knees behind me, with his hands on my hips and his mouth on the small of my back.

I stood naked in my mother's room with the lamp on, and I looked at myself.

My shoulders were freckled, and I had a white scar on one hip.

My eyes were wet.

My face was open, and I did not look away from it.

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