For a moment after she’d spoken that unintentional question, it seemed as though his gaze was far away. He was looking at her, but his mind was somewhere else. She wondered about that. What was it that he was thinking of? Did he have to think so much about an answer to that question? No, she didn’t think that was it. Perhaps it was that the words had triggered a memory? She didn’t know, nor would she ask.<br/><br/>Instead, she’d traced her finger across his cheeks, which were now flushed from the blood he’d taken from her, and then she’d kissed him. She didn’t know what it was that had taken his attention away, but the way he kissed her in return made it clear that she had regained it. She wondered if he kissed every girl this way, and if it would always feel this way if she kissed another. She had no frame of reference on which to base her conclusion, but something told her that it would not, that she would not always feel this way.<br/><br/>When he broke the kiss and peered down into her eyes, she gazed back up into his, feeling like she could get lost in them. She took a slow breath in when he spoke, voicing his desire to make love to her. The worlds he spoke next were somewhat sobering, reminding her that she was promised to another, a fate that somehow seemed even more cruel at this particular moment.<br/><br/>The words were of some comfort, though, as he assured her that no one there would care whether she was a virgin or not. She supposed that it was a different culture, after all, so it made sense that it things would not be the same. She briefly wondered what it was like there, what sort of place it would be, but this curiosity was short-lived.<br/><br/>She instinctively leaned into his touch just a little as he caressed her cheek, admitting to her how he had felt back in the forest. So, he had felt something, too, then. It wasn’t love, but then, how could it be? He wasn’t wrong in any of his conclusions about her. She had felt something, and she wanted to resist, if only out of pride, but that wasn’t the case anymore.<br/><br/>It was his final words that tempted her to do exactly what she wanted, to be selfish, if only this one. To give in to her desires, because, as he said, there would soon come a time when she would have no such luxury as to give in to her own selfish desires. Perhaps even now, she should not, but she wanted to.<br/><br/>“You’re not wrong,” she told him after a brief moment of silence. “I did feel something. It isn’t love—if such a thing exists—but it is something, and it’s real,” she added with a soft voice, barely louder than a whisper. She trailed a finger across his cheek again and took another deep breath, appearing to have made her decision. “If I have to regret something, I’d rather regret something I did, not something I was too afraid to do,” she told him softly, “Just this once, I want to be selfish.”<br/><br/>“I… want that, too. I want you to make love to me,” she admitted, despite how hard her own pride made it to do so. Almost as soon as the words had left her lips, she leaned in and kissed him once again, this time it was deeper than before, more bold, no longer carrying any trace of the timidity with which she kissed him before. She didn’t want to miss this chance because she was too afraid or because she was too reserved to admit that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her.