Ingrid was so lost in the feeling of Alexei's large, rough hand against her skin that she momentarily lost sight of everything and everyone. She barely registered Irina's presence and was late to notice that Pavel and Elizabeth had moved to a corner of the room and seemed to be engaged in a tender conversation which quickly turned into...<br/><br/>...a kiss the likes of which Ingrid had never seen before. Dear Lord! Is that how lovers kissed? Was she expected to kiss like that? It looked complicated. What if she did it wrong? Oh my God! Was that a tongue that just got shoved into a mouth? What did that mean? Who was supposed to do that first? What if she was terrible at kissing and made Alexei never want to kiss her again? Or worse yet, she made a fool of herself and made him laugh at her?<br/><br/>The princess-who-had-never-been-kissed stared at the royal couple with a mix of panic and fascination that made her breath short as her chest rose and fell, her full lips slightly parted. Suddenly realizing how rude it was to stare at such a private moment, she turned back to Alexei, but a fleeting glance at his fierce, inscrutable blue eyes made it clear to her that she couldn't look him in the eyes after witnessing something like that, knowing that he would be expecting her to do something like that with him...tomorrow night.<br/><br/>Dear God, she was to be married tomorrow night, and the man before her with the large, rough soldier's hands would be doing things to her that no other man had ever dared before. Those sun-weathered hands, with their scars and strong fingers, would be touching her pale skin in places no one else had ever touched before. His lips would be on hers. He would have the right to explore every part of her body, no matter how private.<br/><br/>Her breath hitched again, and she tried to calm herself by thinking of something else, anything else. Her eyes fell on his neck, conveniently in her line of sight. She noticed a vicious scar slicing across it, and her eyes widened in horrified curiosity. It looked like someone had tried to cut his throat. Instantly, memories of the tales of a young Alexei being held captive by the brutal Moors, his father refusing to pay ransom, and the boy of no more than 15 escaping miraculously and making his way back to Russia.<br/><br/>Without realizing what she was doing, she lifted her own small, soft fingers to lightly trace the line of the scar on his throat, amazed at the feel of the slightly raised line of tissue on his hot skin. What a scar to have! What an agonizing memento of an amazing feat! What kind of impact would that kind of experience have on the forming character of a young boy?<br/><br/>She inadvertently looked up into Alexei's face as if to study it further, then gasped and pulled her hand away from his neck, realizing what she was doing. She felt a fierce heat in her cheeks as she looked away from him, embarrassed at her uninvited caress.