Free Ascend by Amanda Hocking Page A

him. “Should I… do I need to put pajamas on?”
    “Oh.” He rubbed his hands on his pants. “Um,
if you want to.”
    “Are you going to?” I asked.
    “I… yeah.” He bit the inside of his
cheek and lowered his eyes. “We don’t have to. I mean, you know, have sex. We
can if you want to. I guess. But we don’t have to.”
    “Oh,” I said, because that seemed like the only thing to
say.
    “Do you want to?” Tove asked, looking at me.
    “Uh… not really, no,” I admitted. “But we could try kissing,
maybe.”
    “No, that’s okay.” He scratched the back of his head and
looked around the room. “We can take this slow. Tonight’s only the first night.
We have our whole lives to… figure out how to sleep with each other.”
    “Yeah,” I said, and laughed nervously. “So, I’ll go put on
pajamas?”
    “Yeah, me too.”
    Still holding my dress around me, I went into the closet only
to find a problem. I had no clothes here. None of Elora’s clothes were even in
here. The closet was bare.
    “Do you have any clothes?” Tove asked from the bedroom. “Because these dressers are empty.”
    “Oh, hell, I bet they did that on purpose,” I sighed and
walked back out.
    “They didn’t give us clothes because…” He trailed off and
smiled thinly.
    “So I have nothing to sleep in.”
    “You can wear my tee shirt,” Tove offered. He undid the top
buttons of his dress shirt, then pulled it over his
head, revealing a plain white tee shirt. “Do you want to?”
    “Yes, thank you,” I said.
    He took off his shirt, then handed
it to me. I turned around, so my back was to him, and I pulled on his tee
shirt. I stepped out of my dress, and it felt amazing to be free of it. Everything
about me felt lighter.
    When I’d finished, I saw that Tove had taken off his pants,
so he was wearing only his boxers. I went around to my side of the bed and sat
down on the edge. I peeled off the jewelry I’d been wearing, except for my new
wedding ring with a giant diamond.
    I climbed into bed, sliding underneath the mounds of covers.
The bed was massive, so even after Tove got in it, there was still plenty of
room between us. I waited until he was settled, then I leaned over and turned
off my bedside lamp, submerging the room in darkness.
    “Is it okay?” Tove asked.
    “What?”
    “That I don’t love you.”
    “Uh, yeah,” I said carefully. “I think it’s okay.”
    “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you. I didn’t want to hurt
your feelings, but I thought you should know.” He moved in the bed, and I felt
a subtle motion on my side.
    “No, it’s okay. I’m glad you told me.” I paused for a
minute. “I don’t love you.”
    “And that’s okay?”
    “I think so.”
    “It was a nice wedding,” Tove said, somewhat randomly. “Except for the part with your dad.”
    “Yeah. It was really nice,” I
agreed. “Willa and Aurora did a good job.”
    “They did.”
    The day had been exhausting, and I hadn’t slept much the
night before. So it didn’t take long for sleep to overtake me. I fell asleep on
my wedding night, still a virgin.
    The doors burst open, startling me awake. I nearly jumped
out of bed. Tove groaned next to me, since I did this weird mindslap thing whenever I woke up scared, and it always hit him the worst.
    “Good morning, good morning, good morning,” Loki chirped,
wheeling in a table covered with silver domes.
    “What are you doing?” I asked, squinting at him. He’d pulled
up the shades. I was tired as hell, and I was not happy.
    “I thought you two lovebirds would like breakfast,” Loki
said. “So I had the chef whip you up something fantastic.” As he set up the
table in the sitting area, he looked over at us. “Although, you two are
sleeping awfully far apart for newlyweds.”
    “Oh my god,” I groaned and pulled the covers over my head.
    “You know, I think you’re being a dick,” Tove told him as he
got out of bed. “But I’m starving. So I’m willing to